There's an App for That...Even Church?

So it turns out that when you have a job that requires you to mostly sit behind a computer all day then you don't really feel like sitting behind a computer when you go home. Imagine that. So that is one reason my blog has been sparse lately. But I'm back with another fun-filled post.

Today I've been in the office working on an intro video for our Pastor's new live internet TV show that we are launching. My office is connected to our Youth Pastor's office, so we get to interact and talk alot during the day. He asked me what I was working on and I told him about Pastor's new show which he thought was really cool. He then proceeded to tell me about an iPhone app that he saw a commercial for last night from Nationwide Insurance. Apparently if you get in a car wreck then you can use the app to fill out a form, take pictures of the car and send it to your insurance company all in a matter of minutes. He was amazed by this.

He then asked me a very stimulating question. What is something that the church can do that no one else has done before? Something that is very simple and easy to use, but is very effective in helping people. It doesn't have to be an iPhone app, although the iPhone is the future, but anything that is very easy to use, and very effective.

This is interesting to think about. There are almost endless possibilities with the power of the iPhone so I think that writing an app for that would be a good place to start. But what else can be done? I think interactive text messaging is one of those things.

We also must think about our target audience. Obviously something like this is going to be targeted at the younger generation. Anyone age 60 and above probably isn't going to understand the purpose of these type of things, and might even end up getting upset over it.

Here at Calvary we must be very aware of this. It is definitely not right for people to get upset over such things, because they are definitely effective tools, but we must be able to reach out to all age groups. But sometimes we just need to forget about the people who might get upset and continue to use the tool, whatever it is.

What does your church do that is unique?

Do they use any effective tools that implement interesting technology?

A Curveball in Life

Brace yourself for a bit more lengthy post. I'll try to keep it short, but you know how that goes.

So a ton has taken place in my life over the past 4 days, and God has thrown me a big curveball. Thankfully I can now talk about this publicly.

I have been emailing my senior pastor at my home church in Covington, KY for the past couple months. While I was still at school in Chicago he told me that he wanted to meet with me when I came home just so I could share with him some of the ideas that I had for media in the church. So I met with him this past Wednesday and it went very well. I can't really talk about all of the stuff that we discussed but it was very exciting to see how much he was willing to implement alot of the ideas that I had.

So we met for about an hour and a half and then I left. A couple hours later he found me at the church at offered me a job for the summer to do media and tech in the church. As many of you might know this was something that I had been burdened about for a while, and it came as a huge surprise that he was offering me this job. The only catch was that I was supposed to start my sports ministry internship with a soccer camp the very next day. I had no idea what to do. I knew where my desires were but I wasn't sure if those were God's desires for me. So I talked to my parents about it, I called my advisor at school, and then finally talked to the leadership at the soccer camp and they told me to sleep on it, come to training and then make a decision.

I went to the first day of training, and by the end of the day I had made my decision. I knew that my church needed me in this time, and this was where God wanted me. So I told them my decision and thankfully they were very understanding, and they didn't want me in a place where God didn't want me.

So I am now officially working for Calvary Baptist Church as the...well I don't know what my "official title" is yet, but I'll be working alot with the media and service production.

So needless to say I am very excited about what this summer holds. I have alot of great ideas, but it is going to be alot of work to implement them in the correct way, but I know I'm up to the task.

That is what has been going on in my life recently.

I've spent the past 3 days cleaning my room, and I really mean cleaning my room. I got rid of so much junk, it was ridiculous. And I had to setup what somewhat resembles an office, so its nice to have some workspace now.

I would appreciate your prayers this summer as I begin this journey into implementing alot of new technologies into the church that I believe can be very beneficial in furthering the kingdom.

Thank you all so much.

What are you doing this summer?

Big Stuff

Well this is going to be my last post for the year 2008. I only started this blog 3 months ago and yet I already feel so attached to you as my readers. Granted I only have a couple, which I am completely fine with, but I want to thank you for reading my thoughts and even giving me feedback every once and a while. I started this blog initially because I had alot on my mind and I needed someway to write about those thoughts, and honestly when I started I could've cared less if someone was reading it or not, as I still could care less. But I also just wanted to start a blog that was consistent. And by consistent I mean at least 1 post a week, usually 3 or 4 a week. And I think I have achieved that goal of consistency over the past 3 months, and I hope to continue that consistency in 2009.

