Tech for the Local Church
Apps
Fax for Free Online
May 26th
If you need to fax a file or document and you don’t have a fax machine. Check out faxZERO. It’s Free!
Free Website Giveaway!
Mar 14th
Is your church website ugly? Need a new one?
Tony Morgan and Collide Media are giving a free website overhaul (valued at $1499) to whom ever has the ugliest website and the most interesting story.
Click here and register to win!
CrazyChurch.com
Feb 19th
Want some free swag? Check out crazychurch.com
Three churches came together with two beliefs
- Church stuff out to be the best stuff.
- Churches ought to share that stuff.
My kind of people!
LinkLove
Feb 16th
Check out some great posts…
- Over at ChurchCrunch he did a great post on website layout called “Above the Fold“
- 9 reasons why youth ministry should host an online bible study.
- What is the role of the Pastor of Arts? [Video]
- You have nothing to prove, and no one to impress. [Video]
Share large files…
Feb 9th
Need to setup a shared folder online to store large files [videos, music, photos, etc.]?
Google Notebook to Evernote
Jan 29th
I know I’m late in the game, but Google announced that Google Notebook will go away in the future.
I suggest using Evernote as a solution. Evernote is very easy to capture things off of the web and then add your ideas. You can journal and much much more. Also Evernote has an Google Notebook import for those who don’t want to re-enter anything. Very cool! And it’s free. (They have premium edition that gives you more features and better experience, but the free account is fine for basic capturing functions)
Here how Evernote works…
I believe it is very important in ministry to get your ideas out of your head and on to paper or a electronic document of some sort. So develop some system and stick to it!
iDEANATION
Nov 26th
Need help on your creative planning for ministry? Or do you have great ministry idea that needs to be shared with the nation?
Check out: www.goideanation.org
I’m so pumped that someone finally made a web2.0 do to this! Kudos iDEANATION
Have a great thanksgiving!
VideoTeaching.com
Nov 20th
LifeChurch.tv is about to roll out a new endeavor. Sign up for email updates.
Record for Podcast Interviews!
Aug 28th
Call Recorder for Skype is by far the best little add-on that I’ve seen to use to record interviews via phone call through Skype.
It’s $15 and it’s for Mac only.
PowerGramo does the same thing for Windows users and it’s free.
ProPresenter3
Mar 14th
For all those Churches that are looking for an upgrade from those power point presentations. Meet ProPresenter3.
ProPresenter is a lyric presentation system for churches and ministries. Created by Brad Weston while he was working on the “Production Team” for North Point Community Church, and it’s the software their use for the Catalyst Conference.
I have a copy of the original release and version 3 is completely redesigned with some really cool features. You now have the ability to save Playlist from the worship service just like you would save an itunes playlist. There’s “Dynamic Scripture Look Up”, so any time your pastor strays from the notes you can look up the scripture and have it on screen in seconds. You can import all those old power point presentations, and it even supports keynote. There’s view options, foregrounds, backgrounds, transitions, and you can even post announcements and let parents know when their child needs them in the nursery. These guys thought of everything!
Unfortunately it’s not free, but they are pretty loose with their licensing agreements. And you can download a trial before you buy.
Check out all of the Video Tours Heres
Use MetaX to tag mp4 video files
Mar 7th
More and more churches are evolving from podcast to vodcast (video podcast). If that includes you check out MetaX, it’s a really simple and effect FREE meta-data tagger for mp4 files and their derivatives like m4a audio files.
Basically after you’ve edited your video and your ready to upload, you just drag and drop your file on MetaX and the above dialog box opens. You can change the tittle, the artist, the genre and just about any other category you can think of. You can even add a copy write, episode url, keywords, a brief description and cover art to give your vodcast a nice polished look.
And the best part is when your done adding and editing the meta-data, you just click the write button and you’ll hear a cow moo when MetaX is finished.
It’s only for mac but they did just updated to Leopard. So if your a windows user you could try Jaikoz . The downside is it’s $30.00 and probably more powerful then what you really need.
Planning Center Online
Jun 25th
Summer projects are smacking around the Church 2.0 team – for a glimpse of how Kez is occupying his summer, just look at his blog! For me, it’s just family stuff and my day job. So, the outcome has been a bit of a slow down on the blog here. Also, in case you missed it, the RSS feed for the last post was a little flaky, so you’ll want to make sure you check out Remember the Milk.
Getting on to the point…
Planning Center Online is this really cool tool for planning worship services. Every now and again I use a tool and find myself thinking that the person/team behind this really knows the situation for which is was built. This is one such tool.
I’m not sure how to succinctly summarize this tool’s features except to say that it does everything you’d hope that it would (sequence songs, and other elements of the service) as well as store mp3′s, lyrics and other relevant attachments (paid version), schedule and email personnel according to their roles, track and report song usage, import song data from CCLI, and transpose chord charts (also on the paid version) – all on an online interface you can share with everyone involved in the planning and implementation of your church’s worship services.
The basic version is free and very functional (this is what I’m presently using). Paid versions add some features and the ability to expand with more personnel and multiple ministries.
The Planning Center Team has done an above-average job with tutorials and walk-throughs of the app’s features. Their “11-Minute Overview” explains it all pretty well in about, well, 11 minutes.
Online Resources
May 14th
Using Google Spreadsheets, Church 2.0 has started to compile a list of useful sites for Pastors. We have organized the sites into the following categories Study, Theology, Worship, Preaching, & Media. These categories are found at the bottom of the spreadsheet. [View the List]
Throughout this week I’ll highlight a few of my favorite sites for each category.
This is a working/evolving document. If you have sites that you suggest we add, post a comment with the link and we’ll add it.
Google Week: Docs & Spreadsheets
Apr 18th
What is it?
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free online word processor & spreadsheet program that allows you to create, edit, and share files with other users in real time.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free online word processor & spreadsheet program that allows you to create, edit, and share files with other users in real time.
What is it good for?
Ability to work in collaboration with other users…
- Edit, create, etc. on their own time. No meeting necessary.
- Discuss and undo changes of other users at any time.
- Revise documents such as by-laws by upload your current .doc, .txt, .rtf file. Then begin the revision process by allowing a board/council to view or edit along with you.
- Create and share a setlist or order of an event between a Worship leader and Teaching Pastor.
What are the benefits?
- User permissions can be set to view only or full editing for each document.
- Peer editing is a breeze – your team can simultaneously edit a document from completely separate locations.
- No software to install on the PC and it works with any Windows, Mac, or Linux PC w/Internet.
- It’s free!
What are some limitations…
This is Internet based so those w/o Internet or a slow connect will not reap the benefits of this product. Also it doesn’t have all the bells & whistles that MS-Word & Excel has, just the basics. But don’t worry, you can send your documents back to your familiar word processor (e.g., Word, OpenOffice Writer, etc.) or your printer when you’re done.
Learning curve… is minimal. If you can use a word processor you can use it.
To get started using Google Docs & Spreadsheets click here.
FYI – they are working on Presentation software simliar to PowerPoint.
Google Week Series: [1] [2] [3] [4]
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