If you want to check out the rest of the Echo Church Panel discussion, pre-order the Echo 2010 DVD set in the Echo Store.

Having shared some good conversation and good coffee with Houston Clark recently, I’m a firm believer in what he and his company have to offer the local church. Sit in on Houston’s breakout session, and be sure to visit with the Clark team at their Echo booth!

You’re probably well-aware of the greatness of Clover by now, but just in case you’re not …

Clover provides fully-functioning, beautiful, Flash websites for churches, para-churches, church plants, camps, youth groups, and other ministries. Stocked with tools specifically created for ministries, Clover provides the Church with an amazing platform to infuse its message into the world, doing what God has called it to do. Not only does Clover provide ministries with a clean, modern and intuitive platform to connect with their community, but also a revolutionary way of creating, editing, and updating their site. With Clover’s creation of “The Greenhouse,” any ministry can update their own website with little or no training. It’s so intuitive and revolutionary, you’ll have to demo everything yourself to believe it.

If your church or ministry needs some help in the website department, be sure to stop by the Clover booth at Echo.

• 47. Meet fellow Echo attendees from all over the world. (Keep your fingers crossed for cool accents.)
• 48. Krispy Kreme.
• 49. Search for places that echo at Echo.
• 50. Fashionable lanyards.
• 51. Final Cut Pro needs someone to show it who is boss!
• 52. See a live demo of ProPresenter 4.
• 53. It’s good to sweat for 45 straight hours. Right?
• 54. Ain’t no hug like a John Dyer hug.
• 55. Play a game of Slug Bug with your friends; substitute iPads for VW Bugs.
• 56. Meet podcast superstars Dale and Scott from The Collide Show.
• 57. Walk around to the exhibitor booths and get free stuff.
• 58. Inspiration!
• 59. Meet others who have iPhones and work with church media.
• 60. THREE After Effects User Groups.

Well, there you have it — 60 reasons to come to Echo! We hope to see you next week!

One of the many reasons I’m looking forward to Echo is interacting with the team from Church Community Builder. I’ve heard great things about their technology — they’re the pioneer of socially-driven Church Management Software. We asked them to share a little bit about who they are, what they do, and what drives them to serve the Church:

Our passion is to improve community, connectedness and communication within the local church. Our web-based solution streamlines the daily administration and leadership of a church by providing that one right place to enter, track and manage critical information. Whether it is event management, calendars, church membership, financial tracking, assimilation, youth check-in, small group management or website integration, CCB meets the needs of today’s “wired” churches with easy-to-use, dependable technology. Our goal is to help churches build a loyal, committed community that can connect, communicate and serve in today’s web-oriented culture.

To find out more about Church Community Builder, visit them online.

Have you heard about The Playback Drive yet? The Playback Drive is the first of its kind — it’s a plug-and-play visual worship library stocked with more than 320 images and video clips, including animated motions, animated loops, stills, footage, 50 TripleWides and more. In our COLLIDE review, we called The Playback Drive an “attractive and cost-effective solution,” and we weren’t kidding.

The Playback Drive will push you out of your media comfort zone and will kickstart visual worship at your church. It’s a great tool and it will take your service to the next level. Plus, The Playback Drive is PC- and Mac-compatible, and it works with all major presentation software titles.

The Playback Drive is a partnership of Orange Thread Media, worshipVJ and Visual Worshiper — all of whom we love — so check it out here.

I’m totally biased, but I love the Centerline New Media story.

In October of 2008, Aaron Holt was reading a COLLIDE Magazine article on Floodgate Productions (an amazing church media producer). Inspired by their story, Aaron called his friend Stephen Anderson that same day and said, “I’ve got an idea.” Thus, the guys plunged headfirst into the waters of church media production.

According to Aaron and Stephen, “Centerline New Media was created with the sole purpose of worshipping God with all the gifts He has given us. We absolutely love being able to create quality media that can be used to further the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” I love that perspective.

