Greg Atkinson

I will finish up with internet campuses tomorrow. Too many late nights lately. Today, I’d simply like to welcome my new sponsor: FaithHighway. Please check them out.

Today I continue with the other 2 internet campuses I attended this past Sunday.

Seacoast Church:

Number 3 was Seacoast Church. I know Seacoast well. I lived in Charleston, SC for 8 years (went to Charleston Southern University) and used to attend Seacoast on Saturday nights, then lead worship on Sunday mornings at my church. My friend and classmate at CSU, Shawn Wood, is the Experiences Pastor at Seacoast. I have a great respect for their ministry as a whole. 

This month Seacoast is celebrating their 20th anniversary. They had an AMAZING video intro and message graphics that Shawn told me were created by Dallas’ own Barton Damer. Below is a still frame from Rick Warren saying a “Happy Anniversary” to Seacoast Church.

Below is pastor Greg Surratt preaching. He shared a powerful true story of a major car accident that his family had been in 20 years ago. It was very moving. I have always loved his transparency. Notice the interactive response elements at the bottom. You can nail your sins to the cross, light a candle or prayer virtually. Click “More” for more information on communion and giving a tithe.

Out of the 5 internet campuses that I worshipped with, my favorite musical worship was Seacoast hands-down. Keep in mind that I was a worship pastor for 11 years and have a degree in music, so music and worship is very close to my heart. I’ve been a supporter of worship leader Martin Chalk for years, almost 10 years to be exact. 

One thing I love about the worship experience at Seacoast is that they always end with responsive worship. The message doesn’t end the service. I love that! I think once you encounter God through His Spirit and the teaching of His Word, you should have a chance to respond. Seacoast gets that! Below is their Internet Pastor (and fellow CSU alumni) Brad Singleton.

Central Christian Church:

Central Christian was a last minute add-on. I was reading Twitter and saw Mike Foster say that he was watching CC’s internet campus. I jumped on and caught them mid-service. With that being said, I didn’t get a chance to experience any of their music. I will another time. I did, however get to catch Senior Pastor Jud Wilhite – he’s great. I attended Central Christian when I spoke at NAB in Las Vegas.

Below you’ll see something that I found very helpful and just plain cool. You can not only take notes during the message, but you can also print out those notes or email them to yourself. I like that. 

I forgot to mention yesterday that Flamingo Road emailed me message notes – that, too, was very cool. Isn’t technology just an amazing tool God has given us???!!! 

* More information on internet campuses tomorrow. Today I speak to students at Dallas Theological Seminary on Church 2.0. My question to them: “How do you define innovation?”

Yesterday I (and my family) were home sick. I had already watched LifeChurch.tv’s Saturday night service online, but ended up worshipping with 3 other internet campuses while home sick. I actually saw a 4th internet campus, but was not happy with it and decided not to call them out. In the next 2 blog posts, I’ll share with you the 4 churches that blessed me this weekend:

LifeChurch.tv:

I think the “Mix & Mingle” Lobby Chat is fascinating and am amazed to see how God uses it. 2 weeks ago, over 50 people prayed to receive Christ through LifeChurch.tv’s internet campuses – that’s more than most churches see in a year.

No, that’s not Craig Groeschel. They had an awesome guest speaker. Of notice in this picture is their “Give Online” area of the screen. At the botton left, you can follow the message notes. Great experience. Most people think of LifeChurch.tv when they think of an internet campus.

Above, LifeChurch.tv always let’s you choose between 2 different worship leaders. This is cool, but I have an issue. What happened to Stephen Cole?? Stephen Cole is my favorite worship leader at LC and I’m thinking about starting a petition to bring him back as an option. He rocks!

Above is LifeChurch’s Internet Campus Pastor Brandon Donaldson. I need to get to know that dude.

Flamingo Road Church:

Above was a screenshot taken after one of their morning services. The red dots show you who was watching around the world!

Flamingo was having a baptism that day (they had a great video announcment about it – very cool). Want to participate in baptism? Just text the word: BAPTISM. Folks, we are literally watching the face of Church change before our eyes.

The thing that impressed me the most about my south Florida friends is that they know how to make church fun. This is a screen shot of beach balls being tossed around the auditorium. You’d have to be there to understand.

Above is Flamingo’s Lead Pastor, Troy. Flamingo was truly the highlight of my morning and a wonderful surprise. There is talk of the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Miami being held at Flamingo Road Church – shhhh!

