by Bret Capranica | May 6, 2011 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Time/Life Management
The previous post looked at the background, reasons, and benefits of having a weekly planning or review in order to focus on priorities in life. In this final post, I want to look at when you should do the review, what I do, and some things to watch out for. When Some of the principles that should govern when you do your weekly review are: “¢ Toward the end of your work week so you can look back on what was effective, how the next week will be affected by the previous week, what needs to be adjusted, and what needs to be followed up. “¢ Close to the beginning of your new work week. More than likely, your brain needs a break from the activity of the week. But before you begin a new one, your mind needs to gain an overall perspective of what”™s ahead. Pick an in-between time ““ where you”™ve had the opportunity to get away from the previous week and when you can mentally set the agenda for the next. For me this is Saturday morning. Friday is my day off and I typically block the day for family activities and rest. I don”™t want to think and plan on that day ““ I want to decompress and enjoy my family. So planning on Friday would simply be exhausting and frustrating. Sunday is filled with ministry opportunities. The morning is focused on preparing to preach and teach, the afternoon generally consists of lunch with church members and preparation for our evening gathering. I also often meet with a group of men to discuss Sunday”™s...
by Bret Capranica | Apr 19, 2011 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Personal, Technology
Last January, when Apple announced the introduction, I published a post about how I thought ordinary pastors might make use of this new category of computer. A follow-up post is long over due. In fact, when looking over which articles tend to be most perused, I find that previous article continually referenced. I purchased my iPad (the original version) just days after it was released. I immediately began to put it to use in my regular life and pastoral ministry. Before I chronicle how I currently use my iPad in ministry, let me give a few follow-up comments to the six reasons I proposed that ordinary pastors might benefit from the iPad. 1. Magazines/Newspapers can now survive. Newspapers have embraced the iPad in mass from what I can see. I have The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, CNN, and The Daily, all on my iPad. So far, most of these e-papers do not charge for their content. Some e-magazines do charge; those who do, have not received any of my cash. Even though most of the e-papers are free I rarely open up any of their stand-alone apps. Not that I don”™t consume massive amounts of news articles, I do. As of today, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Politico, CNN, The Washington Post, and many more are making their content free through Twitter. Subscribing to their Twitter feeds and using the Flipboard app I can bring all of the e-papers and magazines I want into one place for me to read, takes notes from, and...
by Bret Capranica | Jan 28, 2010 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology
I’ve been waiting for something like this – a handheld device that I could consume information very easily and most comfortably. Apple may have done it and I think it will have a number of benefits for those in pastoral ministry. If you missed it, here’s the video of the new Apple iPad: Will/Should ordinary pastors and people use the newly unveiled Apple iPad? This pastor probably will, and I think many, many will also. The Kindle has been a big draw among many in ministry and I can’t help but think that the iPad will be another Apple technological game-changer. Here’s a few reasons why I think so: 1. Magazines/Newspapers can now survive. The only reason I subscribe to a print newspaper right now, is because my wife wants the coupons from the Sunday paper. I NEVER read the print paper. But I do subscribe to a number of newspaper and magazine RSS feeds. In fact, I can subscribe to the sections of the paper I want and skip the rest. I noticed that my wife was already starting to clip coupons from the internet. Outisde of my wife’s coupon newspaper, I no longer have any subscriptions to any print publications – and I don’t miss the mess. However, I would be interested in reading papers and magazines on an electronic device that I could hold in my hand and was bigger than my iPhone. Especially if I could cut and paste quotes and sections into Evernote and tag them. That would help me in quickly clipping, filing, and finding quotes and illustrations for sermons and doing so...
by Bret Capranica | Nov 27, 2009 | MiniPost
If you are a Mac user and an Evernote user (everyone should have Evernote), here’s a script that will store your e-mail in Evernote. Script to archive emails into Evernote « Hawk...
by Bret Capranica | May 25, 2009 | Featured Articles, Ordinary Pastor, Pastoral Ministry, Technology
Here’s the last installment on the technology series: An area where I will be sticking with the paid versions is Groove. What, you don”™t know what Groove is? You need to. Groove is a collaboration software tool that comes in the new Office 07 suite. I can create multiple workspaces, invite who I want to them, assign permissions and begin sharing any sort of document with whomever I want (of course, they must also own and install Groove). If they make changes to the document, it synchronizes the doc for any who are a part of the workspace. You can even create files on your desktop to be “Grooved” and share those files with those you want so that you don”™t have to recreate or upload files to a separate workspace. The only problem with this is that the 64 bit version of Groove does not work with Vista and Microsoft has no plans to make it work. Go figure. This was a major bummer for me. For pastoral ministry this has become invaluable. Our pastoral team collaborates with one of our members who actually puts up a copy of the bulletin each week and we all add our two cents. I do this also with our Sunday School bulletin, PowerPoint presentations, and a vast array of documents I want to share with others. I looked into Zoho”™s Sharepoint-like site, but it simply was not as easy to use or set up. Groove has been a pleasure to use. What about note taking? When Office 07 came out I became hooked to One Note. However, I think the free...
