Visit to Buckhead Church, Atlanta

Here's a report from my recent trip to Atlanta, Georgia.

First of all I visited Buckhead Church, one of three campuses lead by senior pastor Andy Stanley of Northpoint Ministries.

I went to the 9 am session. It lasts for one hour, and was lightly attended. As I was leaving a whole lot of people were arriving for the 11 am session. There is a third session at 6 pm.

The Buckhead Church was two blocks away from my hotel. The first thing that I saw as I approached were traffic direction signs that let me know I was on the right path. The next thing were orange vest clad volunteers who direct vehicle and foot traffic, and greet people arriving. They are part of the Host Services team. I spent some time later in the day with the leader of this team, Erin, who showed me around the facilities.

Volunteers on the greeting team guide foot traffic and greet arrivals.

Off-duty Atlanta police are paid to direct the traffic. The Buckhead Loop turns into a major traffic jam on Sundays.

Buckhead Church has 60 full time staff, and over a thousand volunteers on the various teams. Between the three campuses, Buckhead, Northpoint, and Browns Point, there are 270 staff. On Mondays they have a combined staff meeting out at Northpoint with Andy Stanley. Buckhead Church started five years ago, and in May of this year moved into the new facility. When Erin joined the staff four years ago there were 25 people on staff.

Inside the church I went up an escalator to the first floor and approached the information desk. There I asked if I could take some photos, and I was nicely attended by Kristy, who gave me a first-time visitor CD, and a number of other information brochures, including the order of service. The staff were really friendly and helpful.

The information desk is staffed by friendly volunteers.

I went into the auditorium, which seats 3000 people in a two tier seating area. At the door I was greeted by Owen, who shook my hand, spent a few minutes talking with me, and gave me the handout for the current series, "Legacy", given by Voddie Baucham, a black American preacher from Texas. The handout also included the Order of Service. 9 am - 10 am, perfectly programmed, and running like clockwork.

The main auditorium is a state-of-the-art hall just like any venue in a modern city used for speakers and musical performances. It has two large video screens flanking a large stage with a drum kit, keyboard, guitar and bass set up. There is a full lighting rig (and as I later saw, dry ice smoke machines), two cameras mounted on tripods toward the back, and the mother of all sound and lighting control desks, manned by volunteers and staff. The sound rig is controlled by Protools and all the sound processing is done in real time using software. There is no rack of effects. The speakers were using the high-end Countryman earset microphone (sold by Shure as the Shure WCE6T). Afterwards I talked with Chris and Ryan, the guys manning the sound desk, about using this, and Ryan explained that they have to profile each speaker before the event to get the right EQ to stop it from feeding back.

These first two videos are of the inside of the Buckhead Church auditorium. It has a mezzanine balcony and seats 3000. It was dark inside, as there are no windows, inspite of it being 9 am on a sunny Sunday morning, so it was a little hard to capture, but you get some idea.

This next one shows you the sound desk.

I sat down and watched the ads streaming on the video screens, promoting various upcoming events, and ongoing "environments" at Buckhead Church. Andy Stanley and his team use the metaphor of "environments" for their programs, because their overriding paradigm is one of intentional relationships, and they view everything in that context.

Check out the "ads" that play before the service.

At this point one of the staff came up to me and told me that I couldn't video during the service, due to copyright issues. The music that the band plays is copyrighted and they have some special license to perform it, but cannot reproduce it. You can see the copyright information in the ads video above.

So I didn't video any of the service. You can check out this video, from the Buckhead Church website, which shows you the band, which rocked out, with Moxy leading the worship. Moxy lead the morning I was there.

After three songs there was a collection (they pass around buckets and you put your offering in), and then the sermon began. As I mentioned previously, Voddie Baucham spoke.

Voddie Baucham and family.

Voddie wasn't there in person. His sermon was taped live in another campus on another day, and a huge video screen came down that covered the entire stage, and he appeared on there, as well as on the two side screens. Live speakers do a circuit around the campuses, so that everyone gets some live speakers, some recorded sermons.

Voddie's sermon was on "Multigeneration Legacy", and spoke to the value of family, based on scripture. It was a powerful sermon and I took a lot of realizations away from it, and a few notes. I also purchased a copy of his book "Family-Driven Faith" afterwards in the book store.

One thing is this: We will not see the world become completely Krishna Conscious in this lifetime. Therefore we must contribute our energies to structures and systems that will last on beyond this lifetime and continue to gather momentum and fulfill the mission. Family is one of those.

I took some notes on Voddie's presentation, including the content and the structure. He has a doctorate of divinity, and his preaching style shows it. Tony Evans, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, and now Voddie Baucham are all personal favorites of mine.

Voddie developed his message through three distinct phases, and did it in way that kept the attention engaged. I will write another post about his sermon. I have it CD, so I'll listen to it again, and review my notes before writing that one.

At the end of about 40 minutes Voddie said: "You are dismissed", and everyone got up and filed out.

After this I spent some time in the bookshop picking up DVDs, small group study guides, books, and audio books. Then I took a break at the hotel, and returned to tour the facility with Erin. She showed me through the four floors of facilities that they have for children.

That will be another post, so that you don't get too overloaded.