Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson is a consultant, friend and partner with a select group of strategic partnerships. Greg works with these partner companies (listed in alphabetical order) and encourages you to contact him at greg@gregatkinson.com for more information on how we can be a resource to your church. Click on the logos to go to the company website.

• Greg is Director of Creative Strategy and works as a consultant with BigBadCollab and churches to create innovative technologies for the Kingdom. Currently Greg is helping churches develop a tool for assimilation and discipleship with next steps for spiritual growth. If your church would like a web-based tool like this, contact Greg. We also do custom websites, logos and complete branding consulting and implementation.

• We focus on your finances. You focus on your church. We’ve created a web-based system that allows your church to outsource all aspects of day-to-day financial management. Greg is also available for financial consulting for your church or organization.

• HelpStaff.me is a church staffing company. If your church is looking for a new staff member or you’re a church leader looking for a new ministry position, contact Greg. Many organizations have hired employees to fill needs without having a master plan for their organizational goals and growth. HELPSTAFF.ME can do an overall assessment and help you set up your staffing more effiiently and effectively. Again, contact Greg for more info.

• TruthCasting creates custom iPhone apps for your church. Greg is your connection to this amazing mobile resource.

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.

So – BAM – yesterday Google Buzz dropped. There’s been a lot of talk about whether or not people like it. I’m still not sure myself. I’m such a huge fan of Twitter. I did just do my first “buzz” though. So, what do you think about it? Will it survive?

This demo of what Sports Illustrated will look like and act on the new Apple iPad leaves me speechless. The future is happening right before our eyes. Check it!

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!

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 love Gary and the team at Floodgate and have blogged about their resources for your church before. Yesterday I watched their new Christmas video and really liked it. I encourage you to check it out and support them.

Sunday night I stayed up late (with my wife) to see U2 again – this time live via the web. YouTube made history when it broadcast U2’s Rose Bowl concert live over the internet to the entire world. Millions watched and if you missed it, you can watch it HERE.

By the way, I think U2 is genius for giving the world what they want: a free live concert. This was a smart and strategic move and should be applauded by all for those that made it happen. It will be interesting to see what YouTube continues to do in the realm of live streaming.

Below are some screenshots I captured while it was happening live…

1. This is the band hanging out backstage before they went out. Note the links to buy their album, join their newsletter, visit their website and donate to RED – a passion of Bono’s:

2. This is how close the cameras got:

3. Of course the event incorporated live Twitter feeds – which was very cool:

4. This is a view of their sweet stage and set from a distance:

5. Actually, this is how close the camera got:

As you know, I spend a lot of time coaching church planters. Some launched earlier this year, some are launching this Fall and some will launch in 2010.

One thing I love telling my church planters about is Casey Graham and the services of The Change Group. Now whether you’re a brand new church or an established, older church, Casey’s team can be a huge blessing to you. As he always says, “What you stay awake worrying about, we wake up thinking about!”

Casey and his team can do: quarterly CFO consulting, build monthly financial dashboards, and provide weekly bookkeeping for less than it cost to hire a part time staff member! I’d encourage you to get to know them. I’ve invited Casey to do a guest post on here.

Guest Post by Casey Graham:

Life Giving Finances

My name is Casey Graham and I am one of the Co-Founders of The Change Group.  Over the past year we have worked with so many churches to help them increase their operational revenue and manage their finances.  I believe everything we do should be LIFE GIVING (John 10:10) and that goes with our finances as well.  I just wanted to take a minute and talk about three things every church can do today that will make a big difference tomorrow.

1.  Personal Generosity

Nothing will increase your passion for helping people find life through generosity more than you modeling it.  Developing a culture is not rocket science!  Who you are is who your people will become.

2.  Life Giving Offerings

When you stand up to talk about the offering, don’t “beg” for dollars.  Help people understand that every dollar they give goes to change lives!  Help people connect their money to the different ministries.  People will want to give to that.

3.   Appreciate People

One of the most life giving things you can do financially is say thank you.  When it comes to the area of money in church we can’t show favoritism but we can appreciate what people do.  Have dinner night at your home and invite your top twenty donors to your home.  Give to them, cook for them, love on them and really believe in them.  Also, you can thank you first time givers with a hand written thank you card.  Appreciate anything and everything that people give!  You can’t do what you do without them!

*** Be sure to check out their free offer: http://thechangegroup.tv/freeoffer.html

The following is an announcement from Kent Shaffer’s blog that I thought was worth you knowing about and keeping an eye on:

LifeChurch.tv’s interactive online Bible, YouVersion, is about to take the interactivity up a notch and to congregations around the world.

It’s called YouVersion Live (October 2009 launch). And it allows pastors, conference speakers, teachers, and group leaders to share content and real-time feedback on mobile devices during live events. Essentially, YouVersion Live is interactive digital message notes that allow the audience to:

• take notes and save them online
• read the Bible
• ask questions and get answers during the message
• do surveys anonymously via a YouVersion Live poll
• get extra content via blog links, YouTube videos, and other resources
• share the message with a friend
• request prayer
• give online

It is easy to create a YouVersion Live message guide. All a speaker has to do is drag and drop the features he wants to use into his template on a super-simple YouVersion Live admin area. All an audience member needs is a web-enabled phone, netbook, or laptop.

Already over 1.8 million iPhone users have YouVersion on their phone, which is equivalent to 1 in 27 iPhones. YouVersion’s rapid growth means your user base already exists. All you need to do is use YouVersion Live’s super-simple admin panel, and you can take your audience engagement to incredible new places.

YouVersion Live launches in October 2009. Until then, you can sign up for updates atYouVersion.com/live.