| [..who i am..] |
|---|
| I am trying to be the best husband to Jessica and father to Connor I can possibly be. In the daytime (and after they go to sleep) I am the Innovative Creative Arts Pastor at Powell Church in Knoxville, TN. I love songwriting, creating stupid videos, apple computers, and pie. |
| [..blogs that i read..] |
| journey to claire |
| real live preacher |
| bill wolf |
| cult of mac |
| adam mayfield |
| bob carlton |
| adam feldman |
| futility closet |
| jeph hurst |
| jason edelen |
| jon reid |
| church marketing sucks |
| kem meyer |
| anthony coppedge |
| betsy wolf |
| mark nelson |
| multi-site arts |
| [..graphic & video resources..] |
| sxc.hu |
| igniter media |
| sermon spice |
| highway video |
| worship house |
| digital juice |
| church marketing lab |
| [..music & artists..] |
| gregadkinsmusic.com |
| greg on Myspace |
| new city cafe |
| bill mallonee |
| the innocence mission |
| andrew peterson |
| andrew osenga |
| over the rhine |
| nickel creek |
| david wilcox |
| rich mullins |
| hem |
| andy gullahorn |
| jill phillips |
| arthur alligood |
| dave potts |
| [..my so called music career..] |
|
| [..52 songs in 52 weeks..] |
|
| [..where i serve..] |
| powell church |
| [..disclaimer..] |
| I am on staff at Powell Church in Knoxville, TN but the opinions, thoughts, comments, and humor on this page are solely my own. Wade in at your own risk and be warned, I'm a bit of a goofball. |
| [..my site feed..] |
| RSS |
| [..archive..] |
Meant to live for so much more...
Mpeg (29 MB)Meant to Live - Here is a video we used recently in The Well. Using the Switchfoot song "Meant to Live" as well as a montage of media images, this video could work well to set up or conclude any talk that centers around the things that are really important in life. This video shows good examples of some things that are not. We shortened the song significantly... (it's now less than 2 minutes long). The motion video clips in this are part of Highway Video's Elements series... something I highly recommend for video editors. Great stuff.
Cobwebs be Vanquished!
Got around to cleaning up the place a bit today... got rid of some old links, added some new ones. Welcome real live preacher and Jon Reid. Real Life Preacher is a blog I've read for awhile now... I just finished his book and it is unreal. He says things I feel in a way I could never say them. Truly a gifted writer. Jon is a friend from Soliton sessions and an all around cool guy. Check both of them out.Also updated the quote of the now... I'll try to make that actually stay somewhat current. I also decided to get rid of the Tagboard I had. It was causing pop-up ads on my website and we just can't have that now can we? No, we can't, for pop-up ads truly doth suck. Seriously.
I've got some new videos to share that I'll be uploading in the next couple of days. Stay tuned... this should be a more lively place for the next little bit... until I get burned out again. :)
How we talked about the Prophets...
So it's been awhile since I've shared any ideas for worship... I know there are a fair amount of you who have used this site for that in the past. I'll try and do better about sharing some of the things we have done in our services. We have a lot of creative people around here with a lot of good ideas worth sharing. So far this year, in our Wednesday night alt.worship (I use that term very loosely) service, we've been going through the Bible one character at a time. We've had a night on Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Esther, Samson, Elijah, Jeremiah, and two nights on David. Today, I'll share with you a neat way we set up our upcoming weeks on the prophets.
We opened the night by doing a little bit of teaching about what the role of the prophets were in scripture. You could do this however you want. After a couple of minutes, we said "We'd like to give you a visual image of the prophets." At that point, we played the video clip from the movie "Say Anything" where John Cusack is outside the window, holding up the boombox playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." Classic Scene. It illustrates very well the idea of the prophets calling the Israelites back to God. The girl in the movie's response is also striking in that she just lies there... she doesn't get up, she doesn't go to the window, she just stays in the bed, listening but not responding.
As the video played, we had a guy come out with a boombox, holding it over his head. He stood on stage but said nothing. I pretended to ignore him. I taught a few more minutes on the prophets (again, you could do this however you want). As I finished, I walked off stage. Then the guy with the boombox reached up and pressed play on his CD which then played the song "Will You Not Listen" by Michael Card. You can download an MP3 of that song right here.
That was our transition into worship. After worship and a message, we ended the service by having the boombox guy come back out, this time playing Michael Card's "Barocha" which you can download here.
Obviously, you would need to fill in some of the blanks here, but this metaphor worked well to set up the prophets for us. We had a girl create a piece of mixed-media art in the room using the picture of Cusack and the radio as well. I'll try and post a picture of that tomorrow... it turned out pretty cool.
This is the way that it happened...
I got an email a few days ago that asked a question I knew was coming... I've known it for awhile. I've dreaded hearing the question and now that it's been asked, I'm dreading answering it even more. Greg, why don't you write on your blog anymore?
Well, let me tell you a little story of how it all happened.
One day, Greg was in his office at church working on a brand new post for his flashy new website, emergingminister. This particular post was a rather thorough analysis of the use of slide projectors in postmodern worship services and how one could acquire them cheaply, operate them safely, and in so doing, save souls. A quick knock on the door followed by the handle turning startled Greg and he quickly minimized his blogger window and maximized his powerpoint window so it would look like he was doing something that actually had to do with his job. But it was too late.
What was that you were looking at?
Nothing, just a website.
Emerging minister? Cool. I'll check that out.
It's just some lame website.
Sounds interesting.
I held my breath... he left the room. The next morning, I knew what was coming.
Greg... why didn't you tell me that YOU are the emergingminister? That website is really cool.
Well, I didn't really want to make a big deal out of it... I'm still working on it... it's nothing really.
Well, I thought it was pretty good. I sent a link to a few people, is that okay?
Uh... you did wha... uh... ummm... sure, that's fine. gulp.
Immediately Greg began to think back over every single word he had ever written on his website... and it wasn't pretty. Oh man... what if someone reads that post about Christian bookstores... oh crap... what if they find out that I... oh sweet Lord... what if they read about !!! I'm screwed.
But he left it alone. He thought about changing some things... but he figured, nah... no one will really read that much. Nobody will say anything. Besides, only a few people even know about it. What's the harm. It's not like I'm dropping f-bombs a mile a minute like the real live preacher or something. It will be okay.
And it was... no one really ever said anything bad. Mostly just things like "I saw your website" or "Hey Greg, I didn't know you knew how to make websites.". Greg figured the worst was over and decided to move on...
But he couldn't. More and more people started reading about the emergingminister, which was a good thing in theory. The problem was, it was more and more people he knew. People from town. People from life. People from church. This was a problem.
At first, he tried to ignore it by posting about generalalities. "I saw this movie... I went to this concert... My little boy crawled... I'm tired... I wrote a song..." But Greg knew that this wasn't going to fly... that's not why he started a blog... that's not why people were reading. Where is the struggle? Where is the wrestling? Where is the journey? Where is the drama???
Here is where we leave this story because in real life, the emergingminister's new baby actually is crying his brains out in his crib.
If there are any other ministers out there, I'd like to hear your stories... what did you do when the people at church found your website? How did you change if at all?
Pray for me my friends. I want to keep writing... I want to keep telling my story and sharing it with you, but I am afraid. And for this, I am ashamed.
My new bumper sticker...
I'm getting some bumper stickers printed up just for fun... if you're a fan of the film "Napoleon Dynamite", you get the joke. If you'd like one, email me at emergingminister@aol.com and I'll let you know how you can get one. They're flippin' sweet!
