Last night, I was coming out of band rehearsal with Ward 9 when Alex got a news update on his phone that Steve Jobs had died. Facebook has been littered with Apple followers’ farewell’s and the blog world has been lighting up this morning. I even saw an article in the Washington Post about how the Westboro Baptist lunatics are planning to protest his funeral - idiots.
Steve Jobs and his brilliant mind have done so much in enabling me to do ministry and I just want to pay homage to him. This list is by no means a complete list of the capabilities of these items, but rather the way that I use them in my ministry at Impact and Ward 9
iTunes
- I have instant access to new worship music
- I can download thousands of messages from my favorite preachers, teachers, and events from all over the world in seconds
- I can whip up a playlist for any occasion in a few clicks of a button
- I can listen to songs that are my favorites OR listen to music that I have long since forgotten about with the click of a button.
- I can communicate with all of my favorite artists
- I can keep all of my other devices in sync instantly and do ministry instead of wasting my time trying to do it myself.
iPod
- I can listen to music, teaching, audiobooks, and just about anything else anywhere.
iMac
- I can display worship lyrics, backgrounds, video, announcements, live feeds, audio, and graphics all from the same interface
- I can control all of the above things with my iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
- I can record 24 tracks of audio simultaneously.
- I can control my monitor mix wirelessly from iPad
- I can mix down, EQ, master, and finalize a complete musical project.
iPad
- I can study and do sermon prep from anywhere, any time.
- I know where I am supposed to be, who I am going to be with, their contact information, what things I need for the meeting, low long it will take and how to get to said place, and then take notes on all of it, and sync it to the cloud.
- I am a better husband because I have a huge honeydo list that my wife can add to from any computer, anywhere, and it syncs to my iPad.
- I can play, schedule, and organize a complete worship service from anywhere, any time.
- The entire world of news, blogs, music, etc comes to me every morning with the push of a button.
- I can download books instantly and read anywhere.
- My kids learn, play, and spend time with me on my iPad.
- I have instant access to the Bible anywhere any time.
- I can journal about anything and everything, sync it to the cloud, and never lose a thing.
- I have instant access to all of my worship charts and can instantly transpose them into any key.
Steve Jobs and his brilliant have given me some incredible tools to use so that I can be a better husband, dad, pastor, and worship leader.
I don’t really know anything about Steve Jobs’ personal life as I am not a cult follower of Apple. Nor I do I know anything about his spiritual life other than what I have heard and read about. But I do echo Justin Taylor in saying
“From a spiritual perspective, this much can be said with certainty: Steve Jobs, created in the image of God, was a remarkable example of God’s common grace in his aesthetics and creativity and productivity. And we can all hope that in his final days, this recipient of so much common grace found rest in God’s sovereign saving grace.”
Each quarter we put a list of “Fighter Verses” on the Impact website. They are in the parents section, but you guys can go there and grab them too.
http://www.myimpact.us
If you have an iphone or ipod touch, one of the apps that I use is simply called
“Bible Memory” Here is a video to show you all that it is capable of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z55HLrDr_so
i got an email this morning from one of our leaders. She raised a concern that was voiced in her small group. The problem basically boils down to some of our students wanting to grow in their spiritual walk,but not necessarily having the tools or the direction to do so. For instance, we teach about Bible reading, prayer, and Bible memory, but our kids are asking, “well, what should I memorize? Where should I start reading?” This is a great quetion that I think we may have just overlooked, but I want to help our kids connect with God in any way possible.
This is actually a perfect question for me to answer because I love finding fun, creative, and useful ways to grow in my faith, and most of them center on technology. I love to use the computer, phone, iPad, etc to keep me connected to my Bible, prayer list, and quiet time. These are a few tools that I use and hopefully they will help you grow in your faith as well. You Version You Version is one of the coolest free Bible resources available today. YV offers many different reading plans that can last from a month up to an entire year. Whether you want to get through the entire Bible or the Pauline Epistles, you can get on a reading plan. There are around 100 different translations and version to choose from, I choose to use the English Standard Version. Additionally, You Version is available across multiple platforms. In addition to the easy to use online version, you can follow your reading plan on Android, iPhone, or iPad. You can also have your daily reading emailed to you. There are also share options so that you can share what God is teaching you via social media. You never have to be without your Bible and your reading plan!
The first app that I think needs to be highlighted in this series is Evernote. Evernote is one of the best apps that I use across all platforms. Evernote is a note-taking application, but the people on their team have taken it to an entirely new level that allows excellent organization and time management.