Above is Flamingo’s Internet Campus Pastor, Brian Vasil. I was introduced virtually to Brian through my friend, Tony Steward via last week’s LifeShare. I was introduced to Flamingo Road’s Internet Campus through my friend, DJ Chuang.

More to come about these and other internet campuses this week on this blog! So… what are your thoughts? Does the thought of over 50 people praying to receive Christ via the internet freak you out? Do you praise God? Both? Is your church considering an internet campus? Are you philosophically opposed to one? Let me hear ya.

Sometimes newcomers to a technical arts ministry are intimidated, overwhelmed or confused as to whether or not they are needed and how best to get assimilated to the team. At my church, I have 3 “gateway ministries” that are a quick way for someone to get plugged in. These positions are camera, graphics and stage manager.

This is not to say that these positions are not important, needed or difficult to do. These are just the best 3 options to quickly start out on the team. The other team positions are hand-picked after one has served in one of these “gateway ministries” for a healthy season and has excelled at them.

The truth is that we can have someone trained on graphics, camera or stage managing in 2 weeks (2 Wed. night rehearsals). This is just getting them up-and-running and able to dive in and be a part of the team. We LOVE welcoming new people to the team! The other truth is that it takes months and sometimes years to be GOOD at graphics, camera and stage managing.

When someone shows great promise and a desire to try something different, they become a potential Service Director. When a camera operator does well on camera for a long time and has a knack for technical things, they get moved to our Video Engineer/Shader position.

One current camera operator is being groomed as a Video Director, but is starting out as a Video Engineer/Shader to be in the control room during the “heat of things”. Another newcomer is being considered as a potential future Video Director and is spending time in “the empty chair“. Some camera operators make good shaders, some don’t. Some shaders go on to be Video Directors, some don’t.

This a little behind-the-scenes look at how people get involved and how we fill non-gateway positions like Video Engineer/Shader, Video Director and Service Director. The Producer is also a hand-picked postion. What’s the assimilation process like at your church?

I’m the Director of Technical Arts at my church (Bent Tree), so I oversee all the technical arts ministries. I’m coming into a new and long-awaited season of being able to put up the blueprints, take off my hard hat and be the pastor, shepherd and leader I am called to be. Praise God, this Sunday is Bent Tree’s official “Grand Opening”! After being in construction for 3 years, we are finally opening our doors wide to the community.

Many close to me have pointed out that I’ve been a little busy, a little (that’s an understatement) stressed and a little preoccupied with work the last year. I’m hesitantly glad to say that I think I’ve made it through the valley and am looking forward to moving forward as a church and as a Technical Arts ministry.

Let’s talk practical: I’ve blogged before about the team that it takes to pull off a Sunday. Only myself and our Audio Coordinator are paid. The rest of the team is an army of dedicated servants. It usually looks something like this:

1. Dir. of Technical Arts (that’s me – I float around, encourage and oversee)
2. Front of House audio (usually our full-time Audio Coordinator)
3. A2 (second audio engineer at FOH)
4. Monitor Engineer
5. Lighting Technician
6. Service Director (on headset with stage managers, times service, executes)
7. Stage Manager on stage left
8. Stage Manager on stage right
9. Stage Manager on floor
10. Producer (takes in overall experience, gives creative feedback/guidance)
11. Video Director (right now the VD calls and switches)
12. Video Engineer (this person is the camera shader and is responsible for starting the recordings for the DVD-R and capture to FinalCut for the video podcast)
13. Camera operator 1
14. Camera operator 2
15. Camera operator 3
16. Graphics Operator (right now their is one that runs EasyWorship)
17. FUTURE: Broadcast audio engineer (right now we capture to ProTools HD)
18. FUTURE: TD at the switcher (the Video Director will just call the shots)
19. FUTURE: Prompt Screen Operator (we are going to move to 2 graphics operators, one for the screens that the people see and one just for the prompt screens that the singers see)

So, currently there are 16 “black shirts” serving around the main worship center on a Sunday. As you see, I hope to increase to at least 18 in the next few months. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it many more times: YOU MUST CONSTANTLY RECRUIT! For various reasons, you have to keep recruiting. Once we have more than enough graphic operators, we’ll split and have 2 graphic operators each week. If we had too many of them, we’d split again and have one for an effects screen (which we’re working on). If we got too many camera operators, then we’d add cameras 4 and 5 on stage left and stage right.

