Evernote for Pastors – A Better Way To Do Ministry
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Ben Stroup. Ben and Ron Edmondson have put together an eBook called, A Guide to Evernote for Pastors. Friends, I love Evernote. For the uninitiated, Evernote is awesome. Evernote is also a web-based note taking tool that works on almost any computer and mobile device. Read more about how to use this great tool for ministry below.
- Sermons.
- Research.
- Meetings.
- Counseling.
- Staff conversations.
- Programs.
- Members.
- Special Events.
- Random Thoughts and Ideas.
How do you keep track of it all without losing your mind (and maybe even your religion)?
If you’re like most pastors, you’ve forgotten more ideas than you’ll ever remember. As it often happens, inspiration comes at the most inopportune times like when you’re driving.
What if there was a better way to…
- Collect Information?
- Prepare for sermons?
- Plan Meeting Agendas?
- Take notes on impromptu meetings and phone calls?
- Share your ideas and collaborate with key staff and lay leaders?
Ministry is complex. Being a pastor is daunting. And between hospital visits, meetings, and family, being in the office is sometimes impossible. The good news (no, not that Good News) is that Evernote allows pastors to excel at those things that can make the difference between getting by and excelling at relationships, teaching/preaching, staff management, and program planning.
Technology provides tools that most pastors aren’t aware of and don’t have the time to figure out. The paradox is that pastors can’t afford NOT to know about and leverage the tools to advance their ministry efforts. If they don’t adapt, they leave ministry capacity on the table. That would be unfortunate and unnecessary.
Ron Edmondson and I have talked a lot about this. Since we both love Evernote, we decided to provide a guide that connected the tool with the pastor. This is not a user guide. There are those available. We believe pastors don’t need more information. Rather, they need context to help them understand how others are using the tool in ways that might help them understand how it can benefit them.
Ron is a pastor, blogger, and consultant. He “gets” Evernote and can’t imagine his life without it now. This project will bridge the gap, save you the learning curve, and get you jump-started using a tool that will change your ministry habits.
There is a better way to do ministry. And Evernote can help.
Signboard Update
Just a quick note to let you know that Signboard (the affordable DIY digital signage solution for churches) has been updated with support for time zones and DST. This was done to help insure that the time offset for events coming from Google Calendar stay correct throughout the year.
The updated files are available for download now. The specific file that was updated is left.php (which parses the events for the left ticker on the default configuration.
For the uninitiated, Signboard is a cheap, DIY digital signage solution for churches. Built in Flash and managed in the cloud. More info at http://www.getsignboard.com
If you’re using Signboard, don’t forget to email me a photo.
I love Prezi for rad presentations that people remember. Now it supports iPad. Awesome!
Prezi for iPad (via prezi29)
The Opportunities Boomers Provide
For Christmas my in-laws got me a subscription to Entrepreneur Magazine. In addition to the issues I have to look forward to, they mailed me a collection of back issues and while thumbing through these I read an article about the aging Baby Boomer generation and the opportunities for business that they provide. Consider these stats:
- 77 million people were born between 1946 and 1964, which is defined as the baby boomer era (U.S. Census).
- By 2015, those aged 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population (AARP).
- By 2030, the 65-plus population will double to about 71.5 million, and by 2050 will grow to 86.7 million people (U.S. Census).
Holy smokes, that’s a lot of people! Now you might be thinking that this would be a great time to start that consulting business where you send an army of patient techies into the suburbs to walk the Boomers through Facebook, connect their printers and program their universal remotes. But before you bounce to Craig’s List, consider the following:
- One-third of the 195.3 million Internet users in the U.S., adults aged 50+ represent the Web’s largest constituency (Jupiter Research).
- Two-thirds of Americans age 50-64 use the Internet (SeniorNet).
- Email is the most popular online activity among 50+ users, followed by web browsing, research, and shopping (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
- 72% of baby boomers have broadband Internet in their homes (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
- By the end of 2007, the number of mature social networkers is expected to top 20 million (Deloitte).
