For the past 3 months Ecclesiastes 3 has been on my mind as Jennifer and I have spent time in prayer. We have been praying about our future and where God might be leading us. Are we suppose to stick around Centre Hastings with YFC or is God calling us elsewhere?
After a lot of prayer we feel that God is calling us to move on. It has been a really hard decision to come to, but, we said back when we took this job with YFC in 2005, that we always wanted to be doing what we felt God was calling us to do. So as of November 15th, 2011 we handed in our official letter of resignation, with the request to stay on until June 2012, so that we could finish up the school year with the current group of students we are working with.
So where are we headed? We aren’t sure yet! I know a lot of people would probably say “why would you leave one job not knowing where you are going?” well.. I believe that is a part of working in ministry… God sometimes calls you to do things that don’t always make sense, but we believe that he will provide for us.
In all the praying we have been doing, I feel that God is calling me back to my first love, which is worship ministry. We don’t know where he is calling us, but feel very strongly that God is calling me to a church somewhere that is seeking a full time worship leader. Our hope is to get closer to home on the east coast, so we are seeking out churches on the east coast, but we also know that we may not necessarily find something on the east coast, as not a lot of churches have budgets to hire worship leaders.
So ultimately we are continuing to pray for where God is leading us. In the meantime, the finances with YFC in Centre Hastings have taken a down hill spill, so as a result, the board has decided to cut me back to part time as of January 1, 2012, so we are also in search of something to subsidize the part time salary that YFC will be providing us.
In the meantime, if you happen to hear of a church seeking a worship leader, please, pass the information along to me!
From time to time I stumble across something on the internet that is just to good and to useful not to share, this is one of those things.
My family all live on the east coast.. New Brunswick and PEI, and during this time of the year, my parents live in the Dominican Republic, so, phone bills are always a pain in the butt. Yes, I know, you’re probably saying “it’s 2011, who uses the phone anymore”.. well sometimes you don’t want to sit in front of a computer and have a chat, sometimes you want to walk around with a phone and get some house work done while you catch up on all the goings on back home.
Last night I was told about freephoneline.ca . This is a site that has a number of services, but one of the services they have is, they give you a 100% free local number, which you can set up to forward to another number. I found this to be really neat, because I can set up a second number and have it forwarded to my cellphone, which then could give me a business line, and a personal line.. share the business number with work people, personal with family and friends, and now you don’t need to carry around 2 cellphones. Now there are a number of other services out there that allow you to have a second number coming to your phone, if you have a smart phone, for example, you could use Line2.. but line 2 costs about $20/month… freephoneline is 100% free.
So how do you make free long distance calls, just because you get a free number.. well, the title may be a little misleading, because its not free calls to anyone at any time.. but, what we have done is pick the few long distance people who we make most of our calls to, and now we can call all of them for free. Heres how…
Set up an account at freephoneline.ca and select a number that is local to you.. then go into the account settings and enable forwarding.. it asks you what number to forward the number to.. you put in the number of the long distance person you want to call… hit save, and NOW when you call the local number you selected, it will automatically forward to the long distance number you set up.
In short, it looks like this ->
My account with a local number for ME -> forwards to my parents number in the Dominican Republic -> I make a local call for me, it rings on their end.. and there are no fees…
They can also set up an account with a number that is local for them, and it forwards to my number.. and when they call their local number, it’ll forward to me!
It’s really quite brilliant.. and I think its another step in the right direction.. I’m a firm believer that phone companies are ripping us off like crazy, and anything I can do (that’s legal) that “sticks it to them” I try to do, because they are charging me an arm and a leg and profitting 100000000% on everything they charge you.
Apple didn’t create a simple button in Pages for iPad to turn a document into a template, like they did in the desktop version. So how do we create our own custom templates for Pages on our iPad? A lot of us use iPads because of their convince in business, but how convenient is it if you have to add your business header or footer every document? It’s not..
I have however found a way to create custom “templates” for Pages on the iPad.. And you can do it right from your iPad.
Step 1: Open pages and create the document that you want to be a template.
Step 2: save that document as you would normally on your iPad. Give it a name
Step 3: go to the screen that lists all your documents that are on your iPad, your newley create document should be there.
Step 4: tap the edit button this should cause all the documents to wiggle
Step 5: select your document that you want to be the template
Step 6: tap the + button in the top left corner. This will create a duplicate of the document, thus you will continue to have your original template document, and will then edit the duplicate.
Back in August, after much debate (about 1.5 years of debate) I finally decided it was time to take the plunge and purchase an iPad 2. I got the 16gb wifi version, as I didn’t feel I had any need for the 3G version” because I always have my iPhone with me, which I can use to tether to the iPad and access the Internet that way if necessary, I also went 16gb because I figured the thing that takes up the most space is music (for me anyway) and again, I have my iPhone which has around 2500 songs on it.
