Greg Atkinson

That’s me with Chris and LV from Catalyst. They and Jesse (from the Catalyst blog) were at the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta. Behind us is the infamous “Vanagon” that LV has been driving around the country. It’s pimped out on the inside – don’t let the outside fool you. Jesse blogged about Church 2.0 a week ago HERE. I’m trying my best to be at Catalyst this year, like I have the last 3 years. Are you going to be there?

I had an amazing time in Atlanta. I heard of what the Church there is dealing with – good and bad. My heart was encouraged to hear of Unite and how churches are working together on various issues in the ATL area. My eyes were opened and I was stunned to hear of the child sex trafficking going on there (Atlanta is #1 in the nation). I had no idea. There are some great stories that I believe will find their way into the book (Church 2.0).

Like always, I met some new friends and some people I knew online face-to-face for the first time. It was a joy to connect with them. The host church, Perimeter, was awesome. They are doing some amazing ministry to their local community that was exciting to hear. They also have staff dedicated to just reaching out to other churches to work together – that’s cool and THAT’S a Church 2.0 Church!

PERSONAL:
Though my heart was full and I was encouraged by my time in Atlanta, I came back exhausted and desperately missing my family. I’ll blog more about them tomorrow. For now, I have decided to take the month of September off from traveling. I’m still coming to Boston in October, but have moved Portland to November – November 7th to be exact. For the next month, I’m going to rest, write and be with my family.

An Apple iPhone or iPod touch will become a central part of Abilene Christian University’s innovative learning experience this fall when all freshmen are provided one of these converged media devices, said Phil Schubert, ACU executive vice president.

At ACU – the first university in the nation to provide these cutting-edge media devices to its incoming class – freshmen will use an iPhone or iPod touch to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors’ offices, and check their meal and account balances - among more than 15 other useful web applications already developed, said ACU Chief Information Officer Kevin Roberts.

ACU’s vision for technology has been captured in a forward-looking film called ‘Connected,’ found online – along with information about ACU’s other ground-breaking mobile learning
efforts – at www.acu.edu/connected. – You can read more from this article HERE.

Below is a summary from someone who was a part of the freshman orientation at ACU:

This past weekend Abilene Christian University gave away about 1,000 iPhones and iPod Touch’s. All of the devices were given away totally free. Parents had the option to opt-out of the iPhone, in case they did not want to pay the monthly bill. In that case, students still received an iPod Touch 8GB Model. The iPod Touch, when connected to ACU’s Wifi Network can do pretty much everything the iPhone can do with respect to all of the ACU specific Applications. The iPod Touch just doesn’t have the GPS Guided campus map available.

ACU is the only place in Abilene, Texas with 3G Network Coverage from AT&T. AT&T did the work just for them, and will get to the rest of the town’s 3G coverage later. This in an unprecedented leap in technology for education, and Abilene Christian is leading the way. Oklahoma Christian University will soon follow. ACU gets calls weekly from other university’s administrations inquiring about this initiative. Hopefully many schools will follow in ACU’s footsteps.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Students login to a special ACU app and their schedule is downloaded to their iPhone or iPod Touch
• GPS map shows students where they’re at on campus and how to get to their class
• Professors can take attendance by iPhones present in class
• Professors can get real-time feedback from students via surveys (“Do I need to spend more time on this or do you understand it?” – students answer “Yes” or “No thanks. I got it.”)
• Students can check their meal and account balance

PERSONAL:
Today my son, Tommy, turns 6 years old and starts his first day of school. My little boy is growing up!

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?

Sunday, I was working on Church 2.0 book stuff with co-writers Tony Steward and Cynthia Ware. Yes, in case you missed the announcement on Facebook yesterday: Tony and Cynthia are co-writing the technology section of the Church 2.0 book!

While we were sitting outside of Starbucks and brainstorming, we saw the Cowboys’ new tight end Martellus Bennett. Here’s the crazy thing: he saw me notice him and walked over to me, stuck out his hand and said, “Hello.” He was as nice as could be and we chatted for a bit. He was funny and warm and way nicer than someone with his fame would normally be.

I asked if I could take a picture with him. He said, “Sure” – so I did. That’s Tony sitting on the left (my right). Martellus represented the Cowboys in a great way. He was down-to-earth, friendly and a super ambassador for the team. We all remarked how well he represented the Cowboys. He even mentioned his faith when Cynthia told him I was a pastor.

I was truly impressed with his humility, humor and accessibility. My hat is off to him and the entire team, which, by the way, I’m picking to go to the Super Bowl. SO… who do YOU have going to the Super Bowl?

I had an interesting conversation with some friends this week. I found that many follow several, random people and in turn, those people then find out about them and follow them – thus they have a lot of people following them on Twitter.

That, honestly, never occurred to me. I only follow people that interest me, so it’s a relatively small group (78). I could probably have more people following me if I followed more people (makes sense), but I don’t want to get constant updates from people that I don’t particularly want to follow. Does that make sense?

So… How do YOU use Twitter? Do you follow as many as you can? Are you picky? Are you following me? You should. I will be releasing updates and exclusive Church 2.0 info on just Twitter.

BONUS:

Check out my friend, Bill Seaver’s blog on Podcasting 101 HERE.

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!

In the spirit of my friend, Bill Seaver’s, Friday “Video of the Week”, I’d like to share a video with you of a youth pastor that crashed a motorcycle trying to make a memorable entrance. I think he accomplished it.

You may have seen this before, the interesting thing is you probably didn’t know I went to high school with this guy. Small world. His crash is now blowing up on YouTube!

A couple of things that I’m proud about last week’s Fine Arts Day Camp at my church:

• The great leadership by our own Karen Johnson (who is a vital part of our staff).
• The tremendous amount of talent and heart that went into the week.
• The hundreds of volunteers that gave of their time.
• The way the various Worship & Art Ministries worked together to encourage, train and equip the children. Worship & Arts ministries that participated were music, drama, dance, visual arts and technical arts (my team).
• My staff and the youth that served in tech all around the campus throughout the week. There were rooms all over the campus using sound, video and lights.
• My technical arts volunteers that came out Friday to serve for the end of the week musical.
• I’m most proud that all this happened while I was in South Carolina. True leadership is working yourself out of a job. This was a huge deal and I was able to be away and see my team flourish. I thank God for the team I get to lead!

The set built by our Visual Arts team, led by Aaron Bensko, and the lighting done by our own Scott Row:

Side close-up view of the set:

This is what 400 kids on the stage looks like:

I think I have found my favorite line of a song (maybe of all time). Now this is not my favorite worship lyric – this is just a wild line from a song that I think deserves some recognition.

The line is from John Cougar Mellencamp’s song “Jack and Diane“. Here it goes:

“Sucking on a chili dog outside the Tastee-Freez…”

Beat that!

Church Marketing Sucks, Tony Steward and Tony Morgan blogged about making Guy Kawasaki’s Modern Church Alltop List, so I will, too.

I am the 4th blogger listed on this very interesting list. So many of my friends and peers are listed here. This is a great place to check out some very relevant blogs worth reading! Thanks Guy! You can check it out HERE.

Thanks to Tony Steward for providing this:

*By the way, I encourage you to check out Tony’s “Internet Campus Starter Kit” blog – it’s great!