Greg Atkinson

The Innovative Church Conference started yesterday and went through today at Granger Community Church. I would have loved to have been at this conference, but am just too sore to travel. Granger is a church that I’ve been following for about 7 years – since I heard their pastor speak at Saddleback’s Purpose Driven Church Conference. I’ve shared their web resource: WiredChurches.com with countless people. They are a great church and are helping many other churches become great.

For a play-by-play analysis of the 2006 Innovative Church Conference, check out Tony Morgan, Tim Stevens, Perry Noble or Mark Batterson’s blogs. Check back at WiredChurches.com to see and hear more slices from this year’s conference.

And if you couldn’t make it this year, don’t worry. There are more opportunities coming up. Next year, the Innovative Church Conference will be held on September 27-28, 2007. You can also check out one-day workshops that are being held on Granger’s campus November 10, like Maximizing the Arts, Simply Strategic Volunteers, Communications and Discipleship.

Anyone got a Catalyst Conference hookup? At first I thought with the timing of my surgery and when I’d be able to travel that I couldn’t go. Now, I see that I will be able to fly, can get flight tickets and have a place to stay, but no pass for the conference. Does anyone reading this happen to have an extra pass/badge?

Now that I’m back from Phoenix and have had time to reflect on my experience at MinistryCOM, I thought I’d share my thoughts. Though, I taught a class, I still got to float around and catch as many sessions as I could. Here is my 2 cents:

1. MinistryCOM, under the direction of Terrell Sanders, did a great job of bringing in high caliber speakers (keynotes and workshops). Considering this was just the 2nd year for the conference, there was a very impressive line up of guest speakers. My two favorite sessions were actually large group sessions: One was by Kem Meyer and the other was the opening session by Mark Batterson. I’m sure Brad Abare’s closing session would have been a favorite, too, but I had to leave early to catch a flight (which we ended up missing anyway).

2. MinistryCOM is living proof at how quickly the Church world is changing. This conference wouldn’t have been possible even 5 years ago. That this conference had under 300 attendees is not a negative reflection on the conference, but a true reflection of the fact there are maybe 500 (max) Communication Directors or Communication Pastors that serve on staff at churches nationwide. As the field of communication continues to grow and become more and more of a priority and neccessity, the conference will grow right along with it.

3. I was encouraged to see so many artists (I speak at a lot of pastor or musician or techie conferences) – this was a cool experience to meet and be surrounded by so many gifted and creative folks.

4. I was encouraged and pleased to see that so many of these gifted artists have a desire and passion for the following: networking, growing, improving their skills set and improving their systems, processes and the way they administrate and organize their ministries.

5. I was encouraged and pleased that probably behind each attendee was a church that believed enough in the position and the person to put their money where their mouth is and send them to a conference like this.

Looking toward next year: If you’re a pastor reading this blog, please plan on sending someone from your church that acts in a role of communications director, webmaster, designer/graphic artist – anything like that. You won’t regret it!

Anthony and I left this afternoon and had a wild trip home. It’s 12:30am and I’m just now home. I was supposed to be back around 9pm. We missed our flight and had to switch airlines and take a later flight. When we finally arrived in Dallas, wouldn’t you know it: my bag didn’t make it!

Other than the trip home, it was a great conference. I met some great people and got to see some friends that I haven’t seen in a while. Anthony and I were able to get some interviews for our new podcast, which launches very soon.

Look for upcoming interviews with:

Kem Meyer (Granger Community Church)

Mark Batterson (Theater Church)

Brad Abare (Church Marketing Sucks)

Shawn Wood (Seacoast Church)

I’ll admit it: I’m a conference junky. From speaking at several conferences to going as an attendee, I get to experience a lot of conferences. Today I leave to speak at the MinistryCOM National Conference in Phoenix.

I want to make sure you’re aware of the A2 Conference which takes place Oct. 25-27. This looks like one of the most innovative and practical conferences I’ve seen in a while. I’m thrilled to see that Craig Groeschel, founding and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv is going to be there! LifeChurch.tv, in my opinion, is the fastest growing and most innovative church in the country, yet many of you may have never heard of them. LifeChurch.tv is only 10 years old, yet see over 17,000 people in 30 weekly worship experiences at 7 locations. Why have so many not heard of this amazing church? I’m not sure why, but they really fly low under the radar. This is the first conference I’ve ever seen announce that Craig is one of the featured speakers.

Want to find out more about LifeChurch.tv? I blogged about them twice. Once on their open source resource and once after my 2nd time visiting there. I’ll move on from LifeChurch.tv and Craig Groeschel. FYI – Matthew Barnett from The Dream Center will be speaking, too!
This blog is to tell you about the A2 Conference, which is being held at Willow Creek. Notice I said, “held”. On the conference website, they have a statement which I’ll type in for you: “A2 is a conference sponsored by the Willow Creek Association, but it’s not about Willow Creek Community Church…A2 is focused on five innovative church ministries, and showcasing them in a format that helps every church understand deeper issues and transferable principles.”

Check it out and if you can, GO!

Granger Community Church (one of the most innovative churches in the country) hosts The Innovative Church Conference September 21-22. There is still time to sign up and there’s also still time to enter the Granger Film Festival.

FYI – Granger also offers a great resource website to all churches: WiredChurches.com (which I’ve used and supported for years). Check it out!

