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.
Mobile Giving Options for Churches
Lauren Hunter has a great writeup at Church Tech Today about ServiceU’s new mobile features for giving. This is a great addition to a well established service. If you’re not moving your church into the mobile space, now is the time and with tools like these, you’re running out of excuses;-)
Less Framework: An HTML5-powered CSS framework for building smart website layouts for varying screen widths.
Looking to build a mobile website? Hoping to take advantage of huge screen sizes without leaving out the little guy? Check into Less Framework. It’s pretty cool!
Facebook Launches Zero, A Text-Only Mobile Site For Carriers
With mobile sites being all the rage, don’t forget your visitors who, like me, are still rocking their non-iPhones and non-Androids and whose mobile browsers are limited by speed, rendering and bandwidth issues. If the group of mobile browsers in this situation is big enough for Facebook to consider, I’ll bet it’s big enough for your church to consider.
Don’t have the skills or time to set it up? There are services that make creating a mobile site quick and easy!
Vimeo to get 1080p and Mobile Support
It’s been discussed before that Vimeo is a fantastic deal for churches looking to offer video online on the cheap. Now, if you’re a paying customer ($60/yr.) you can expect support for 1080p and mobile playback (as in, your Vimeo content on an iPhone). That’s a pretty sweet deal!
TruthCasting: Free Online Sermon Broadcasting
I’m not sure how all this is free, but it’s worth looking into. TruthCasting is a:
sermon broadcasting service that is free to the church and free to the viewer. We specialize in automated delivery of sermon video, audio, and written resources.
That sounds like a good deal! They can also create an iPhone app for your church for a one time fee (not sure how much) that lets users watch your churches videos on the go. If you’re using this service, leave us a comment and tell us about your experience!
The Ultimate Man on the Street Rig
This is so tight! The Pro Video Coalition has a wicked cool review of a custom cable that lets you hook a pro XLR microphone up to your iPhone.
Imagine how easy this will make grabbing quick, man on the street videos! No heft rig. Just your iPhone and a solid mic.
Your Church is Getting a (Flash) iPhone App!
Yesterday Adobe announced that Flash CS5 will allow developers to export their Flash projects as iPhone apps. I think that’s really cool and the announcement produced the following thoughts in me:
- Oh tight! Now I can develop some of my own apps instead of outsourcing to developers (which I don’t mind doing, for the record)! :-D
- Oh man. I wonder if this will increase all the garbage apps in the iTunes store. :-/
- Hmmm…I wonder if this will allow development of more premium apps on a smaller budget. :-)
After that, I did not give it much thought. That is, until I drove into work this morning.
While daydreaming on I-35 a new thought hit me. If you’ve read Church Tech Dump long (there might be 2 of you…hi mom!) then you know my thoughts about iPhone apps for churches. In a nutshell, at this point they are novel but don’t do much more than a mobile website. This of course does not take into account the appearance of YouVersion Live (does that come out tomorrow?).
Now, with the news that Flash will be a development platform for the iPhone, things change a bit. There is now a lower barrier to entry for developing iPhone applications. The learning curve for creating something useful with Flash is much smaller. Your church may already have someone on staff who can move around in Flash with some level of comfort. Now, even if your church’s iPhone app is nothing but something neat to look at, at least you didn’t spend $10k developing it.
According to this FAQ, apps developed in Flash will still have access to some of the iPhone’s APIs including:
- MultiTouch
- Screen Orientation
- Saving images to Photo Library
- Accelerometer
- Geo-location
- Cut / Copy / Paste
That’s fun!
One thing that I guarantee will happen is we will begin to see app templates made available on sites like themeforest.net. Imagine developing a native app using a template that you bought for $30. That’s kind of fun…as long as your app actually does something useful that a website cannot do. Time will tell. If you have any ideas about what a useful iPhone app built in Flash looks like, please share!
YouVersion Goes Live! - ChurchCrunch
Back in February I threw out a few ideas for the only iPhone app I could see my church making use of. It seems that LifeChurch.tv was already hot on the trail, and they’re sharing the love with their upcoming YouVersion Live app.
The new version of the site and it’s accompanying app will allow interaction with the pastor via live polls, message outlines, notes, questions for response and prayer requests plus more!
An admin area will be available for you to build the experience you desire AND in addition to working on the iPhone, versions will be available for Blackberry, Android, the mobile website, laptops and desktop computers!
So awesome. Be sure to check the link above out for an exclusive video from ChurchCrunch.com.
Digerati…I love you.
ProVideo Coalition.com: Web Video & Beyond by PVC Contributors
An interesting overview of how video will be distributed on the “fourth screen”, your mobile phone.