With Evernote you have a place to remember everything and access everything from anywhere. Evernote works on my Mac, PC, iOS devices, and Android. It also works on windows mobile, but I do not have a WM device.
NOTEBOOKS - Its hard to know where to start with all of the functionality. I can take notes and then assign them to different areas. The first level organization if notebooks. I have about 10 notebooks that I use - message prep, message notes (from other pastors sermons), song writing ideas, weddings and funerals, archives (from past years), student ministry, counseling appointments, and a few others. When you create a new note you assign which notebook it will go in to.
TAGS - The second level is tags. You can add custom tags to each note. For instance, whenever I take notes on a message, I create a tag for the book of the Bible that the teaching is from. Later, I can do a search and find all the messages from that specific book of the Bible.
If I am in a meeting, I will tag the people that were present in the meeting, subjects that we covered, etc. Then I can refer to those conversations and plans knowing full well who I had the conversations with, and what the outcomes were.
TO-DO’s - The third level is the ability to add check-boxes into the note that mark items that need action when I leave the meeting. This process leads to another program that I use in sync with Evernote called Egretlists.
Egretlists fully syncs with Evernote. Many pastors know that they spend a lot of time in meetings, and it can be a pain to shuffle back through all of those notes to find what needs to be accomplished. As I go, I put check-boxes in the note, it syncs with Egretlists, and when I get back to my desk, Egret has a clear and organized list of to-do’s for me to get moving on. If I add a to-do in Egret it syncs back with Evernote and when I finish a task it also syncs back with Evernote.
WEB CLIPPER - Evernote is always available on the web platform in addition to the many devices. They offer add-ons for any mainstream browser. You highlight the stuff on the page that you want, click the Evernote button, and it flies into your notebook.
INTEGRATION - Finally, Evernote is full of integration. Integration is key to being productive. Without all of your information being where you need it to be, it can be easy to get scattered. Evernote syncs with a TON of mobile, web-based, and desktop programs. Click here for the complete list.
Evernote might be the best program that I use period - regardless of the ipad. I works on everything and it works great. The team at Evernote is always working to make things better and I get updates all of the time!
Best of all - It’s FREE!
As a pastor I needed some good reasons to justify my iPad. Of course, i went ahead and got the iPad, and then I started the search for great apps that I could use and point people to when they asked me the infamous question, “do you like that thing?”
I wanted to be able to answer that question with an answer other than, “yeah, i love playing angry birds on this big screen.” I love efficiency and productivity and I was hoping that the iPad would live up to all of the hype and turn me into an efficiency and productivity machine.
I have found a bunch of apps that have done just this. The iPad has far exceeded my expectations, and honestly I am a big fan of pastors getting one. It is the best tool that I have ever used to keep myself in order, capture ideas, lead worship, disciple people, plan services, and everything else that goes into the life of a pastor.
In the next few posts, I will highlight several apps that I use to make myself more effecient and productive. There are a few blogs out there that highlight some basic functions of the iPad that pastors can use, but they do not go into detail. I want to really outline the uses of the iPad, but show those uses through specific apps that I use, and hopefully you can take these blog posts to your wife and convince her to let you buy an iPad for the glory of God!!
Gotta love this! Support our public employees!
I was excited to receive a call from my wife today pointing me to a Fox News Story on Skins. If you are not aware of all that is happening, you can visit my earlier blog post on the subject.
The second Episode of Skins aired on Monday night, and its viewing audience had decreased by 50%. People all over America have been extremely unhappy with the content, and the Parent Television Council has been wagin all out war on MTV and this show.
Well, a good first step has been made in shutting this show down. Fox News Reported today that due to all of the complaints that companies received over the last week, advertisers including Taco Bell, Wrigley, Subway, Foot Locker, L’Oreal, Shick, H&R Block, and General Motors have pulled their advertising dollars from the show.
MTV is standing behind the show, but frankly it doesn’t matter if MTV stands behind the show or not - dollars matter to MTV - period. And if Skins can’t make the network money, then off it goes.
An MTV insider reports that MTV could lose over 2 million dollars per show. They went on to say that “you’d be hard pressed to find any brand manager who would be willing to bring that to their board.”
In other words - Skins is just to risky for advertisers.
So this is good news - I’ll keep you updated as it continues to unfold. This makes my day better. Its good to know that when conservatives what to make fuss we can still get some things done.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I have been thinking a lot about how I communicate God’s love to people. I worry that a lot of what I say and a lot of my songwriting doesn’t meet people where they function in day to day life. I hope this song meets people in their pain and that they continue to ask God for the truth about who they are.
