Greg Adkins

The Band in Action

You guys hear me say all the time how great I think our worship team is at church... I thought it would be cool to show you a clip of the band in action.   This is a clip I put together featuring most of 3 songs we did this past Sunday morning.   Not everyone plays every week so my apologies to those who aren't in this but included in this video are: 

Adam Adkins - drums

Greg Adkins - acoustic guitar, piano

Adam Whipple - keyboards and organ

Rose Williams - violin

Rob Mason - bass

Jasmine Hoisington - acoustic guitar

Jim Walker - electric guitar

Dave Locke - percussion and vocals

Sarah McAffry - vocals

Michelle Kollenberg - vocals

Kim Mason - vocals

Sunday Setlist - May 4th, 2008

Opener
Back to You (Bryan Adams from his Unplugged album. Yes, that Bryan Adams.)

Worship Set

Beautiful One (Tim Hughes)
How Great is our God (Tomlin)
God of this City (Bluefield / Tomlin)
Let it Rise (Holland Davis)

Closing Song
Amazed (Lincoln Brewster)

My New Job

So I've kind of hinted around that my job has changed a little bit... I've obviously been leading worship a lot lately which has been a change from what I've been doing for the past couple of years. This week, that new part of my job became official.

For the time being, I am going to be supervising and leading the worship in our contemporary service at Powell while I continue to lead all of the technical ministries I was doing before. If that sounds like I'm now doing two jobs... well, kind of. Yes, I have more to do but our tech and worship teams have been nothing short of amazing. We've got a lot of people with a "I'll serve wherever you need me" attitude which has really made the transition pretty great. I've already trained a handful of new tech volunteers to cover some of the things I was doing and that has allowed me to move to being on stage every week without anything we were doing falling through the cracks. They have stepped up huge and kept the workload manageable for me. It's been fun.

However, part of my new job is that I've been given the directive to find some help. Our leadership recognizes that I'm no good if I'm burned out and my family is mad at me because I'm gone all the time. Praise God for wise leaders! So... I'm looking for someone. I don't know who and I'm not totally sure what it is they will do, I just know that I'm looking for the right person to come join the team. I've been given a lot of freedom in seeking this person out. Here is what I'm looking for in the ideal person:

They would be able to help lead worship (especially when we launch our Wednesday night service probably sometime in 2009).
They are comfortable behind a sound board.
They know a little bit about stage lighting and can run a lighting console.
They are proficient with computers and web savvy.
They can edit video and are familiar with Final Cut Pro / Motion.
They have graphic design skills.
They are highly passionate and creative.
They love Jesus.

Now, I realize something... that person might not exist! That's a pretty broad set of skills... still, I thought I'd put that out there. Obviously a person need not have every skill listed but the more the better! So... if you know a passionate, Jesus loving, video editing, sound mixing, light board running, Mac using, worship leading, unemployed person, send them my way! We're hiring for real and I hope to start interviewing people within the next few weeks.

Sunday Setlist - 4/27/08

So here is how I began this morning's worship... "Let's all rise to our feets and worship. Wait, did I just say feets?"

You know, I'm a fairly articulate guy... college educated and all that. I can string a sentence or two together when I need to. And yet, I thought it wise to ask the congregation to rise to their FEETS. Brilliant.

Anyway, other than that, it was a really fun week and the band did a really great job. We were back to our normal instrumentation this week although I did play piano on 4 of the 6 songs... I've been doing guitar only so that was a welcome change. Even though i've played mostly guitar for the better part of 5 years, I'm still a lot more comfortable behind the keys.

The congregation was absolutely with us this morning which was really nice. I don't know if they always sing loudly and I just can't hear it but for whatever reason, I could hear them really clearly today. It's so much easier to lead when you hear people singing along. Okay, here's the setlist:

WALK IN / OPENING
God of this City (can't remember who wrote it but Chris Tomlin recorded it on the newest Passion CD)

WORSHIP SET
All to You (Lincoln Brewster)
Salt and Light (Jami Smith)
Fire Fall Down (Hillsong United)
Marvelous Light (Charlie Hall)

ALTAR / CLOSING
Overflow (Chris Tomlin)

And that my non-worship leader friends, is a little trick those of us in the biz like to call a Tomlin Sandwich.

Sunday Setlist - 4/20/08

Opener:
Meant to Live - Switchfoot

Worship Set
Awesome is the Lord Most High - Chris Tomlin
God of Wonders - Third Day / Caedmon's Call
Mighty to Save - Hillsongs
Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus - traditional
Set me Free - Big Daddy Weave

Altar / Closing
You are So Good to Me - Waterdeep

Sunday was loads of fun! We stripped it all down and went all acoustic and were able to get together a really neat mix of instruments. My brother Adam played a small drum kit and also a djembe and a cajon (one of those wooden boxes you sit on). Adam Whipple came and played piano and some accordion. Tim Harbin broke out his mandolin and our new friend Rose came and played some really lovely violin. Sarah, Michelle, and Andrea did a great job with the harmonies, Jasmine filled in some nice acoustic guitar work, Rob layed down that sweet, funky, phat low end we love so well and I... well, I just tried not to mess all that good stuff up too badly.

