Church Video Ideas

I saw “The Dark Knight” at midnight last night. I could ruin it for you with one word… but I won’t. You need to go see it before rumors start spreading. Good stuff. Every theater in Texas was sold out - literally. Every IMAX (from Dallas to Austin to Oklahoma City to Houston - I tried them all) is sold out until Monday. I plan to go see it at the IMAX this coming Monday (it was shot on IMAX film and you have to see it like that - at least once). Good stuff. Heath Ledger was amazing!

ECHO Church Media Conference is a month away. Are you going to be there? You can and you should - AND you can still do it at the early-bird rate. I’ll be there and so will so wonderful friends of mine. Have you seen the list of speakers? WOW!

I think this would be great for worship leaders and senior pastors, as well as my tech friends. And seriously, any excuse to come to Dallas is all good. Some people I know attending the conference are coming over to Bent Tree for a tour. If you are coming or are thinking about coming, let me know, and we’ll set up a time for you to swing by and I’ll personally show you around. I hope to see you at ECHO!

EXTRA:
In other news, the new Apple iPhone sold over 1 million units in just 3 days! Are you kidding me??? Wow! Hey, speaking of ministry, sharing, generosity, God blessing you, etc., etc. - IF you already had an iPhone and just purchased the new one AND are wondering what to do with your old one… I would be glad to use it (for ministry purposes, of course). Holla!

Today I share with you what’s in my iTunes and iPod. Today’s comments are for you to share what you’re listening to these days. I’ve got 6 new CDs in the mix (yes, I still like to buy CDs - for now, anyways). What’s interesting is that 4 of the 6 CDs didn’t do the traditional, clear plastic CD covers - they did a cheaper, softer, paper CD holder (I wonder what the ratio of in-store CD sales to online/download sales is). Below is my fix for now. What are you listening to?

The Church 2.0 Local Forum - Santa Cruz this past Thursday was awesome. I had a blast and truly enjoyed meeting Church leaders from that area. God is at work all over this country and I’m thrilled to be able to catch little glimpses of it.

This is a picture from the Santa Cruz gathering with 2 of my friends: Cynthia Ware and Chuckk Gerwig (he and his wonderful family had me stay at their house - with an amazing view of Redwoods in their backyard):

This is a picture Chuckk took of me eating my first raw oyster at the Santa Cruz Wharf:

Church Video Idea:
Sunday, after church, I had a meeting with my Technical Arts Leadership Team. This was a great time of lunch, fellowship, collaborating, sharing and vision casting/planning for the future and specifically for the Fall season (which will be busy). Topics on the agenda included:

• Our church’s transition to Planning Center Online (more about them in a future blog)
• Each person’s roles and responsibilities as a member of the leadership team
• Volunteer care and the assimilation process for new team members
• Our new newsletter (which I’m really excited about)
• Upcoming calendar events for Summer and Fall
• Planning and preparation for our summer social on Saturday, July 26

The meeting was fruitful and I am, personally, thrilled to be partnering in ministry with these friends. I’m excited about the future of the team and our moving forward under a shared-ministry philosophy and them being empower to shepherd, care for those under them and welcome and train new team members to their area. Great afternoon - time well spent!

From their Facebook update:

The wait is over. As the web is buzzing with reports of the new iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 update, we’re adding to the excitement with the debut of a Bible App for the iPhone, powered by YouVersion.com.

The ease of use you’ve come to expect from YouVersion.com now fits in the palm of your hand. We’re thrilled to launch this new application that iPhone and iPod Touch users will be able to download for free. It’s called the Bible App and it’s available now from Apple’s built-in App Store.

* Now that’s cool. Well done LifeChurch.tv! You can sign up on iTunes HERE or read more about it HERE.

