Greg Atkinson

What could God accomplish through us if we were all pulling together? What kind of change could we see in the world? What if we were…

UNSTOPPABLE

That’s what we’ll be exploring as this year’s One Prayer teaching theme:

When the Church unites, it’s unstoppable.

Think about it… unstoppable grace, unstoppable compassion, unstoppable evangelism, unstoppable love, unstoppable generosity
, unstoppable truth
, unstoppable hope…

“Unstoppable” will be the common thread that runs through this year’s teaching. If you’re thinking about contributing a message this year (and you should), now is a great time to gather your creative team and see where God leads your teaching. You’ll have until early May to submit your messages. Video resources and important deadlines will be added to www.oneprayer.com soon.

And while you’re thinking of One Prayer, don’t forget to sign up your church if you haven’t already. Registration only takes a few minutes, and is your key to resources and updates: http://2010.oneprayer.com/join

During One Prayer, we get to learn about Jesus in unison with thousands of people around the globe—thanks for making that possible!

Thanks,

The One Prayer Team

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/oneprayer

Questions? Email: info@oneprayer.com

Recently, I spoke with my friend (and Center for Church Communications Executive Director) Cynthia Ware. She asked me to be a Regional Network Coordinator for the Center for Church Communications and I agreed. Last week she announced this on the CFCC website. Below is what she said:

Yesterday, with the announcement of ProPresenter 4 (for Mac) – my friends at Renewed Vision threw in one other big announcement: they’re making a Windows version. I knew this, but couldn’t blog about it before. Here’s the announcement that came in their email:

For 10 years, we’ve developed ProPresenter for Mac only, and have been asked repeatedly if there was going to be a version for Windows. Our answers were always the same:

• The tools that enable us to do what we do on the Mac aren’t as robust on the Windows platform.
• We have nothing against Windows, but felt we could make a more powerful and reliable product on the Mac.
• We’d rather focus on making the best software for any platform, rather than divide our efforts by supporting two platforms.

All of these answers were valid, and as the marketshare of the Mac has increased over the last several years, the question has become a lot less frequent. At the same time, however, we’ve been troubled by some things:

• There are a lot of churches that don’t have Macs, particularly overseas
• There is a great variety of Windows-based machines on the market that are seemingly very capable.
• A new computer purchase is often difficult in today’s economy.
• Many PC users get excited about our product only to be let down when learning it’s Mac only.
• Some organizations will not purchase a Mac just to run ProPresenter.
• If we can improve the worship experience on the Mac, why not use our expertise to do the same for Windows?

Through the years, a lot has changed. Computers have become far more powerful and technologies have evolved. We’ve kept our eye on Windows technologies that would enable us to create a quality ProPresenter experience for Windows users, and we now believe we have found the right tool set, and assembled the right team of people to make ProPresenter for Windows a reality!

So, the cat’s out of the bag. We’ll be keeping you updated via our website as this story unfolds. Until then, here are answers to some questions we thought you might have:

WHAT WILL PROPRESENTER 4 WINDOWS LOOK LIKE?
We have put a great deal of thought into the user interface of ProPresenter 4 on the Mac, so why ruin a good thing? We are building the Windows version to look and function identically. If you know how to run ProPresenter 4 Mac, you will know instantly how to run ProPresenter 4 Windows.

WILL IT HAVE ALL THE FEATURES OF THE MAC VERSION?
We are working hard to make sure that every feature of the Mac version is implemented in Windows. In some cases, a feature may be less robust on the Windows platform while others may work even better. Some technical realities beyond the scope of ProPresenter may have an impact (video codecs, shared storage, etc.), but we’re going to make sure these are minimal.

WILL I BE ABLE TO USE BOTH IN MY ORGANIZATION?
From the ground up, we have worked to ensure interoperability between ProPresenter 4 Mac and ProPresenter 4 Windows. This means you will be able to move files back and forth, and they will run largely the same way on either platform.

WHAT ABOUT THE ADVANCED AND ALPHA KEYER MODULES, OR THE PROPRESENTER REMOTE FOR IPHONE?
We’re not planning our initial release of ProPresenter 4 Windows to include any modules or iPhone remote functionality. Depending on market acceptance and customer demand, however, we may consider developing them in the future. Be sure to let us know your interest in these additional features.

WHAT IS THE PRICING OF PROPRESENTER FOR WINDOWS?
ProPresenter for Windows has the same pricing structure as its Mac counterpart. Single user licenses will be platform specific and sold for $399. However, a Site License for ProPresenter 4 will work on either platform, allowing unlimited use on any platform for a single campus, making our site license an even better value add. This means for a $799 site license purchase, you can run ProPresenter 4 on either a Mac or a Windows machine. Existing ProPresenter 4 site license owners will be able to download and unlock the Windows version immediately after it becomes available.

WHY ARE WE ANNOUNCING IT NOW?
Because site licenses of ProPresenter 4 will work on both the Mac and Windows versions, we want people to know these benefits before placing their upgrade orders.

WHEN WILL PROPRESENTER 4 WINDOWS BE RELEASED?
We don’t have a specific date for release quite yet, but are working towards Summer 2010. We will certainly have a public beta test for registered ProPresenter users prior to the wide release. Stay tuned for such an announcement in the coming months.

This video from Central Christian Church moved me. Well done! You can get it HERE.

Do you have stories in your congregation that need to be told? Get after it!

I’m a friend to and huge support of Lee McDerment. I think he’s the most gifted, creative and innovative worship leader in the country. I absolutely love when he leads worship (he’s the one on piano in the video). Here’s NewSpring’s video opener for their Christmas Eve services.

Christmas Opener: Just Come Home from NewSpring Production on Vimeo.

Anyone using visual media in church should know the answer to this question (WHY?) if they are to be effective.

Come and be part of the discussion that is shaping the philosophy and vision of visual media in the modern Church. Engage with visual worship leaders and ministry staff from across the country in this roundtable forum. VisualWorship2010 was launched to be a catalyst for visual worshipers and the Church to discover what God has in store for us.

Check it out!

After two years of creating quality content as eight20eight, they decided to change their name. Now known as Soul Refinery, they will continue to create quality media that they hope will ignite the heart and refine the soul.
To celebrate the change and launch of soulrefinery.com, they are giving away two free Christmas motion loops.

While you can find their content wherever quality videos are sold, they hope you’ll consider supporting us directly by visiting soulrefinery.com. There you’ll find their entire collection, including films that feature stars from hit TV shows as The Offce, Community, Reno 911, Saturday Night Life, and others.

They also now offer the entire motion loop and countdown library that they recently purchased from our friends at Eleven72 — revamped and available in HD!

Please visit their new site today and let them know if you have any questions or comments. CLICK HERE TO ADD FREE LOOPS TO YOUR CART

I’m currently booking secret shopper visits for January, February and March. I’ve got one scheduled (at a secret location) for January 24th, but all my other Sundays are free so far. I hope you’ll budget to bring me in this new year and let me help you do what you do better.

My friends at Igniter Media have produced a new Christmas media piece for your Christmas service this year. I think it’s a great video and I’m also very proud of them for offering it in Spanish, too!

My friend, Travis Reed, and the peeps at The Work of the People are offering a new FREE Christmas video. I figured: Who doesn’t want to know about a free Christmas media resource? So I’m letting you, my friends, know. To get the video seen below, go HERE and use the promo code: freetwotpchristmas