Tonight I was able to attend the Promise Keepers gathering at the American Airlines Center here in Dallas. This arena, where the NBA’s Mavericks and the NHL’s Stars play was packed full of men of every size, age, color and background. Tonight’s message was on salvation and it looked like anywhere from 200 to 300 men walked down front to the altar to pray to receive Christ. It was a moving and special night of worship.

As a “Promise Keepers vet”, who has been to a few of these gatherings (including the unforgettable “Stand in the Gap” rally in Washington DC), I was thrilled to see that they made some much needed changes. The last couple of times that I had been the media was sad and the music was very dated. I was very impressed and excited to see their new PK7 worship band, that led modern worship with a nice edge. I was also impressed with how they are utilizing lighting, various screens of many different sizes and shapes and just the overall intergration of moving backgrounds and IMAG.

My final surprise of the evening came at the end when they showed the NOOMA video “Dust” (which is my favorite of the 13 NOOMA videos featuring Rob Bell). As someone very involved with media ministry and very aware of the resources that are available to the Church, I’ve often dreamed of seeing large events, conferences and seminars use these amazing videos (not just NOOMA, but videos or mini-movies in general), like so many churches around the world do. It was cool to sense the atmosphere in the room change as the video played and see how God used that video to encourage and inspire thousands of men in an arena. Major props to PK for staying relevant and open to new resources!

FYI – NOOMA’s lastest video “Rich“, which is their 13th video, is now available and shipping.

I was on the road (or “in the air” would be more appropriate) the past 2 weeks. It’s so good to be back home with my family after 2 trips back to back.

1. Two weeks ago I taught some classes at Church Music Oklahoma, which takes place in Oklahoma City. Like I did last year when I taught at the same conference, I stayed over to visit LifeChurch.tv on Saturday night and Charlie Hall’s church, Bridgeway, on Sunday morning.

• My friend, Don Chapman (www.WorshipIdeas.com) was with me and got to join me on our whirlwind tour of churches. On Saturday night, we attended LifeChuches’s South Oklahoma City campus for their first Saturday night service, then went to the main OKC campus for their 2nd Saturday night service. They both have 4 services on Sunday, too – keep in mind that LifeChurch.tv has 9 campuses, including an “Internet Campus”. Sunday morning we saw Charlie Hall (not leading worship, but he was there) at Bridgeway, the church he helped plant. Their service lasted ’til noon and wouldn’t you know it – we had enough time to make it back to the main LifeChurch.tv campus to catch a little of their 1pm service.

• We drove from OKC back to Dallas from 1:30pm to 4:45pm, so Don could experience Irving Bible Church’s 5pm service. We had hung out earlier in the week with Russ Ware, worship pastor at IBC, so Don really wanted to attend one of their 4 services. We made it just in time to be there for the entire 5pm service and then went home exhausted. Don went back to his home in Greenville, SC and blogged about his experience at LifeChurch.tv (including pictures).

2. This past week I spoke at the Christian Supply Choral Festival in SC, which brought together over 1200 worship leaders from around the country. The cool thing for me is that the conference takes place about 10 minutes from my family/where I grew up, so I got to see my mom and sister and her family. Two things worth mention from this conference (I didn’t get to visit any churches on this trip – I left Saturday afternoon, so I could attend my home church with my family on Sunday):

• The first thing to mention from this 2nd conference is the new movie “Facing the Giants“, which hits theaters next month. Back in February I sat on a panel at NRB with Alex Kendrick, Media Pastor at Sherwood Baptist in Albany, GA. Alex is the writer, director and lead actor in “Facing the Giants”. You may recognize the name from all the media hype. “Facing the Giants” is the movie that the Motion Picture Association rated PG instead of G, because it is so evangelistic. Personally, I’m glad that it got a PG rating (I think more people will attend the movie), but I don’t agree with the reasoning behind the decision.
• When I was with Alex back in February he was discussing a movie that his church had produced called “Flywheel“, which Blockbuster picked up and carries nation-wide!
• At this conference they showed a powerfully moving promo and teaser produced for Church leaders about their new movie, “Facing the Giants”. Now I love sports movies anyway, so I was getting pretty pumped up just watching it. What do you need to know? Go see this movie and tell others to see it. Besides being produced and shot very impressively, it represents Christ and His Church very well.
• The second thing to mention from the SC conference was a 2 hour conversation I had with Rick Muchow, worship pastor at Saddleback. We discused media in worship, my class on multi-sensory worship and a city-wide worship project that I’m currently working on and you’ll hear more about soon. I was surprised to learn that Saddleback has multiple venues and worship styles on their campus. I was intrigued and fascinated as he was telling me about them. Keep in mind, these are all on the same campus. They are also launching their first off-site video venue and are pretty excited about it’s potential.
• For me (and I told him this), it was extremely encouraging to hear one of the main leaders at the 2nd largest church in the country talking about how they can improve and what they think they can do better and more effectively. There’s a lesson there for us all.

Well, that was my most recent roadtrip. Next month I’m teaching at the National MinistyCOM conference in Phoenix. If you haven’t already, sign up and plan on attending this event. I’ve invited 2 friends of mine to share in my class with me on “Creative Synergy”. Shawn Wood, Communications Pastor at Seacoast Church and Anthony Coppedge from Anthony Coppedge Consulting will be around and sharing in our discussion of creative synergy, which, by the way, is the name of my new weekly podcast “Creative Synergy“, featuring Anthony Coppedge and myself (more to come on that in the near future).