My Journey, His Glory

Evernote, getting organized?

rodney — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:32:32 +0000

For years I used Google notebook as a way to collect various pieces of info from the net. I would come across random sayings, e-mails, quotes, ideas and other related things that I wanted to save for later. Of course, I’m not too organized and I never knew how long I would save something before I needed it and before I knew it I had thousands of items saved in my notebooks. Everything was great, I had a little button I could click in firefox to auto save selected items into google notebook. Then I get an e-mail from Google informing me that they are discontinuing the Notebook project. I was seriously freaking out until I found Evernote. It was truly a life saver. Not only did it do mostly everything that Google Notebooks did, it also came with desktop clients for my mac and windows box and an app for my blackberry. I use prism to load evernote on my linux machine and, all of this was free. If you know me at all you know that if it’s free then it is for me. Need a way to take care of your note-taking needs? Check out evernote at www.evernote.com

Some Thoughts on Contemplative Youth Ministry

rodney — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:04:34 +0000

I’m currently in the process of reading a book titled “Contemplative Youth Ministry” by Mike Yaconelli. I figured I’d take a few minutes to share my thoughts. After reading numerous reviews (good, bad, and ugly) on this book I decided to read it for myself. I found the book to be very well written and to be based on a premise that is easily accepted by most people - we live in a fast paced world. In one story shares that a young boy decided to name himslef president of the “Slow Club”. This boy, by making a commitment to take things slowly, was able to see many things that others in this multi-tasking world would normally miss. Although some portions of this book suggest things that I wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable with (use of holy words, icons to help you focus) the overall message that I received is to simply slow down. Another big message that came through was the need for prayer not only in our ministries, but for our ministries. Not just prayers, but intentional focused prayers for ourselves, our leaders, and our students. Overall I would recommend this book with slight caution to the methods used in the meditation portions. Great book.

Free Group Text Messaging from your website

rodney — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:23:08 +0000

This is a simply amazing plug in for wordpress. If you run your church or youth group website on wordpress this could potentially save you $60 or more a year. As a youth minister I’ve tried various ways of keeping in contact with my students. I’ve gotten myself a facebook, signed up for twitter, log-in to msn/google chat on a regular basis, gotten a phonevite account (see post on phonevite), adn send group e-mails. Yet nothing can communicate with teens like txt can. At first I signed up for 300 txts a month, that was a bad idea. The few services I found charged a nominal amount per month. But then I realized that $5 a month still adds up to $60 for the year. So I was lef t with no idea what to do. How was I going to communicate with all my students on a regular basis easily? Wordpress came to save the day again. I found EasySMS which allowed me to integrate the system into my wordpress site and communicate with all my teens though the wordpress dashboard. It’s a really easy system to set up. Simply install the pgin and activate the system and the widget. Put the widget into your wordpress sidebar or footer and viola! it’s ready to use. You can then sign up and get started. EasySMS lets you put subscribers into groups and send any number of messages for free. Did you catch that last part FREE!!!. Check it out for yourself. Don’t have a wordpress site for your ministry? Check out ShareYourChurch.com or BanyanData.com to get started.

Free Wordpress Plugin SMS EasySMS Group Text Messaging from your website | Mister Nifty.

More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time

rodney — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:25:43 +0000

More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time .

Now this is amazing. When our media tells us over and over again how much our culture is turning away from Christian morals and beliefs we see something like this. Granted 51% is not a phenomonally overwhelming number it is still officially over half. While not a resounding majority, it is a shift in thinking. It makes me wonder what is causing this change? It is certainly not church attendance or government influence. So, what do you think is causing this difference? What can we attribute this to.

Church Marketing Sucks: Churches Should Learn to Shut Up Too

rodney — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:03:38 +0000

Church Marketing Sucks: Churches Should Learn to Shut Up Too.

I was just reading this article the other day and thought “Huh, this is good stuff”. Of course, then the question arrives of how do you share this information with others without it seeming like you’re pointing out flaws. I’ve been a member and minister at small congregations my whole life and this seems to hit the nail on the head for most of them. We all tend to over explain everything, especially when there are visitors. By explaining we feel as if we’ve helped them to understand something about our church, when in reality we’ve started them down a path of wondering what else we’re not telling them. So, what do you think? Is this common in all churches, or just small ones? And how do we approach the subject with church leadership in a kind and gracious manner? Let me know.

