As  part of the creative team for Woodland, part of what I do is find creative elements to use in the services.  As this weekend is Valentine’s weekend I found this hilarious clip from the Skit Guys called Love Words, enjoy!

I was going through my twitter feed tonight when I came across a tweet that got me to go to Amazon.com and on their front page they were talking about their use of Frustration-Free Packaging. It’s not totally new but it was the first time i’ve actually read through the page, the one that got my attention:

What’s the difference between Certified Frustration-Free Packaging and traditional packaging?

The Certified Frustration-Free Package (on the left) is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging (on the right).

Did you get that? They want to take away all the crap that gets in the way and allow you to get to what you really want. Sound familiar? In church it seems to be the same way many times there’s lots of crap we have to get through to get to what we are really searching for, the Grace and Love of our Savior.  But how many times have people not gotten to that because there’s so much crap in the way? They have to get through all the “church” to get to the Christ.  All the rules and regulations that people have created that actually stop people from the relationship.  When people are worried more about where to park, what to wear, or all the other things than being able to forget about all  these distractions and begin to on what God is trying to share with them that day.

So what are you doing to make it easier for people to reach Christ?

Click the picture above for the album of pictures from the 2009 Navajo trip

Navajo Mission 2010
Black Mesa, NM & Window Rock, AZ
June 11th – 19th

Each year Woodland sends a team to New Mexico to minister at the Navajo Reservation. They work mainly with three organizations: Western Indian Ministries, Forest Lake Baptist Church in Black Mesa, and Rez Refuge. Ministry opportunities include: construction and renovation, distribution of clothing and health care supplies, outreach at local orphanages, and senior craft seminars, as well as many other opportunities to serve.

This summer a group from Woodland will once again be heading out including, Shana (my wife), and I. This years project list isn’t finalized as we try to find out from the people what the greatest need is and assist in those areas. along with the projects listed above. I will once again be helping out with their wireless networking, computers repairs and upgrades, and implementing a backup system at the school. We ask for your prayers and financial support as we prepare for this trip. We also are looking for computer, monitor and networking equipment donations.

I stole this from a long slew of people who had posted it before me, so it must be good.  Before RSS I would actually have had to go to someone’s blog to have seen this, Thanks Technology!

Thanks Technology from John on Vimeo.

If you are Anyone responsible for Information Technology in a ministry setting … Business Admins, IT Directors, Network Admins, Helpdesk, staff or volunteers … regardless of church/organization size, then You will NOT want to miss this amazing opportunity to learn from your IT peers from across the country!  Check out the CITRT website for all the latest details:

http://citrt.pbworks.com/Spring-2010-National-Church-IT-Roundtable

This is a simple and easy blog post, I have 8 Wave invites and 2 Voice invites.  Leave a comment with what you want and i’ll give them out.  Enjoy!

I’ve had a couple people ask me how to get this setup and I also want to make sure I don’t forget so here goes:

• In the Connect screen:
• Nickname: you choose
  Real name: your paren’ts chose
  Default channels: #citrt
  Ident: I put same as nickname
  IRC Server: chat.freenode.net
  Port: 6667
• Hit the Connect button, you will then see a pop-up telling you it’s connecting to server.
• Then click on #chat button, once there hit on settings button(4 line button) to choose “Join Channel”
• Add citrt and enter
• Then click on the #citrt button to be entered into chat

I’m always looking for ways to better remember things that I come across online or in twitter.  Well it seems you can use a mention or DM of @myen in twitter once you have your account registered and it will automatically enter that info into Evernote.  I find this to be a quick and easy way to save stuff for later, I just hit the Retweet button (so i don’t have to type it all out) and switch it to a “d myen”

What do you use to help stay organized?

I was one of those people who was at the store at 7am on Friday, i couldn’t wait to get the Droid plus I was hoping to get back to give my wife her phone before her work day started (that didn’t happen). So far I’ve been very impressed with the Droid, it’s quick, it got a great screen, i’ve had no coverage isssues, and i’ve found an app for everything i’ve looked for so far.  The difficulty with apps so far is no one knows which ones to get, it’s a new device for most and there are still a lot of apps to choose from. So far my must have apps for the Droid in no particular order are:

• Facebook – well for Facebook
• Twidroid – yup, you guessed it for Twitter, latest version already has lists
• Bible –  from YouVersion, can’t wait till Live is integrated (hint, hint)
• Calorie Counter – great app to track what you’re eating and it’s nutrional information, use your camera to scan the barcode and the info will be added automatically
• CardioTrainer – another great health app that uses your phone’s GPS and as a pedometer to track your routes, call off pace, set goals, etc
• fIRC chat – As a Church IT guy you always have to be connected to our IRC chat to get your questions answered quickly
• Key Ring - So you don’t have to carry around all your rewards cards, gym tags, etc
• OurGroceries – syncs automatically between my phone and the wifes phone, also stores recipes so you can make sure you are picking up everything you need.
• Slacker – gotta have your radio
• wpToGo – Mobile access to my blog, hopefully i’ll use this to actually write posts more often

So what apps are you using? What have you tried that just don’t work the way it should? What apps do you wish you could find?

I didn’t plan on making this a top 10 list, but when i got done and had 10 well I had to name it that way.

It’s been awhile since I posted but I thought of no better way to come back then with this video of God of this City.  I could listen to this all day long, over and over, powerful stuff!