Check out their work at centerlinenewmedia.com. The CNM team hopes their site will not only be a resource for your media needs, but also a place to share ideas and learn from one another. And speaking of sharing ideas and learning from one another, be sure to say hi to the guys at Echo!

If you have some extra time during the day July 28th-29th, I’ll be hosting three After Effects User Group meetings (one each day) as an extra-curricular event to coincide with Echo Conference.

The Echo Conference is a church media conference that will be hosted at Watermark Community Church.  There is a registration fee if you would like to attend the entire conference, however, the After Effects User Group meetings are free.

Red Giant Software is providing an obscene amount of stuff for us to give away!  All you need to do is get there!

SCHEDULE:

Wed. July 28th, 1:15PM - Basic After Effects => Anyone may attend this group, but it will be specifically geared toward those who have never opened After Effects or have played around but just aren’t sure how to move from blank project to rendered animation.

Thurs. July 29th, 8AM - Intermediate After Effects => This meeting will involve a use-case with green screen footage, a graphics package, and a few Red Giant effects to build an announcement video. If you are getting comfortable in After Effects and just want to see how someone else uses AE and solves production issues, this meeting is for you!

Fri. July 30th, 8AM - Advanced After Effects => After Effects is far more powerful than Keyframes and Effects.  In this meeting we’ll first look at Shape layers and some various uses.  Then we’ll get into Expressions in After Effects:

•  What’s the expression language?
•  How can you figure out what the parts of an expression are for?
•  Some helpful uses of expressions
•  Where can you learn more about expressions?

LOCATION:
ROOM 339
Watermark Community Church
7540 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75251

CONTACT:

If you have any questions, please call me, Trent Armstrong, at 214.810.2262 if you have any questions. You may also email me mannerscast@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Trent_Armstrong.

Cheers,

Trent, Founder - Dallas After Effects User Group

• 31. Come hear a new talk from Donald Miller. Even we don’t know what he’s gonna say.
• 32. Find out what Dan Merchant wants the Lord to save us from.
• 33. Come see the premiere of several short films.
• 34. Do you like YouVersion? Come talk to the LifeChurchers about it.
• 35. Kem Meyer will show you how to have less clutter and less noise.
• 36. See if Carlos Whittaker will take video of you in his backseat… while he drives.
• 37. Learn everything you want to know about After Effects from Trent Armstrong.
• 38. Meet and hangout with the whole Echo/RT Creative Group team. We can’t wait.
• 39. This will be the biggest Echo ever!!!!!!!
• 40. Get new ideas for using media and technology at your church.
• 41. Learn about 316 Networks — share your story around the world.
• 42. Ask Todd Wagner tough theological questions… he loves it!
• 43. Get a copy of COLLIDE Magazine … I’m sure we’ll have them lying around.
• 44. Meet David Womack, an Igniter Media creative.
• 45. Hang out with peeps from Fellowship Church, OakHills Church, 121 Community Church …
• 46. … Oak Leaf Church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Christ Church Plano, Bel Air Presby and more!

If you haven’t registered for Echo yet, now’s the time!

The Shift Worship team has joined us at Echo before, and we’re so glad they’re going to be back. See, these guys create great media resources for churches and we believe in what they do. In fact, you can check out this COLLIDE article that spotlights Shift’s work, their story, and their creative process.

Because Shift does such great work, their All-Access Pass is an incredible deal. ShiftWorship.com’s All-Access Pass is unique in the world of worship media. Shift offers unlimited downloads for a low, once-a-year price. Thousands of churches and media professionals have already joined the Shift community, downloading from their ever-expanding library of nearly two thousand mini movies, motion backgrounds, sermon helpers, stills, and countdowns. New content is updated weekly, and customers continue to recommend Shift’s consistently high-quality and creative content to fellow worship team members and pastors around the globe.

Visit Shift’s booth at Echo for a conference special or check out ShiftWorship.com for more information.