Tech for the Local Church
"Eddie"
Tim Stark tim@seeds4sermons.com English Instructor / Emmanuel College / Franklin Springs, GA Freelance Manuscript Reviewer-Editor-Writer / Higher Life Development Services Writer / Editor / Photographer / Pastor-Teacher / Event Promoter Seed4Sermons.com | ministryvault.com Songs4Sermons.com | Slides4Sermons.com Scenes4Sermons.com | theartofthevisualmetaphor.blogspot.com Tim’s ongoing prayer, 30+ years into a life of professional ministry and merely amateur tech-geekery: "Since my youth, O God, You have taught me, and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me till I declare Your power to the next generation, Your might to all who are to come." --Psalm 71:17-18
Homepage: http://www.seeds4sermons.com
Posts by "Eddie"
MediaShout 3.5+: The Old Has Gone; the New(er) Has Come!
Oct 27th
In the twinkling of an eye, a transformation occurred. I was discouraged and disgusted with MediaShout 3.0, but now I’m officially a fan-user of MediaShout 3.5.b742 (get it as a FREE legacy-upgrade with any registered copy of 3.0). And the early returns suggest that I will be at least as happy and productive with 3.5 as I was disappointed and stressed-out by 3.0. Not only did I find out that my October 17th changes to the default template settings had been saved, but I was even able to edit them with some other improvements which came to mind during the service. Our MediaShout upgrade is not only working well on our system, it’s working very well with no lock-ups. Twinkle, twinkle …
I even tried to lock it up …
Interface Transformation: Things to Come “As the Ruin Falls”?
Oct 23rd
What will we call them when portable computers aren’t really meant to be “laptop-centric” anymore (as in that point in the near-future we can call ‘a week ago, last Thursday’ — last February, actually)? That “when” has already arrived, of course, but the ‘future-then’ was just a hint at the reality of the ‘future-now’.
Several of the particulars covered in our first podcast went well beyond my personal experience and technical expertise, but they were all things I’m glad I learned more about. Actually, the subject of “bringing your tech-friend to church” was especially interesting to me, in part because it’s a geek-factor game for me to guess what tech might be like in in the future-soon.
Now, here comes engadget.com with their usual, ahead-of-the-competition, insider-esque reveal of a game-changing development in the hardware we’ll be using to make precious little bits (and bytes) rain down on us from our connection(s) to The Cloud.
Up Next: No Screens is Good Screens. The story goes like this …
Tech-Buying Tips: Stewardship of Time, Energy and Expense
Oct 22nd
This short, straightforward article, “Small-business owners might need outside help with tech,” by Laura Petrecca of USA Today is loaded up pretty heavily with good advice and practical guidelines for her target audience, and I think it’s similarly suitable and potentially helpful for the Ministry Vault audience– people in ministry who are also into tech-tools as vehicles for ministry. In particular, those of us who are over-committed, under-funded and tech-savvy more by intuition and stubborn persistence than by formal training and programming certification.
The bullet-basics of the most relevant info touch on …
- cost — just because buckets full of money can be poured into tech upgrades doesn’t mean that they should be … especially now that so much is shifting to the cloud.
- security — data back-up and access-authorization controls are all too often loved “in word in tongue” but no so much “in action and in truth,” and it is essential to know the word, security, and not merely listen to it, but “do what it says.”
- social networking — more and more prospects (as much for flock in the fellowship as for stock on the shelves) are being “moved” by way of micro-messaging in webs of personal interconnections. It’s nothing to question or disparage– it just is, and we need to make it work for our mission.
The cut-to-the-chase suggestions are copied after the jump.
Good News for Friends of THE Good News in THE Good Book
Oct 20th
Very little need be said: Google bringing Dead Sea Scrolls online … except for the fact that this has been a long time coming (long-promised, oft-rumored, repeatedly-requested, highly-anticipated — still just announced as a work in progress, so prayers continue), and it will be GREAT to see it becoming more fully “open source.” After all, that’s exactly how it should be seen: The Ultimate Open Source!
May God bless the increase of access to His Word with an increase of His kingdom — to His glory and our tremendous benefit. Amen and Amen.