One note: all 16 are at rehearsal on Wed. night: EVERYONE. We do a complete run-through with full music, tech and any other elemenHold high the value of rehearsal.ts that might happen (drama, etc.) each Wed. night from 7p to 9p. That’s a blog post unto itself.  Raise the bar. Set a standard for quality and value each person’s time and commitment. I don’t think it’s right for one person to miss and 15 others give up their time and be at rehearsal. ALL 16 must be there. Committing to serve on a given week means you’re “on” for Wed. night and Sunday. Our volunteers mark their availability via Planning Center Online – that’s another blog post all to itself. What a resource!

Usually I’m walking new team members around on Wed. nights, giving them the behind-the-scenes tour, introducing them to the team and passing them on to a volunteer team leader that trains them on their particulal place of service.

* Tomorrow’s blog will be about how new people get plugged in and where/how I start them out.

Another note: What I listed above is just what takes place in the main worship center. I’m working on a new position for an AV Coordinator to oversee the equipment throughout our campus. In putting together a job description, I realized we have 13 different venues (22 projectors) across our campus.

On a Sunday, “tech” is happening in classrooms, the Treehouse, the gym, the main worship center and our new FX Live family production that kicked off this past Sunday. The FX Live team has their own full tech team and uses IMAG (Image Magnification) in their production as well. NOTE: FX Live has 2 cameras right now (the same ones we used in our old worship center).

I’ll blog more about FX Live another time. You may have heard of North Point’s KidStuf – FX Live (FX stands for family experience) is based off of KidStuf – featuring worship for kids and parents led by singers, dancers and actors. They have a newly built 2 story theater/stage. I heard this past week that we have the largest family production theater in the country. Estimates are that we still turned away 200 people! We are meeting and planning on how to remedy this.

Below is a picture from this past Sunday’s official kick-off of FX Live:

More tomorrow on what I call “gateway ministries”.  SO.. what does Sunday look like at your church?

The Don Moen Company Purchases MediaComplete (below is a press release from them):

We are excited to announce that the Don Moen Company has recently purchased MediaComplete Corp. The acquisition caps weeks of discussions and planning for how to best resource the church for a new generation of visual media. The new entity will be known as MediaComplete LLC. Don Moen recently founded the Don Moen Company. He is best known as a songwriter and worship leader having written some of the most recognizable songs in the church today.

Don commented on the acquisition, “We believe that making MediaComplete part of our organization will help us to better equip the Church to communicate more effectively and to lead life-changing worship which rests at the heart of God’s Kingdom. Additionally, we are committed to increasing financial and organizational support to the MediaComplete team as they strive to better serve the Church with cutting-edge technologies and expanded content offerings.”

All current staff will remain in place and the MediaComplete founders will continue with significant roles in the company including Todd Temple as Vice President and Chief Product Developer, and Paul Jackson as Vice President for Sales and Marketing. Additionally, MediaComplete will continue to be located at its present location in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.

We are very excited to join forces with The Don Moen Company to better serve the church, and we believe this relationship will allow us to significantly expedite our product development process. We are looking forward to increasing our customer service capabilities, as well as introducing several important new software releases in the months ahead.

Additionally, Kevin Weimer, son of Christian industry icon Jerry Weimer, will join the team as President and CEO of MediaComplete, LLC. Weimer worked with Moen and The Don Moen Company, Chief Operating Officer, Chris Long, during his tenure as VP of the Integrity Label Group.

Weimer stated, “It is a great honor to lead the MediaComplete Team for Don and Chris. As more high quality media is being developed for worship, youth and children’s ministries, we are committed to developing cutting-edge products and services that will enable the church to utilize these media tools in the most effective way for their local ministries.”

MediaComplete is the first major acquisition by the Don Moen Company, which was started in 2008 by Platinum selling recording artist, songwriter and worship leader, Don Moen. Over the next twelve months Moen will be demonstrating the software both domestically and internationally as he appears in markets including South Africa, Nigeria, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines.

This is from WiredChurches.com – We’re looking for original films created by church volunteers or staff to further their mission, illustrate a point, or promote or highlight an event. Professionals in the film and advertising industry will determine the top films in each category to present during the film festival at Granger on Thursday, September 18.

To get more info, go HERE.

PERSONAL:
Today I fly to Atlanta for the Church 2.0 Local Forum – ATL tomorrow. See you soon ATL!

At Bent Tree, we’ve got a busy Fall coming up. As part of what all we have going on, we’ve been working on 2 in-house video projects, as well as a few smaller pieces and outsourcing several things that we couldn’t fit in.