This morning I fly to Santa Cruz, CA for another Church 2.0 Local Forum. This forum is being held at Santa Cruz Bible Church and is sponsored by:

• Kindle
• 360Hubs
• SplashPipe
• LOGOS
• Phonevite

If you’re a member of my Church 2.0 Facebook group, you may remember me saying that one of the chapters in my book is on my being a good steward of God’s creation and a witness to the world. I’m collecting stories of churches that are making efforts in this area - Green Churches. If you are a “Green Church” or know one, please email me (greg@gregatkinson.com) and let me know.

Take a look at THIS list of 50 things you can do to help.

* Not a member of my book’s Facebook group? You need to be. We crossed 1500 members last week! Not sure about being on Facebook? Download the FREE eBook “Facebook for Pastors” and read the Foreward I wrote. Right now, over 10,000 people have downloaded the eBook!

Each week I get phone calls and emails from church members and visiting Church leaders asking where we get our backgrounds that we used during worship. Obviously, I have access to a ton of media and we use a number of products from companies that I’ve blogged about before, but one company we keep using again and again and again is SermonVideos.com.

One note about Bent Tree is that we are in HD, so our background selection is smaller and pickier. With that being said, there are a growing number of resources out there. I absolutely LOVE Igniter Backs and have raved about them before. I’m looking forward to them re-releasing volumes 1 and 2 in HD and am anxiously awaiting Backs 4.

What I don’t like is that you have to wait every one or two years for another volume to come out. I wish they’d release backgrounds as they create them and when they have enough, create a volume. What I LOVE about SermonVideos.com is that they add/upload brand new backgrounds weekly. As soon as they get them or create them, they’re up and ready to download. We have a subscription, so I just log on and in a matter of minutes have them loaded into my EasyWorship resource folder.

In my own church life, from week to week, we’ve worn out Igniter Backs Vol. 3. I have to take a break from them because our people were seeing them so much (they are the only thing they have in HD). I even went back and took a select few from Igniter Backs 1 and 2 and stretched them, which seemed to work okay (thanks Igniter for suggesting that).

I use a few from FortyOneTwenty and a few from BlueFish.tv. I’m truly grateful for the never-ending fresh supply from SermonVideos.com and am thrilled to add new backgrounds in the mix each week. My hats off to my friend Craig Lillard and his team of artists at SV. Thanks for a job well done!

EXTRA:
2 weeks ago we kicked off our service with a Call to Worship video from Restoration Videos: “Worship“. They didn’t have it in HD, but thankfully created it widescreen. This video was a powerful start to our service. Thanks to Restoration Videos!

At Bent Tree our Visual Arts team has been busy on a few projects. Remember the giant door? It’s now hanging in our community space (see above). They are also working on hanging giant windows with various pictures in them around our campus.

Later this month, they will be busy designing the set for our Fine Arts Day Camp (pics of that to follow afterwards). For the Fall, they are working on something special for our official “Grand Opening” in September and a look for our seeker series entitled “Pennies on the Track”. Below is an early idea (this photo was taken by our Visual Arts Coordinator, Aaron Bensko).

Aaron and his team just finished a cool project. They painted a giant hand on a wall they built for the back of our stage. What was really cool was that they revealed what the picture was week by week. It started out just a white wall, then a white wall with a few painted squares on it. Each week the Visual Arts team would reveal more of the picture. Last week the hand was revealed fully for the first time. Where did the hand come from? Aaron took a picture of our Audio Coordinator, Tom, holding his hand up. Our team of painters made the magic happen based off that picture.

Here is the wall they built and fastened to our back wall:

Here is stage two:

Here is the hand coming together:

Putting the finishing touches on:

And they’re done:

Here are some different looks of the set/stage during worship yesterday:

Here is a close-up look of a dance we did during the song “None But Jesus”:

Above is me in my backyard with a “Sparkler”. My wife, kids and I were drawing pictures while my wife took pictures with a 4 second shutter release. Daddy was the only one able to pull off the heart and I did it on my first try! Good times.

Here is me trying to do a tornado:

This is from the fireworks show we went to (showing my wife’s skills on her new camera):

NOTE:
My blog has been messed up for a while as far as uploading pics (hence the many posts with just text). I’m glad it’s working again!