Printing a Building: the Future of Construction is Now-ish
Oct 20th
It is now possible to “print a house.” Not a picture of a house. Not a scale model plan for a house. While the input of construction design ideas has almost completely moved into the digital world, the output of some of these designs can increasingly go straight to actual materials. Software in. Concrete “Hard-ware” out. From clicks to bricks. For at least the last five years or so, the technology of building construction has been veering off on a skew line from the contemporary fashions of glass and stone and steel, and, in the process, may be offering the church a path to loving our neighbors as ourselves in a most remarkable way, esp. those neighbors who are “the least of these brothers of ours.” This technology may literally put new, affordable, secure, easily-built housing at our fingertips– with the click of a mouse button. Here are just a few links to demonstrate and confirm the concept:
Media Shout 3.*, Part III: It Loves Me? It Loves Me Not! Well, Maybe a Little …
Oct 19th
So far it looks like The Glitches in our church’s version of Media Shout (3.0) seem to have been resolved with the registered upgrade to 3.5.742. I have not had a surprise lock-up or shut-downs in the 2 weeks I’ve used it so far. That’s been very helpful — a very welcome development. One serious, brow-furrowing glitch remains which involves arbitrary, phantom text exchanges/loss, but I’ll hold off on that in anticipation of the Media Shout interview we hope to arrange for an upcoming podcast episode of The Vault.
I don’t think these program bugs should have existed in the earlier version, but then I wish I had been perfect in my younger years, too.
Hey, it is a fallen world, after all. No, the program bugs seem to have been exterminated, and it’s right to give that fact its ‘propers’.
And it’s also reasonable to document the issues that I still find problematic in the User Interface.
I’ll keep it short and hopefully not too un-sweet. It’s not that I’m mad exactly … just disappointed.
Here are the few improvements I expected to see in the 3.5 upgrade (but didn’t):
MediaShout 3.*, Part II: Puppy Dog Tears, Free-Floating Fears & a Couple of Reluctant Jeers
Oct 18th
There are MUCH bigger problems in the world than my troubles with MediaShout 3.5 (and the original version we started with), but there are ongoing problems with this program we paid good cash money for, so I’m cataloging my issues here. The troubles fall together in two categories: Glitch-Bugs and Interface-Fails.
In this post, I’m going to address the glitch-bugs which plagued us in the original version we bought.
Next time, I’ll look at what seem to me like glaring user-unfriendliness issues with text and layout formatting controls and defaults.
I am very happy to say, though, that very gracious contacts have been made by someone at mediashout by way of Twitter, and there is a good possibility that we’ll have a podcast interview with a company rep very soon. I hope to find out that it’s all a misunderstanding on my part. And if it is, I’ll spend at least twice as much time writing up heartfelt cheers for all the ways it works well and and sincere apologies for how wrong I was all along. I hope that’s exactly what happens.
In the meantime, I ain’t a hater, but …
MediaShout 3.*: How Do I Hate Thee? I Begin to Count the Ways …
Oct 16th
I honestly — sincerely — do not intend to be provocative or be seen as hostile with this title line or the content of this whole post, but, also, I wouldn’t write it if I didn’t mean it. I’m not trying to make anyone mad, hurt anyone’s feelings or cost anyone a job, but I am writing this because good money was spent in good faith, and the program’s performance was and is extremely poor. The simple fact is: it is NOT stable. It is so unstable, in fact, that it’s almost unusable, and I wish I didn’t have to use it at all.
And that’s a REAL problem, because, at our church, we had and have very little money to spend on this part of our service-support equipment, and we spent it in good faith on Media Shout 3.[something]. We don’t have money to buy anything else right now, and we definitely won’t consider upgrading to a 4th generation version of the program since what we have has been so problem-ridden.
We needed it to work, and we needed it to be user-friendly for volunteers of varying computer-skill levels, and we needed it to solve problems and increase our effectiveness. We expected it to have some basic, common functions which have been standardized in word-processing and graphic presentation software for years. Unfortunately, it has never measured up to these needs and expectations.
Let me be sure to clarify that any and all comments here are ONLY my opinions based on my actual experiences, and they only apply to our registered copy of the 3rd generation — both the one that we bought and the version 3.5+ which was downloaded as an authorized upgrade after the morning services on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010. I can hope that our copy (and subsequent upgrade) was somehow incorrect, damaged or corrupted, but I don’t make that assumption.