As I have continued writing on this blog I have found myself thinking more and more throughout the day about certain things, and then coming back and writing about them. Without this blog medium I don't think I ever would have caused myself to think like I have over the past couple months. I've wrote about behavior of people, advances in technology, and sometimes just my everyday life and what I do on a daily basis. So I think it has been a nice balance of thoughts. But I really do enjoy that time when I think about something that I have never thought about before and then I have the opportunity to come back and write about it and share with you, and then get your feedback.

As I was thinking about writing this year end post I was planning on just doing a year review of major events that have happened in 2008, and I might still do that, but I have realized that that it is really cliche. So then I decided to just write about my blog, and the purpose of it and such. But I think I will give some 2008 major event reviews. I will do it by category. And I will start out with my favorite of course:

Technology: Hard for me to think of a single biggest event, but one that sticks out in my mind (besides the release of the iPhone 3G and the ability to put applications on the iPhone and iPod touch) would be the proposition from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo at $31.00 per share. Yahoo then turned down the offer, but this was huge in the tech industry, I'm pretty Yahoo will be bought by someone in the next year, the question is, who will it be? Full Story here

Note: I know the most about Technology therefore that section is longer than the rest.

Political: Obama wins the Presidential election and becomes President Elect. Full Story here

Sports: Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold medals in 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Full Story here

Music: Kinda hard to narrow down, but here's a link to a list of the top 100 songs of 2008. Take it for what its worth and that may not be much. Song list
Also here is a link to Billboard's site

Those are all of the categories that I feel like doing. Feel free to add more to this though. More categories, or what you think were the biggest stories for these categories that would replace mine.

Happy New Year to everyone.
Keep close to Christ.
I love you all.

Josh

accessibility

I was just thinking about this tonight. This thought just popped into my head while I was in the bathroom, don't ask my how or why, but weird stuff happens when you're on the can. So anyways... I was thinking about how much access we have to put our thoughts into the world anywhere and anytime we want. Just think about it, these thoughts just popped into my head 5 minutes ago as I was using the facilities and I have the ability to walk 5 steps across my room, sit down at my desk, make a couple clicks and all of the sudden these thoughts can be posted on the World Wide Web for everyone and anyone to see and read. And then if that is not crazy enough, if you are reading this post right now then you can immediately post a response to these thoughts for anyone to see. If you do not agree with what I have to say then you can state that disagreement which could evoke thought in my mind or anyone's mind who reads your comment.

Think about our parents. Back when my parents were my age (20) and in college, they did not have this accessibility. If they had thoughts in their minds then they could make those known by verbally talking to someone and then get that person's feedback, but even still that is just one person. Unless someone was a writer for the school newspaper or even the town newspaper then they could write an article about some interesting ideas or thoughts they have, but that has to go through editors even before it is published, and even still it is a limited audience. And if a reader had comments or thoughts or disagreements with the article then probably the only way to express those thoughts to the writer was to write a letter and send it through snail mail. In which case the writer could write a response to these comments but that would take at least another week before it was published.

Nowadays, like I said, I can express my thoughts on my blog and literally within seconds if someone is reading my blog I can receive a comment about my thoughts. And with the access of facebook and similar social networks, I can post my thoughts and they can be sent out to however many hundreds of "friends" I have. It is just crazy to think about how technology has changed life in so many different ways. And then another topic for another day is videoblogging, which is something that I just picked up last year. The ability to record your thoughts on video and post it for the whole world to see. Again, another topic for another day.

I have so many thoughts about technology and how it has and is helping us. And as you can see from this post and previous posts, I am a strong advocate of technology if it is used properly. That is the key. I think it can help us in so many ways. It just annoys me sometimes when people are so against technology for various different reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is just because they do not know how or choose not to use it properly. So I will write a post like this every once and a while just talking about my thoughts on technology and where the world is going with it.

agree? disagree? thoughts? comments?