The 2 we’re working on now are a baptism highlight video for next Sunday, the 31st and a look back in time video for our Grand Opening on Sept. 7th. I’m sure I’ll post these on here later for you to check out.

I’m curious: What video projects are you up to at your church?

If you’re not at ECHO, you’re going to wish you were and you need to plan for it next year. It’s always a good thing to come to Dallas! I had a great time for my first day of the ECHO Conference.

I got to catch the pre-lab class on “Design” – which rocked. It was so refreshing to watch a talented artist, Barton Damer, peel back the layers (literally in PhotoShop) and show how he created the conference logo (seen above).

I then hung out with Cynthia Ware and talked with several friends that were in town from around the country. Then Cynthia and I attended a special lunch and got to hear what’s coming down the road for WorshipHouse Media.

The rest of the day was a blur of conversations, meetings, classes, talking with my friends that are exhibitors, BBQ for dinner, more deep discussions and meeting people in person that knew me from online (Facebook, Twitter or my blog).

I was most impressed with how the ECHO team and the host church, Watermark, handled the night main session with my friend, Mark Batterson. Hats off to my local tech buddies Ryan Howell (Watermark) and Jason Cole (Lake Pointe) who were making it happen, along with Les and the rest of their team. My intern, Jonathan, even jumped in on camera. So Bent Tree, Watermark, Lake Pointe and the ECHO team came together as one – it was beautiful. We have a great local group of tech directors. I saw most of them today, including my friend, Brian Davis, from Fellowship Dallas.

The worship last night was great (led by my friend, Will Pavone, from McLean Bible in Washington DC. I moved from serving in the Washington DC area to Dallas). The visuals and lighting were notable. They truly led artistically and tastefully. I was very impressed and want to get the backgrounds that they used for the songs – they were awesome.

They had created a nice countdown, made great use of a left, center and right video screen and had a cool brief conference starter video. Good stuff. Batterson brought it and was encouraging and appreciative to technical artists. It was good to see him and his digital/tech team (Dave Clark, David Russell and Jeremy Sexton).

I ended the night chatting briefly with some local friends, including new Dallas resident: Rhett Smith, and got some brief time with my college friend, Shawn Wood, who will be speaking today. I also talked with Tim Stevens and his associate from Granger. I’ll spend some more time later today with Tim.

I picked up Tony Steward last night from the airport and am looking forward to spending some time with him these next few days. I teach today and tomorrow and am looking forward to meeting more of you.

More later, including my new resource of the month: Unifyer – which is one of the sponsors for the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Atlanta next week and is a new partner with my ministry. I can’t wait to tell you more about what they’re up to!

DAY ONE: Great. Well done ECHO team. Looking forward to the rest of the conference.

Besides my family, my job and writing a book, I’m also speaking twice this month. Once, this week at ECHO and next week at the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta.

I’m excited about both. For ECHO, I’m excited about the many friends and Church leaders from around the country that are coming and I get to hang out with, grab coffee and/or lunch with and take on a tour of Bent Tree.

There’s a great line-up of speakers at ECHO and I’m honored to be a part of this new conference. I’ll be doing 2 classes: “Which Worship Presentation Software is Best for Your Church?” and “Church 2.0″.

In the worship presentation software class, just like NAB, I’ll facilitate a discussion and demo between the Top 3 presentation software companies: EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter. This class is always fun to do and a great opportunity for you to see the best up-close and personal.

In the Church 2.0 class I give an overview of Web 2.0 technology, how you can use it for ministry and then share my heart behind “Church 2.0“, which goes way beyond technology. For the first time, I will be joined by some special guests (contributors to the book) that will be in Dallas from out of town. I’ll make a big announcement and share some new news with those in attendance!

For Atlanta next week, I’m pumped to meet Church leaders from around the ATL. I’ve been looking forward to this city for quite some time and can’t wait to see what God has in store. If you’re near Atlanta, I want to see you there.

SPECIAL THANKS:
As always, I want to thank my sponsors, which make all this possible and are partners with me in my ministry. My sponsor for ECHO is EasyWorship. Sponsors for the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta are EasyWorship, ProPresenter, Unifyer, Livekite and Phonevite.

Please hear my heart. I partner with companies that I think have something valid to offer the Church. Someone last week was surprised to learn that I turn down sponsorships. I don’t link my name and my ministry with just anyone. I really believe these companies (and the sponsors for previous conferences and Local Forums) have something unique and innovative to offer the Church as a resource and tool for ministry. Please check them out!