What’s it mean? Unlike my grandparents (I’m 29) my kids’ grandparents are online, sending email to their friends and family, surfing the webs, and using social networks like Facebook. A large majority of them are doing it at home with broadband connections. So while your market for your consulting business may have diminished, this still presents many opportunities for your church.
What’s This Mean for the Church?
If your congregation is of the more mature variety, there are some ways you can be using technology to connect with and minister to them.
- Email Newsletter
Email is the most popular feature of the internet used by those who are 50+ years old. Not web browsing or RSS. Why not offer an email newsletter to keep those who prefer email engaged. Take your message to where they are! I like ConstantContact.com but many other options are available. Not ready to face the cost of another web service? Give RSS to Email subscription services like Feedburner.com a try. - Video on Demand
Friends, 2010 was a big year for internet video. Hulu went plus, Netflix got mobile and Apple’s AppleTV sold a million units (not bad for a hobby). I’m predicting the next year to be bigger for video. More content, more devices, more viewers. As Boomers enter into retirement, you may find them stuck at home due to health issues or (hopefully) enjoying their new freedom and traveling. By making sure your video content is being podcast or accessible via a Roku set-top box, you’ll continue ministering to those who are unable to make it to weekend services. Speaking of Roku, those things are cheap (starting at $69). Wouldn’t it be cool if a group of people from the church raised enough money to buy several Roku boxes and then visited members of the congregation who were home-bound, installed the boxes and showed them how to get teaching and worship services on demand? I think so! - Facebook
Is your mom on Facebook? She may be soon. Boomers are flocking to the social network. If you don’t already have a Facebook page for your ministry, now is the time, there are lots of reasons to have a presence on Facebook.
What ideas do you have for reaching Baby Boomers with technology? Are you doing the above? Are you trying something new? Please, let us know in the comments!
Keep your Mac Tip-Top with OnyX
Have you heard of OnyX? It’s a free utility that lets you maintain and tweak your Mac to keep it healthy and squeeze every drop of processing power from it.
In their own words:
OnyX is a multifunction utility that enables you to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in Finder, Dock and some of the Apple-own applications, to delete caches, to remove certain problematic folders and files, to rebuild various databases and indexes and more.
I use it at home on my 7-year-old PowerMac G5. Without OnyX, I would have junked this computer years ago, but it’s still humming along and works well enough for some light Photoshop and Illustrator work.
Whether you’ve got a late model Mac Pro or something a little more vintage, OnyX can help you out and might even save your hide some day.
Get a Facebook App for your Church!
A couple weeks ago, Henderson Hills Baptist Church, with the help of Terrell Sanders and Adam White of Main Street Enterprises launched a new feature on their Facebook Fan Page. If you visit the HHBC Facebook Fan Page and you are not yet a fan, you’ll be presented with a customized page via a custom Facebook App.
On this custom Facebook App you see items from the HHBC RSS feed, service times, a banner advertising an upcoming event, a link to our weekly newsletter and a link to our media player. Cool!
The magic happens when you realize that all the content in the app is tied to a Wordpress website where you can add new content very quickly and easily! And if your church’s website already runs on Wordpress, you’re Facebook App’s content can sync automatically with your website. Update the website…update the Facebook App.
Here’s some more examples of what Main Street has been able to do with these sorts of Facebook Apps:
- http://www.facebook.com/crossingsokc
- http://www.facebook.com/CommissionStories
- http://www.facebook.com/unitedbrethren
The only downside to these apps is, once you become a fan of the page the app is on, it only appears when you click on it’s tab at the top of the fan page. However, with that in mind, it’s the perfect opportunity to make a great first impression for Facebook users who make it to your page. It’s important to note that tis is due to a limitation in Facebook’s API.
So, how much will one of these bad boys set you back? Adam tells me that they start at $500 plus customization and you can expect it to take about two weeks to turn one of these around. So, if you’re looking to add something fresh to your church’s Facebook strategy, check into Main Street!
