by Bret Capranica | Mar 21, 2009 | Blogging, Featured Articles
What would you want to see more of on THE CAPRANICA? We’re making a few plans around here to begin rounds of more regular posting. But I thought I would first ask my audience of 3 to give me some suggestions of what you would like to see. See the poll on the Home Page and give me some of your feedback. I’d love to know (I...
by Bret Capranica | Mar 15, 2009 | Blogging, Technology, Time/Life Management
Most who use Google Reader will know this, but for those out there who are fairly new to GReader, this may be something you’ve overlooked. Helpful keyboard shortcuts. Are there any keyboard shortcuts? – Google Reader...
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by Bret Capranica | Mar 15, 2009 | Blogging, Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry
I am an ordinary pastor. That is, I know myself well enough and I have been around enough extraordinary pastors to be well aware of how ordinary I am. The content, regularity, and writing style found here at THE CAPRANICA all document the degree of my ordinariness. Actually, I enjoy being ordinary. Obscurity is often bliss. Normality, more than often, is a blessing. The front-lines of the ordinary contain enough excitement, challenge, heartache, and doldrum to keep me focused and engaged in the Lord’s work. I have been an ordinary pastor for over 20 years (I began ministry in 1988 in a rural Texas Panhandle church) and I have never been bored with ministry; I’ve always been busy, and I’m as excited today about serving the church as I was twenty years ago when I began. I really do enjoy being among the ordinary. Ordinary is not often publicly celebrated, but ordinary pastors dominate the landscape of church life across our country; we are, by far, the vast majority. In reality, only a small percentage of pastors in the world could really be called or evaluated as extraordinary. I thank God for many of them . The Savior has used (and still does) a few of them in many influential ways in my life and ministry. Yet, most of us who serve the Lord as local church shepherds will not host presidential forums; books will not host our names as authors; national conferences will not contain our photos as keynote speakers; our church facilities will never be highlighted on the latest church growth magazines; and the denominational leaders have...
by Bret Capranica | Mar 1, 2009 | Blogging
I’ve been plotting on THE CAPRANICA. I have a host of ideas and issues I would like to blog about, but have wanted to give the blog a bit of a lift before wading into them. So, last weekend and this I’ve been tweaking (prolly will keep the tweaking up for a few more weekends). The two new items are a new comment thread plugin and a plugin that optimizes THE CAP for the iPhone (or iPod Touch). Intense Debate is the commenting plugin that will allow you to respond to an individual’s comment in a thread rather than merely posting it at the end of the list. Now, the lists of comments are rarely ever very long at THE CAPRANICA, but, we hope to spark some discussion in the days to come, and Intense Debate will prove a good addition (I loved hearing and seeing it over at Michael Hyatt’s blog). Anyhoo, this will allow you the option to feed the comments through various services, and even Tweet (through Twitter) your comments. Looks fun. Also, I installed a plugin, WPtouch, that will optimize THE CAPRANICA for the iPhone. Yes, I have yet to blog about it, but I did switch to the iPhone from the Blackberry this past summer. No comparison (that’s another blog post). Anyhoo, if you do navigate to THE CAP through your iPhone but want to view it in its original format (which the iPhone does superbly), it allows that option also. All of this in anticipation of ramping up the activity around here. I’m looking forward to...
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by Bret Capranica | Feb 21, 2009 | Blogging, Featured Articles
Well, no sooner had I made a post about sticking with the same ‘ole theme (which I still really like), I just happened across one that really caught my eye. Yes, perhaps a waste of some time, but, I’ve neglected the blog for some time and have really wanted a major change. This one is major ““ and is another major reason why I really love WordPress. THE CAPRANICA is transformed ““ not merely tweaked. It allows me to mark a number of articles as “features” and highlight them in a big way at the top. I love the format and have more options than ever to tweak it. There are three different layouts I could choose from ““ I picked one that gives more of a web-site feel than merely a blog look. Now, as for that new and improved content. . . . It should well be on its...
by Bret Capranica | Feb 21, 2009 | Blogging, Featured Articles
As Kelly and Brie were under the weather yesterday, I took some time (more than a human should) to scour the World Wide Web for a new blog design. There are tons out there, but to be honest, I really didn’t find any that were free, easily customizable, and better-looking (IMHO) than the one I have. I was a bit disappointed. While the guys at Glued Ideas no longer seem to do much for the Subtle theme, It is still one of my favorites. It’s free, simple, professional, clean, easily customizable and personable. Above all that, my wife likes it best and has threatened me if I changed it much. How intimate that all sounds ““ especially for a blog that is really rarely updated, especially with much meaningful content. So, I’ve decided to stick with Subtle. I did change from the “Subvert” (darkish) feel to the default, brighter feel ““ just for a change of pace. But really, now, who cares? In the next few days, I’ll be updating my blogroll as well as a few other overdue updates. I did add a new feature: “GReader-Cap.” Ever since I happily converted to Google Reader as my feed reader, and since I use the beautiful iPhone web-app for Google Reader, I find myself sharing a number of articles from my reading via Google Reader. It is actually easier to share an article from GReader than to go in and put up a “Short Cap” post of it. So, watch the GReader section to see the articles across the web I’m following and think are interested, but don’t really want...
