by Bret Capranica | Dec 10, 2009 | Culture, Featured Articles
This evening, I had the privilege to pray at our city Council meeting. This was the second occasion I have enjoyed this honor. I was asked to deliver the invocation just before it was publicly revealed that 4 of our 5 Councilmen have been indicted for political corruption. Tonight was the Council’s first meeting since the indictments were handed down. I saw it as my task to simply bring our collective conscience before God – and plead for His grace to oversee the proceedings with mercy, and for all involved to conduct themselves with honor and integrity. Below is the text of my prayer: Our God and our Father, How grateful we are that this meeting can begin with an appeal for you to be uniquely present in this meeting of our city council. These particular days and this particular meeting reflects numerous and distinct challenges for our city and its leadership. These challenges remind us that we are in need of someone greater than ourselves to navigate our way. Your knowledge is complete, ours is not. Your wisdom is perfect, ours is far from it. Your answers are without error, while ours are full of human limitation. That”™s why we invoke your specific and unique presence in this meeting. Grant us a consciousness that we stand before our creator first and foremost in what we do and what we say. We ask for your grace to be full in its display among our city leaders this evening. May their minds be guided by principles that would reflect your righteousness. May their speech be reflective of the humility of...
by Bret Capranica | Nov 20, 2009 | Adoption, Featured Articles, Marriage and Family, Personal
Today was a great day, celebrating God’s providential goodness in brining Emilia Ann Capranica into our home. It’s official, she’s a Capranica. When Emi came to us, it was just after losing Lizzy. We took her in, being told that it was highly likely she would only be with us a short time. She’s now family. What a joy. Once again, we packed out Commissioner Bradley Snell’s courtroom in Temecula and heard him tell us that under the law she is viewed as our natural born daughter with all the rights, duties, and responsibilities as parent and child. Here’s the video (the volume is bad, you’ll need to turn it up): Many family and friends could not come today – we missed you more than you can know. We’re so thrilled with those who could. Perhaps the video will give you a taste of our joyful day. Thanks to all who made it to the court, to all who have prayed and encouraged, and to all who stopped by to celebrate afterward. Here’s all of us singing “Happy B-day” to Emi (her birthday is next week – 2 years). Brie was just as excited as...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 25, 2009 | Adoption, Featured Articles, Marriage and Family, Personal
[YouTube Video] On Tuesday of this week we received a phone call regarding fostering a 2 day old little boy who happens to be Brie’s half brother. Gladly we picked up little David Andrew from the hospital and brought him home. Oh yeah, and it happened to be my 40th birthday. Pretty great gift. So, we begin the process again of fostering a little one who may actually become a part of the family. The Lord’s will be done for his glory. Until we know, we’re enjoying every...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 19, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology
In this post I want to review a few applications every ordinary pastor (or person) can readily make excellent use of – and the best news is that all of them are free. While the web can be a major distraction for productivity, it can also be an amazing tool for getting things done. Here are tools from the web I use every week (some almost every hour): Safari Web Browser: I have been a Firefox fan for a long time. I loved the various plugins available that gave me greater connection to social media like Twitter. However, I’ve found that having constant connection to social media while working on high priority tasks on the web is too distracting, so I really use few plugins on Firefox any longer. The new Safari 4.0 I have found to be faster than Firefox. It certainly loads faster and is speeder in browsing the web. It also has a cleaner interface than Firefox. I have gone back and forth with Firefox and Safari, but tend to find Safari to handle my needs more simply and faster than Firefox. Email. I have all of my e-mail accounts dumping into my Gmail system. Our church uses Gmail with our own domain name. We can have access to one another’s calendars on the web or on our iPhones. Gmail via the web has been my mail client of choice for months. It loads very quickly and I have instant access to all my mail. I can quickly mark all of my mail read and star those I want to follow up on. I have a general rule that I respond to...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 18, 2009 | Featured Articles, Technology
Finder vs Pathfinder. One of the newest apps I use all the time is Pathfinder. In Windows, the way to navigate through your computer’s inventory is through what they call Explorer. It is much improved in Vista/Windows 7 over XP. In the Mac world, the way to traverse through your computer is through what they call Finder. I’ve grown to enjoy Finder over Explorer because it is simply more simple than Explorer. However, Pathfinder takes the Mac Finder to a new level. To see its full functionality, see the Pathfinder screencast. But here are a few of my favorite and most used items (I’m honestly just learning to use the vast array of tools in Pathfinder). One click movement through files and folder (this is the same as Finder). Quick-link drop-down menus allow for faster navigation to your files and folders. Tabbed browsing allows for multiple file locations to be accessed easily and quickly. Multiple view capabilities – for example, I may want to use both the columns view with the cover flow view. Setting up two view panes in the same window allows for much easier drag and drop of files from one place to another. Fully customizable tool bar puts the items for one-click navigation within easy range. Finding recently used file, documents, and applications is very simple and can all be done right within Pathfinder. I also find myself using the app launcher through Pathfinder also. It is a very quick and easy way to find the app your ready to open. There are many more features, and the Pathfinder screencast will demonstrate most of them. This is...
by Bret Capranica | Sep 14, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology, Time/Life Management
[YouTube Video] Hey everyone, today’s blog post (and a few others this week) is a screen cast from my desktop in my study at home. I am currently using a 2.4 GHz iMac. I also have a MacBook Pro for portability (I’m hardly ever without my laptop) and its set up exactly like my iMac. What do I find to be some of the best applications I tend to use every week? Which are some of the most helpful to me as a pastor? This week I’ll be taking a look at my desktop and sharing with you the apps that find their way into my workweek. In general, just take a look at my doc (the bar of icons at the bottom of my screen). I don’t have any on there that I don’t regularly use. I’m going to give a quick overview today and then throughout the week, I’ll screen cast some details on those that I find most helpful. Finder. The way you find your way around the Mac environment is basically through the “Finder.” It’s comparable to Windows Explorer in the Windows environment. Pathfinder (instead of finder). It is much more versatile and worth the small amount it costs. It makes Windows Explorer and Mac Finder look useless. Safari (I’ve left Firefox behind for the most part). Google. For e-mail, calendar, contacts, chat, and tasks. Also Reader. Few Google docs. I will review a number of the web applications (WordPress, Picasa, etc.) that I use all the time. Dropbox. This is an excellent file sharing and synchronizing software. You can share any files with anyone,...
