Week 1-Cheap Technology and the Ordinary Pastor

Week 1-Cheap Technology and the Ordinary Pastor

by | Apr 6, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology

Word Processing I’m wiggling out of the Microsoft strangle hold ““ well at least for a month. My goal is to live in the world of the free (or close to free) market of desktop and web apps, looking to see if cheaper, but high quality alternatives exist for the ordinary pastor. Ordinary pastors do not have IT departments at their church. IT budgets are small, perhaps non-existent in the majority of ordinary churches. But, technology is a given and a necessity in the world of today’s ministry. April is my time to test the alternatives. First up: word processing (I’ll include spreadsheets, presentation, and publication software). Microsoft Word (Excel, Power Point) is (are) the standard. Every other program tends to look up to it and pattern themselves after it. A few alternatives exist. I will be using Open Office during my trial (I may look at Zoho). I am impressed with Office 2007. It took me a little while to find all the features since they significantly changed the user interface. But, I’ve adapted and find it helpful and productive. Compared to free, it is quite expensive. Yes, you can get a copy for less than $100.00 (especially if you are a student). Many educational institutions require it. Can the free sources meet the challenge and provide an equally good product for the needs of an ordinary pastor? I find myself typing on a word processor many hours of most days of my week. Writing, taking notes, producing documents for meetings fills my time ““ a word processor is essential. Here’s what I use a word processor for...
A Week’s Worth of Tweets for 2009-04-04

A Week’s Worth of Tweets for 2009-04-04

by | Apr 4, 2009 | Twitter

Out the door to a new members’ class, then a memorial service, then back to finish sermon prep. # Big day today-looking forward to worship, instruction, fellowship and evangelism. # Stick a fork in me-I’m done-barely made it through the sermon-the voice is almost gone. But I sure enjoyed the day! # About to head in to the office-short day for me-much more talking and my voice will be gone for a week. # watching Meet the Press Netcast with Kel – Romance at its finest! # To bed! # Slept in this morning-still fighting a cold. So glad I did-I feel a ton better-but I never like being behind schedule. # To the office for a morning of admin and ministry project work. # At CBU for a lunch meeting with the venerable Dr. Jeff Mooney. Always an enlightening time. I think he’s close to becoming a dispy. Pray. # Great time with Dr. Mooney-love fellowship with him. Back at the office and back to the ministry projects at hand-first up: music for April # Working on Quarterly Member’s meeting material for next week-ooooh fun! # Home playing with the fam-Brie is still sick, though. # Did surgery on Kel-painful & bloody. But I was successful. She had a nasty splinter that needed to be removed. Husbandry at it’s finest. # Off to bed. # I get up early because no one else is awake-profitable time usually-except when every one else is awake, crying, and sick. # This is why I Twitter rather than do much with Facebook-Barack Obama is my cousin?- http://twitpic.com/2oelc # Headed out for a...