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Using iOS Devices in Worship – YouVersion

April 20, 2012 in Contest, Faith, God, iPad, iPhone, Ministry, Prayer, Technology, Worship with 5 Comments


Today I want to look at a very obvious, but very practical application for use in worship.

I don’t know about you, but I know that, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I sometimes arrive at church without my bible. My Sunday mornings are so hectic, and there is so much to load into my car, that its very easy to forget things, in fact, I’ve even had times when I’ve forgotten my guitar, and had to go back home after arriving at church.

When I got my first iPhone, I can honestly say one of the first applications I searched for, was a good bible. At that time, there really weren’t any good ones. There were great concepts, but they didn’t execute very well. If it was an NIV bible, you had to be online to view it (due to copyright issues).. and with our church meetig in a highschool gym, data connection was always an issue. Bibles that worked “offline” were never the translations I wanted.. it was usually a paraphrase, which, when sharing the word with a congregation, I don’t think a paraphrase is the way to do it.

Cue YouVersion. YouVersion is an amazing bible application that far exceeds the expectation of any bible application on your iOS Device. YouVersion carries (according to their description) 80+ translations of the bible, and many of these are available for offline reading. Even the NIV can be viewed offline. From time to time YouVersion does a 2-3 day promo where you can download the full NIV bible, for offline reading.

The thing I love about YouVersion is the fact that they have hundreds of reading plans and devotions. I don’t know about you, but I SUCK at reading my bible, but when I have a plan in front of me, I am much more inclined to read. Along with reading plans they have commentaries, some by major contributors, but also people are allowed to add their own comments as well, which causes for some great discussion.

The added bonus as a worship leader is search functions. Many times when I’m planning a service, I try to find bible verses to share during the worship time, but (again sadly) I don’t know my bible as well as I should, and I can’t just think of a bible verse to go with our theme. With YouVersion, I’m able to search for themes and topics, and will get great bible verses to go along with it.

A feature I haven’t used, but want to try out, is the Live function. You can create events and people can log into those events and share verses and notes during that event.

All in all, if you have an iPhone, or really any smartphone, and you have a need for a bible app (which any Christian should really) YouVersion should be the app you are using! Oh.. and the best part about YouVersion.. it’s totally FREE!

As an added bonus of this series, PageFlip has given me a bluetooth pedal to give away! There are a number of ways to enter, and you can enter daily. Scroll down and check out the rafflecopter box for ways to enter. If you are looking to start using an iOS device (be it an iPad, and iPod Touch or an iPhone) you are going to want a foot pedal, so why not get one for free! If you use an Android tablet, or a laptop for your worship setting, it will work too!

Today is the final day for this contest, it will be over at midnight tonight, and I will then go through to verify all the entries in the morning, and then will announce the winner tomorrow!

Continue Reading…

My Social Media Fast Day 2

February 23, 2012 in blogging, Faith, Family, God, God Time, Health, Ministry, Prayer, Worship with 0 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter, or are friends with me on FaceBook, no doubt you’ve noticed a lack of posts by me over the last 36 hours. Here’s why!

For the last year or so, I’ve felt at different times that God might want me to do a fast.. but not a “ditch the food” fast, instead a tech fast.  I’ve never really heard a booming voice telling me to, but at times, I’ve just had a feeling that it would be healthy for me to get off of facebook and or twitter for a little while.  On Tuesday night, I was laying in bed, around 11pm watching a movie, and chatting with people over twitter, and it dawned on me “Lent starts in a hour”.. and out of no where, thought that if there was a good time to give up facebook and twitter, now would be a really good time to do that.

I’ve had people ask me over the last day, since announcing to the world that I was giving up social media for lent, “isn’t lent a Roman Catholic thing”.. but it’s not, Lent is something that is celebrated by many Christians all over the world, and it is a time of 40 days, building up to Easter, that we deny ourselves of the things that prevent us from connecting to God.  Lent is the time of year that we are suppose to be preparing ourselves for easter, through prayer, repentance, and a few other things as well.

One of the things I always tell people is that “I just don’t read my bible enough” or “I don’t prayer nearly enough”.. I never really have a reason as to why, beyond being slack, lazy, or busy, all pretty lame excuses if you ask me. So, this year, I’ve decided that, in order to spend more time with God, I’m going to at least push away the things that take up a lot of my time.. and that is social media.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with social media, I think facebook and twitter are a great way to keep in touch, and meet new people, but sometimes, and I know in my case, we can spend too much time on them, and forget about the real relationships that are around us, namely, the one with God.

So here I am, on day 2 of the fast.. It’s honestly going a lot smoother than I thought it would.. I figured by 15 hours I’d be wondering whats happening on twitter, or who has posted on my wall..  and I have at a few moments thought about it, but I’ve deleted the apps from my iPhone and iPad, and blocked the IP addresses from my computer, so even if I wanted to give in (which I don’t) it would be more work than it’s worth.

Over the next 40 days I will be spending the time I would have spent on facbeook/twitter praying and reading the scriptures. I’m hoping that through this I will hear the voice of God more clearly.  As many of you know, I am in a time of transition right now, as I’m trying to discern where God is calling my family and I in the next part of our journey.. so I’m hoping that in the silence of facebook, I will be able to clearly hear his voice. I will be posting here on the blog from time to time.. mostly because I’m sure my parents and in-laws will miss the lack of photos of my boys being posted daily.. so I will try to post those from time to time.. but I will also be posting about anything I feel God teaching me.