Dr. Google-Love (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Love the Apps)
Oct 12th
The headline reads:
(dateline: the Cloud) — Incremental Improvements Add Up to Revolutionary Innovation
As if we needed another reason to recommend that everyone give a listen at the first possible opportunity to our podcast interview with Brad Stark (we shamelessly and repeatedly plug this episode [#4] ’cause Brad’s expertise and information are just that good), here we are again with another.
Make that 4 others. Yes, 4 reasons, and all of them are 9s.
Top 5 Ministry Vault Sponsorship Cold Calls (We Won’t Be Making)
Oct 10th
Top 5 Ministry Vault Sponsorship Cold Calls We Aren’t Going to Make
5. Joel Osteen’s Barber’s Neighbor’s Accountancy Firm
(from what we understand, the senior partners might be troubled by our ‘you-name-it-we-claim-it’ approach to itemized business expense deductions)
4. Dan Brown
(there’s no mysterious document hidden in a cryptex which explains why either …)
3. Scientology
(we want to be absolutely ‘clear’ about that, okay?)
2. Two Words: Ashton Kutcher
(he drops his Twitter account just about the time I sign up for one … coincidence? I don’t thi- … um, yeah … actually, it is.)
… And the Number One Ministry Vault Sponsorship Cold Call We Aren’t Going to Make:
Agapage: Good Call!
Oct 9th
Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you Mr. Jared Folkins (and friends), mastermind behind an ingenious example of elegant solution-ware™ called Agapage.
It’s possible to feel the love just from the name alone (esp. by you Greek-freaks out there– you know who you are), but it gets even better when finding out what it means and does.
caveat lector: when you see it for the first time, please take my recommendation to tightly hold a large nerf-ball (or similar soft object) behind your back with both hands. This safety measure may prevent a serious injury when the immediate reaction is to perform a rocket-force, mark-leaving, mild-concussion-inducing, ‘coulda-had-a-V8′-on-steroids face-palm. The kind that says, “Why didn’t I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I think of that?!” White-knuckle that nerf. The forehead you save will probably be your own.
Why the risk of this kind of quasi-self-aggressive response? It’s simple. It works. It helps.
It can also save a truckload of money (literally) for churches currently using or planning to offer a ‘parent-contact’ system to attenders.
‘Google Apps’ Loves You, Church, and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Data
Oct 8th
Improve organizational operations
Raise awareness for your cause
I heard some good news the other day that I wish someone had told me long ago. It’s something that every church staff, para-church team and any other not-for-profit organization can receive as a great blessing, and it might even be a game-changer which helps us get God’s Good Word of Hope out more easily and with great effect.
Brad Stark of Appirio.com puts it like this: “Every dime saved on communications and data-management software costs by using Google Apps can go to the Kingdom instead … and that’s a LOT of dimes!” So true, and Google Apps for non-profits is already helping ministry groups all over the world.
But is it helping your ministry? If not, maybe you have the same problem I had. I knew Google Apps, but I needed the Google way explained to me “more adequately.” I had no idea that their slug-line was something they wanted me to take personally:
You are changing the world. We want to help you.
FtW with Mission Ministry Video-Conferencing: Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other
Oct 7th
Thanks to the folks at the Career Couch section of The New York Times, here are 6 basic questions and 6 practical answers about how to make the most of real-time video-interaction. It’s offered here in hopes that subscribers and visitors will be encouraged to give serious consideration to bringing located missionaries right into the “living room” of their congregations for interviews, as prayer-leaders, as sermonizers and devotional messengers.
How many of our missionaries would be thrilled to know that they are considered living, sharp, active members of our local faith-community, even though they might be half-way ’round the world? How many of us can benefit from a greater sense of God’s church universal from His perspective– physically distinct but spiritually interconnected, joined and fitted together, growing up into the fullness of the stature of Christ as each part does its work?
While we consider how to give this idea a try, these guidelines can be useful in the effort “to make the most of the times.”
Staying Professional in Virtual Meetings By EILENE ZIMMERMAN Published: September 25, 2010
Shards are for Sharing: Google Apps (esp. for Non-Profit Organizations)
Oct 6th
Brad Stark is a Google Solutions Architect (is that one of the 10 greatest job titles ever, or what?!) at Appirio.com, and one the MANY things I learned about Google Apps– for non-profits, including churches– in our recent interview with him (podcast episode coming soon!) is that “shards” are a very good thing for cloud-users who are glad to no longer worry about data-recovery, back-up redundancy plans, happy instead to enjoy all the benefits of flexible, multi-user accessibility to documents and data-security with none of the latent web-security issues we have heard so much about.