EXAMEN.me (an awesome resource)

rodney — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:28:20 +0000

I’ve been hearing about the practice of examen for awhile now. I’ve briefly looked into it and thought it looked good, but never really delved deeply into it. Then, an God-send came in the form of a web-app. I know, I can hear it now. Why do you need the internet to worship and study God’s word? Well, I’ll tell you. EXAMEN.me brings the whole concept of “examen” to the masses. It comes in two versions, free and registered. The great thing is that both are free. The only difference is that the registered version allows you to journal and keep your notes saved on the website as well. Personally I would rather journal in a seperate notebook and simply let the site lead me through the process. This past week I used it in my Sunday School class. I printed out a sheet that gave each teen five different passages to choose from and led them through the same process found at EXAMEN.me. The students were not only quiet, but actually spent the entire Sunday School time digging deeper into God’s Word for themselves and were able to share with each other after class what God had pointed out to them. The site puts “examen” into an easy to understand process. I for one endorse this site fully.

Link: http://www.examen.me

a great youth ministry ministry

rodney — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:52:21 +0000

I have got to take a minute to brag. Dare 2 Share Ministries is a wonderful resource lead by some really great people. Living in Atlanta area normally gives me easy access to some awesome resources (conferences, seminars, other trainings). Because of my day job, I normally don’t take advantage of many of these. However a few months back Dare 2 Share hosted a luncheon (only had to take the afternoon off) downtown to help promote their upcoming conference, but also to hold a training called “Turn your youth group into a reality series”. It was at the ESPN Zone downtown and offered a free lunch, so I grabbed my gear, invited my bride to join me, and we headed off. The place was easy to find and we got there a bit early (a first for me). As we came across the parking lot a familiar face came up to greet us. Greg Stier, the president of Dare 2 Share was in the parking lot. We stopped and talked to him for a few minutes before heading inside. That was a great experience. I was expecting to meet their area director, Robert Coulter, and watch a training video that covered the concepts, but Greg was there himself. This was big for me. He was very open and much more down to earth than a lot of people in his position are. I learned that the church he grew up in would make Bob Jones University look liberal. It got me thinking, how awesome it would be if the pastors of the church met people in the parking lot? The training was great, I plan to write more about it later. At the time of training I ws leading our youth group through “The Gospel Journey” video curriculum, and have now begun them on the “You’re Next” 30 week study covering 30 core truths of the Christian faith. All in all I have really enjoyed getting to know the Dare2Share team and am really looking forward to tye conference in March. Check it out for yourself. www.dare2share.org Until next time, BDFRNT!

Phonevite

rodney — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:56:37 +0000

I heard about this website shortly after bringing up the idea of a phonetree system at our church council. The phonetree system seemed a bit expensive for us at the time, so I went and explored my options. I saw lots of web services that seemed to do the trick, but all of them required a credit card or the purchase of minutes. Finally I came across Phonvite.com. This web service was awesome. For those of you who don’t know I like FREE. Phonevite knows how to do FREE very well. Phonevite allows you to make calls to 25 people completely free of charge. For small churches or youth groups this may be all that is needed. Phonevite does add very brief advertisement to the end of each recording that currently just advertises for phonevite, the paid service does not contain these ads. Phone also gives you real time reporting of who does and doesn’t answer and how long the person listens to the recording. This is all included in the free version. The paid version allows you to request RSVP and messages back to the phonevite system. This truly is a phenominal system. You simply have to see it for yourself. Quite possibly the best phone recording system out there. Try it out and let me know what you think.

from the mouth of babes

rodney — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:18:49 +0000

My son walked up to me this morning with a glow in the dark plastic snake. waiting for him to throw it at me or tell me it was broken he said “dad, this is like the snake that Moses used in the desert” Huh? Where did that come from? So I said “Huh?” He then proceeded to tell me the story from Exodus and all about the snakes. I know a bunch of adults that would not have had a clue what he was talking aboyt. We’re not talking about your normal Bible story here. One of tye great things about having kids is they remind you of the awe you once had reading the Bible. Seeme like one more reason Jesus Himself said that we had to become like little children again, maybe it’s time to gain that awe back again.

Family Intro

rodney — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:22:17 +0000

What can I say, a wife of almost a decade, three little boys under 8 years old, and some fairly interesting neighbors. We’ll have plenty to share with you about how my family is impacting my journey.