Please pray for me, as I know as the days go by, it’s going to get harder.. I really like social media, and having the opportunity to talk with so many people.. right now, at the beginning stages I’m finding it easy, but that is because “I’ve got something to prove” as there are some people who don’t think I can do it.. but I figure after the first week, instead of it getting easier, it’s likely going to get harder as I feel more and more disconnected.. so please pray

Paul Baloche Has Done It Again

February 15, 2012 in CD Release, Faith, God, Integrity Music, Music, Worship, YouTube with 0 Comments

I’ve been playing Paul Baloche’s music since I started playing lead guitar as a teen in a worship team back in 1998, though at that time, to be honest, it wasn’t really my thing.. though, worship music in general wasn’t my thing at 14 years old.

Fast forward to July 2010.  Integrity Music sent me a early copy of Paul’s “Glorious” CD, which was later released in September.  This CD gave me a whole new respect for Paul.  He made an amazing CD in glorious, and I know that a LOT of churches picked up a number of songs from that CD and added them to their regular set lists.

Lets fast forward again to Monday, February 13, 2012 (just 2 days ago).. I get an email from my friends at Integrity Music.. guess what it is.. another early release of Paul Baloche (and about 4 other CD’s too.. but Paul’s was the one I was excited about!!)

“The Same Love” is set to release to Christian Outlets on March 3 and then to the digital realm (iTunes et al) on April 3.  I cannot stop listening to this CD.  Track after track all I keep thinking is “that one will get added to our repertoire”.. then I kick myself, because we have a rule where we only introduce about 6 new songs a year, and we already have a number of them lined up for this year, so I think I’ll be making some changes.

This post isn’t really intended to give my personal opinions of the CD, though I really do think that everyone should go buy it once it’s released.. I wanted to share with you a video that Paul released  either Monday or Tuesday.. I can’t remember.. anyway, its the video for the title track “The Same Love”.. its amazing, the whole concept is just awesome.. plus the song is awesome!

You can pick up the single for “The Same Love” here and you can get the chords here

A Time for Everything

November 29, 2011 in Faith, Family, God, Ministry, People, Youth Unlimited with 0 Comments

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!

Repost: What Will We Remember

August 8, 2011 in Culture, Faith, Family, God, Ministry, Music, Music Monday, Worship with 0 Comments

This is a repost of a post I did back in 2006. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and now that I’ve got more people actively reading my blog, thought I might get more input from you guys.

I had a very interesting conversation today with a elder from my church. He was talking to me about our Sunday Evening youth worship services. For those reading who do not know about Sunday night, it is a youth oriented service, because the churches around here don’t always offer a youth oriented service where the young people feel comfortable to worship, so we have started a service that plays music they like and messages they can relate to (of course the Gospel never changes, but sometimes we need to look at how we present it so that it can be presented in a culturally relevant way).

Now you need to understand that this guy is not a stick in the mud at all, he loves the youth and loves our services.

The elder came to our latest service, which was on April 9th I think was the date. He made the usual comment that I hear from older folks in the community “it’s a bit loud for me, but the youth love it, so keep it up.” But that is not what stuck out to me.

We started talking about worship music, and about how it’s certainly different today that it was 50 years ago (heck even 15 years ago) and he started talking about songs like Amazing Grace, and while talking about it, we started talking about really old folks, you know, the ones who are loosing their minds. We both have noticed the same thing, you can go into an old folks home, where people are gone totally senile and can’t remember anything, but if you pick up a guitar (or sing it aceppella) and sing a song like Amazing Grace, for some reason these people who can’t even remember their kids names, or why they are in this place, always seem to be able to sing along.

After we had this conversation, he left me with another thought to ponder. While there are some amazing songs coming out now a days by some great worship leaders such as Matt Redman or Tim Hughes, are their any songs being written now that we sing, that in 50, 60 , 70 years when we can’t remember to chew or how to tie our shoes, we will remember?

That really stuck out to me, because right now, I’m not so sure that I can think of a song as influential as Amazing Grace, or The Old Rugged Cross. While I LOVE absolutely LOVE worship music of today, and generally don’t enjoy hymns (I just don’t, get off my back) I can’t really say that anything is so memorable that in the state of senile-ness (I know its not a word) I would remember it.

Comment please, I want to hear your thoughts, or maybe a song suggestion from this generation that you believe will stand the test of time….. and sanity.

The Old Spice Youth Pastor

August 8, 2011 in Culture, Faith, God, Ministry, Youth, Youth Unlimited with 0 Comments

This is kinda old news.. but I’ve been super busy and haven’t really been posting much lately.. so I thought it’d be a good idea to post it now.  I’ve actually got a list of topics on my iPhone that I plan on blogging about soon.. it’s just finding the time to do it!

I love this, and I think it’s great.  The part that really sticks out to me (aside from the creativity) is the idea that we as youth workers get caught up with the idea that our kids want us to look and act a certain way, when the reality is, our kids just want us to be us, not someone else.

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