Powell Church folks, I hope you enjoyed it... I know we enjoyed putting it together. We wanted to leave some empty space in the sound so that you could hear yourselves sing... We could hear you up front and it was really great to hear that!

If you didn't enjoy it so much... fear not, next week we'll be back with electric guitars blazing, ready to bring the rawk. Or something like that.

Insane Week

Twice every year I run sound for the Christian Academy of Knoxville's musical theater department. This week it's the high school musical and I've had to be out there for about 4 hours every night this week and that will continue until Saturday night. It's exhausting working all day and then going to do that until 10:00 every night but it pays well enough that I can't really turn it down. They have a pretty amazing musical theater department as far as high schools go... great bunch of kids.

Last night we had worship band rehearsal at 9:00 which is 2 hours later than usual. We're doing an all acoustic setup this week and I can't tell you how edgy I was all day yesterday wondering if it was going to come together or sound like junk. I need to learn to chill out... the rehearsal went great and I think it's going to be a really great Sunday. The instrumentation will be me on acoustic, Rob on bass, Tim on mandolin and acoustic guitar, my brother Adam on cajon, djembe, congas, trap kit, shakers, and tamborine, Adam Whipple on piano and accordion, my new friend Rose on violin, and Sarah, Andrea, and Michelle on vocals. Should be a lot of fun.

I didn't get home though until midnight. I'm completely wiped out today so I guess it's a good thing I get Thursdays off. I'm going to relax and spend the day with my little man... at least until I have to go run sound tonight.

Services I watch

Each week I try to set aside some time to watch the services from Granger Community Church and also from Newspring Church. Both of these churches are massively huge. I get different things from both of them... Granger often gives me good ideas for visuals (they do a lot with projection and whoever produces their original video content is really good) and Newspring has a really great worship leader named Lee McDerment. I've picked up a few good arrangement ideas and also learned some new songs from watching them. There are things about both of these churches that I don't really care for too but the good thing about watching online is I can just skip around.

Are there any other churches that broadcast full service videos out there? I know a lot of places do just the sermon but I really like seeing the whole thing. It's interesting to me to study how other churches handle their service order, announcements, closing songs, and other things like that. I know 7:22 in Atlanta broadcasts... any others you guys watch?

What's Going On

I led worship this morning for the first time in a couple of months. It was a lot of fun for the most part, although I am definitely out of the habit of leading every week. My voice didn't do real well going through a Thursday rehearsal, early Sunday AM run-through, and then the service. I was fried by the time it was over. I also forgot my capo on one song and forgot to un-mute my tuner pedal on another. Rookie mistakes I shouldn't be making but what can I say. I went from doing this 3 times a week for 8 years to doing it maybe 4 times a year over the past couple of years.

As many of you might already know, Allison Randolph who has been the worship pastor at Powell for about the last year resigned this past week. I'm really sad to see Allison go... she has a great heart for the Lord and just ridiculous amounts of talent. I can't wait to see where God is going to use her next.

Anyway, with Allison no longer with us, it looks like I'm going to be leading worship for at least the next little bit until we figure out what comes next. You'll probably see me blog a bit about that in the coming weeks. I'll try to post each week's setlist. I've read a few worship leader blogs lately where they do that and I've enjoyed reading what other folks are doing. Here are the songs we did this week:

Wasted (Carrie Underwood) - this was our opener / walk-in music
All Because of Jesus (Steve Fee)
I am Free (not sure who wrote this one... lots of people have recorded it)
Fire Fall Down (Hillsong United)
Happy Day (Tim Hughes)
You Never Let Go (Matt Redman)

Notice the absence of Chris Tomlin songs... didn't think I could do it did ya? Well, wait until next week... I'm sure we'll do a couple then.

Planning Center Online

I've been playing this week with a really cool new website called Planning Center Online. It's web based software that allows you to put together a schedule for your worship services and also to schedule your volunteers. Each person who is serving on any given day can access the schedule before they come, they can download MP3s of the music, download chord charts, and see everything that's going on. It does a lot more than that but that's a basic overview.

If you're in ministry and are over any kind of team, this site could save you a whole lot of time... it's already done that for me. Organization isn't always my strongest suit so this has been a great find.

If you are going to look at it, find the tutorial videos on their website and watch the overviews... that's the quickest way to see most of the features available.