If you have not heard about this, there is a new TV show on MTV called Skins. The show follows the life of several teenagers through their episodes with sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.
I received an email earlier this week alerting me to the content and was curious - so I clicked over to MTV to see what the big hubbub was about. The first thing that caught me off guard was the TV-MA rating. Wait, I thought to myself. MTV is marketed to teens - how is there a TV-Mature Audience tag on this thing.
Well, I soon found out. 60 seconds into the show and I was terribly uncomfortable, and a shortly after I felt I needed to turn it off.
So I had a few seconds of information (already enough to make a very strong argument for why no one should watch this show) but I was curious what everyone else was saying. So I started to do a little research, and here are a few facts that you should know about Skins.
1 - The Parent Television Council released the “most urgent alert they have have ever sent,” out to millions of Americans this week. Their release stated that “this is the most dangerous program that has ever been foisted on your children.” MTV may be in trouble already for violating child pornography laws due to the content of the show and the age of the actors. Skins drew the largest number of viewers for any MTV debut ever. The problem - The age range was 12-34 -yes, you read that correctly - 12 years old!
As I was writing this blog, a friend came in and told me about a new website that MTV created to connect with Skins called whereitallwentdown.com. This site is a real time map where you can update your sin status via mobile phone or computer. The first thing that pops up when you go to the site is a message saying this:
Leave your mark on where it all happened!
Browse and share the places where memories were made - and the scattered pieces of nights you can’t really remember.
Post the truth about the biggest parties, heartbreak, friends, sex, and every kind of trouble.
Walt Mueller at the Center for Parent and Youth Understanding wrote a good blog on the subject that you can read it HERE
As I sit here at my desk there is a sense of defeat that is looming over my head. It is terribly heart-breaking to me that this is the content that sells when there is truth about a Savior who gave his life away because of his love for us. I don’t know what to say. I’m just kind of staring at my screen because this whole thing blows my mind. I hope you can use this to have good conversation with your family. Please don’t ignore all of the press - your kids are talking about this, so please talk about it with them. Your kids need to hear from you, they need truth to pour in over lies. Simply creating a mandate to not watch the show will only accomplish them not watching it (possibly). Good conversation can be an opportunity to speak truth and life into a dark world. God bless you all as you walk this difficult road in raising teens in a world that makes it so hard.
[The Tower of Babel]
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
(Genesis 11:1-9 ESV)
The quick exchange of what happens in the story of the tower of Babel is very interesting. The people on the earth begin to figure out how things work. They learn to make bricks and make mortar and start to build. The GOAL of the building, as given in ver 4 is for the people to “make a name for themselves.” So God comes down and checks things out and realizes that what they have done and the things that they have figured out are only the beginning of their self-absorbtion and pride.
I wonder what God thinks about the world that we live in. We have come so far in so many areas - specifically technology. As I hold my cell phone in my hand, I have a tool that can do an immense amount of things. I can communicate with people all over the world, I can use satellites in space to pinpoint where I am at and where I need to go, I can play games, write myself notes, check gas prices, surf the internet, update my facebook status, make calculations, keep track of my diet and fitness, take pictures and video of things that can immediately be shared with people all over the world, I can plan a shopping trip, plan a vaction, check my flight status, book a hotel, book a car, book a table for dinner, shop at millions of stores all over the world, keep up on world news, record new song ideas, check my bank account, update my blog, and have the potential to download and use millions of other applications that can enable to me to do millions of other things.
And this is just the capability of my phone.
But here is the thing - the reason that God confuses the people is not because of their innovation or their desire for advancement. the reason that he separates them is because he sees that the focus of their innovation is to make a name for themselves - not honor God.
And so, I think we need to take a step back from our world, the things that we use, and the innovation that we have been blessed with in 2011, and ask this simple question:
“How am I using these things?”
Do I have the things that I have, use the things that I use, and spend money on the things that I spend money on so that God might be glorified. Here are a few things that I know I need to look at and that I would encourage you to look at as well.
Do these things honor God or puff up self?
Phone call conversations
Text conversations
Facebook and Twitter updates
Pictures and Video that you put online.
Entertainment that you engage in.
The ways that you spend your money.
These are all the type of things that God had a problem with in Genesis 11, and therefore he changed all their languages and scattered them all over the place. Are there things that have come into your life - problems or struggles, that maybe God is using - just like he used the language change at the tower of Babel, to snap people out of their selfishness and draw them back to him?
How do you need to allow God to draw you back to himself. Where are the areas that you need to redirect glory? Good food for my soul - I hope its good for yours as well