One of the main things that changed my mind and helped me to decide it was time to get an iPad was 1 app. Most of you know that I am a worship leader in my church, which means I have a lot of music in books and folders and… Well.. All over the house really. I’ve never been very good at keeping a proper music book.. I just don’t have the patience for keeping it in order, so I found I was printing my music sets every week, which in turn was a huge waste of paper, because I would end up with 10 copies of the same song.. Not very environmentally friendly.
Cue OnSong. OnSong is a app made for worship leaders (though it can be used by any kind of musician really).. Basically it is a digital song book… But you don’t have to scan all your current music and import them as PDF files,, you see, onsong has import features built right in that allow you to type the name of the song, and if you are connected to the Internet, it searches different music websites and finds the chords for you. The most recent update, which is the one I’m most excited about, it even has SongSelect built right into it, so if you have a CCLI subscription, which, if you are leading in a church, you really should have one, but it allows you to now, not just search from different websites, but also the ccli database of thousands maybe millions of songs, and import the right to your iPad.
OnSong also has a lot of really useful built in tools, such as transposing, though it only works on text based songs.. What it does is, if you find a copy of a song, but its in the key of D and you want it in G, you merely select the transpose, pick the key, and it automatically transposes the whole song for you, this has become a very handy feature, though now with SongSelect built in, you can just pick the key you want, and you’re good to go.
There are a lot of great tools built into OnSong that make things easier for your whole team as well. You can export a whole set list you’ve created as PDF files and email them to your team, so you know you all have the same keys and words, this is very handy as I’ve found different times we will have 3 different versions of a song, which all have slightly different words.
In the latest version they have created something called OnCue, which allows you to wirelessly share your set with your team LIVE.. What it does is, if you all have OnSong, be in on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, you engage OnCue and whatever is on the leaders device, shows up on everyone’s device.. Which means you don’t all need to have copies of the music, as long as 1 person has it, you are set.. Then when the leader, who, for example, may have a wireless foot pedal connected to turn pages, turns a page, it automatically turns the page on everyone who is connected, no one gets lost, everyone is on the same part of the song. I’ve found this to be especially useful, as I often don’t do a song in service, the same way we may have practiced it.
There are a tonne of other great features, such as the ability to plug in an external monitor for sharing with the band, or plugging in a projector to display lyrics for your congregation, though I haven’t used this one yet, as we have a tech team who does all that, but the monitor is very useful if you have team members who don’t have a iOS device.
Enough reading, please take a few minutes to watch the following video, which describes and shows how I am using this great app in our worship environment.
With that, let’s get to the good part.. The developer of this wonderful app has sent me 10 copies to give away.. They are first come, first serve.. Just take one of the 10 codes below and plug it into the “redeem” section of the app store, and you will get a free copy of OnSong. If you do use a code, please take a minute to comment below to let me know which code you used, so I can update this post as they get taken, so people aren’t wasting their time punching in all the codes.
Saw this preview the other day on Facebook.. As I was watching it, the thing that came to mind was.. “this movie looks really.. Real”… As in it just looks like a realistic topic.. It doesn’t look like a cheesy God film, it just looks like life.. A guy who struggle with his faith in God when he goes to university… How much more real can you get than that?
They don’t have any kind of a release date yet, as it’s still in production, but I will be looking out for this one.. Think it’s going to be well worth the watch.. And I can’t even remember anything about the book…
I’ve only been an iPad owner for about a month, but I’ve been looking into the iPad for a very long time, weighing and out weighing the benefits of buying one.. finally coming to a place where I decided in August to buy an iPad 2.. more on the big reason for the decision in a later post..
One of things I’ve thought would be great is if someone put out a REAL photo editor for the iPad, that gives you more than just a couple filters, but instead some true editing functions.. this would allow me, as a photographer out in the field, to take photos, and do a full edit on a photo.. it would be useful for a number of reasons.. those quick shoots where you need the final product quick for 1.. for example a headshot shoot.
Just last week it seems my hope of a true photo editor has come to be. Adobe, who is mostly known for their feuds with Apple, has finally decided its time to stop being childish and utilize the amazing tool that is the iPad. With that, they introduced Adobe Carousel, which should be released later this year.
While I’m not crazy about the pricing, I do think it looks like a well worth product. Right now they are saying you utilize their cloud, upload your photos to it, and then can access them on your iPad, iPhone, Mac.. ETC… I’m hoping there is an option to use your own server if you have one, instead of forcing you to use theirs, because I already spend enough money each year on servers.. don’t want to have to buy another one.
The Adobe® Carousel app is the only photography solution that gives you access to your entire photo library from all your iPads, iPhones, and Macs — no storage issues, no manual syncing hassles. Enjoy your photos anywhere you are, and make them look terrific using the same powerful photo-processing technology as Adobe Photoshop® Lightroom® software.
Chris Burke Husband to Jennifer, father to Seth and Micah.
Worship Pastor at Madoc Baptist and director of Centre Hastings Youth Unlimited. Photographer, Geek and lover of all things Apple
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Disclaimer
This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer or any other entity I may be affiliated with. Additionally, my thoughts and opinions may change from time to time. I consider this a consequence of having an open mind, as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.