How can that be? Shards! That’s how.
Approaching Omnipresence: Video-Conferencing as Ministry & Mission
Oct 5th
We here at ‘House o’Vault’ see tremendous potential for increased mission awareness and support with the use of web-based video-conferencing (by Skype or similar cloud-platforms). The benefits seem obvious, practical, and dynamic (and also completely, repeatably scalable), but adoption-adaptation-implementation is not, as far as we know, widespread (or even trending, for that matter). That seems like an ongoing series of missed opportunities …
For the time being, let’s forego any wild-eyed, leisure-suited rants which amount to old-wineskin-new-wine adaptations of church attendance-contests gone-by– in the spirit of mid-20th century “programming” which involved Sunday School bus overloading and pine-stressing revival service pew-filling– to hold ”fill an iPad” services (w/guest visitors counting when Skyped in from all corners of the compass). Some by-gones are best gone bye-bye.
And there’s no need to add to the “can-God-make-a-rock-so-big-He-can’t-lift-it?” ruminations about how many angels could be dancing on the head of a pin if each had an iPhone 4 running face time with other angels on other pinheads …
Pinheads, indeed.
No, instead, let’s consider the real-life, real-world, frontline, gates-of-hell-shall-not-prevail work that missionary ministers are doing on our behalf and by means of our all-too-thinly-stretched church budgets.
Safe and Saferer: Google Apps are Good(er than ever)!
Oct 4th
When ‘good’ data management and security protocols aren’t good enough for some people, they must be made ‘gooder.’ And ‘gooder’ can only be made ‘gooder-est’ when ‘safe’ is made ‘saferer’.
And ‘saferer’ is exactly how to describe what Google Apps is doing with data security in the very ‘cloudy’ extended forecast for us all here in Internetville.
Not all clouds are the same, and this helpful article, Is user data safe in the cloud?, points out several significant security concerns with some forms of cloud-computing. The upshot is that the cloud itself is not inherently secure (no big surprise there), because not all cloud-based business is done with secure protocols. This only news in the sense that some of the causes and effects — the implications for unsuspecting, perhaps too-trusting users– are explained in non-tech-geek clarity.
All of this very practical information invites a closer look to see what IS secure and reliable in the cloud. Once again, we can say hello to our little friends (you guessed it): Google Apps.
Cloud-Computing: Eternal Security?
Oct 1st
No, not quite, but it IS about as close as we can get our data to it in this crazy, mixed-up, fallen, and virus-ridden world– both analog and digital …
“To cloud or not to cloud” is no longer the question. The plain truth is: the use of cloud-computing for every kind of data management, development, storage, access, sharing, back-ups and protection IS, and, while the experts are quick to say that it can still be improved, those who know best make audaciously bold– but verifiably-accurate– statements like this (courtesy of Neil MacDonald of Gartner by way of Scott Campbell at CRN.com):
Cloud Security Is Better Than What You Have Today
“Who Will We Send (Online), and Who Will Go (Do Tech) for Us?”
Sep 28th
While we are busy deciding what technologies to use as ministry tools, it’s important to remember that we need people (both staff and volunteers) to supervise, implement, and develop the technology to productive effect in the Kingdom.
We might have the best (or most expensive) programs and systems that money can “buy,” but they won’t work unless we have people to use them and make the most of them.
A recent listing for an online magazine position prompts another round of discussion in the Google-Apps-are-Church-Management-tools discussion which Brook Drumm (fearless leader here at M’Vault and at portablesermons.com) started.
It appears that, increasingly, the question of whether “to cloud or not to cloud” is already be a moot point. If the business world adapts (much of it already has) to web-based applications– leaving on-site network systems behind– then they will be seeking employees with cloud-based information management talents and training. Schools will meet that market demand by supplying a prospect-pool of graduates– adepts– comfortable and familiar with these tools as a matter of course. This is the new basic skill-set.
Not only are the tools of data management shifting to the cloud, the workforce must necessarily follow. This workforce includes the brothers and sisters in Christ who minister alongside us by means of technology. And Google Apps is the leaps-and-bounds-ahead leader in the field.
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