During 15 years of ministry media in worship has been there … well, 15 years. At a very base level there has been a printed bulletin with notes, announcements, some order of worship; there has been song material in some cases varying from official hymn and song books to printed sheets; and there has been some form of audio – organs, PAs, pianos, horns, and recorded music. For 7 years of ministry I also had the welcome addition of video media in worship. What a blessing it was and is. So here are some of my observations and reasons video in worship is a great addition. Continue reading →
{From Jerome Smith, coming on board as another contributor…}
Google Gmail has released an update that includes “Call”. You can find it under your chat menu on the left when you open Gmail. “Call” allows you to dial any number in the US for free using your computer’s microphone and speaker system.
If you have Google Voice, you can expand the “Call” options to do even more. Continue reading →
Do you like to visit lots of websites? Do you ever get tired of having to browse to all of those sites to find out what new content has been posted? Why not try setting up a feed reader? A feed reader is a website or software that allows you to assemble the posts from many websites into a quick and easy to read interface.
RSS (Commonly known as Really Simple Syndication)
Why is this a good thing? Continue reading →
Many churches wish to have podcasts available for individuals to stream (or even download). While this is a wonderful service to provide it is not without its problems. Let’s take a look at some of the problems and consider some solutions.
Problems: there are two common limitations you may run up against when you begin to do this. Continue reading →
If you are looking for a way to hide your email address from those lurking to steal and spam you, then check out scr.im.
It seems like a handy tool to ward off those mining for your precious email account. I haven’t looked into this much, but seems interesting. So, what do you think? Would you use it?
Looks like our UMCom friends have a helpful article on social media Etiquette and ministry! Very good points. Points for Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.
I like this one: “Do not use Twitter for hour-by-hour promotion of you or your church.”
Read more: Social Media Etiquette for Ministry
Computing technology is more ubiquitous than ever. Not only do people use computers in separate locations such as work, home and school, but some have multiple computers in each location and some even have computers with multiple operating systems. Adding to the ubiquity is the growing trend toward portable computing as the cost decreases and the processor power increases for laptops, netbooks, PDAs and smart phones. The use of multiple devices and operating systems can create a problem when accessing data. How to keep it where you can use it from any device in any location without keeping separate versions of your data.
Only a few of the possible ways to keep files synchronized will be presented in this post. Continue reading →
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Tagged synchronization
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I don’t have these thoughts fully fleshed out yet, since the experience is still so fresh to me. Nevertheless, I want to reflect for a moment on being a community of prayer in the midst of a digital world.
Let me give a bit of background. My mother just died, after a time in the hospital of about 3 weeks, more or less. The time where I was with her over her last weeks, and in the time following her death, was about 4 weeks over the course of 6. Over the course of that time, both my mother and I as well as the rest of our family received prayers in so many ways: we both received laying on of hands and anointing with oil by small groups, she received a prayer shawl from her church, we received calls and comments about prayer, we received Facebook prayers as both comments and messages, we received stacks of cards, we received dozens of emails, I received a number of texts and voicemails, and finally we received the hugs, handshakes and tears of many who walked with us through this. Continue reading →
So what’s with people being able to donate via text message? I texted something I saw in a commercial one time and got spammed and charged a bunch of fees. I had to text STOP or something to stop it. I saw this from our United Methodist Communications today… Continue reading →
“You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
When Jesus commissioned his disciples for sharing their witness of his teaching, resurrection, and life changing way of living He surely was not able to offer the tools for witnessing we have nearly 2000 years later. Today, witnessing goes beyond face-to-face relationships to include a host of technological innovations allowing our witness to go from home to the ends of the earth in a nano-second. Continue reading →
Today I was asked to set up a conference call for planning a fund-raising event for the Ryan Epps Home for Children in Haiti. I only had a few hours to set it up, so I thought I would make it as easy and cheap as possible.
The first thing I needed was a way to do the conferencing itself. Continue reading →
I stumbled upon some neat resources last week at Aviary.com.
Aviary is a powerful suite of browser-based design tools for people who create.
What does this mean for you? Well, ever wanted to make some small adjustments to a photo? Aviary has an Image Editor just for that. Continue reading →
I have a lot of files on my computer at the office that I need to access sometimes. I used to have to make a special trip to the office to access them, taking me away from my family. For a while, I was able to take my files around with me with a USB drive. But what if I lost the drive?
Dropbox took care of all these issues, with no cost at all, no pop-ups, no spam, and no spy-ware. Continue reading →
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