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Tech Hurdles: Internet solution for the mobile church.

The Sanctuary meets in a Minneapolis Public School.

We’ve long had the desire to move our kids’ check-in system to the web-based system that comes with Fellowship One (Our church management software). Internet access has always been a hurdle. The school isn’t able to allow us to use their network. They also aren’t able to let us install our own line. So, we’ve had to come up with a new solution.

That’s where the Novatel 2200 comes into play. We’re going to be using this handy little device on the Verizon network to give us internet access for our 3 check-in stations. Certainly it’s not optimal. But in my early tests, We’ve been able to simultaneously use two check-in stations and watch a video on YouTube with almost no hindrance. And that’s in our office which tends to be an network dead zone (just two bars coming through).

The simplicity of this device is also a winner. Just 1 button. Let me say that again, just 1 button. You turn it on, it shows up as a wi-fi network in your regular drop-downs, pop in the password and you’re off. No real set-up, just push the button. Brilliant.

I’m very excited to give this a spin as we begin real-world testing in early December preparing for launch in the beginning of January.

UPDATE 11/08/09: Fantastic first time use running our Counts Team machines as they processed checks and gifts from our congregation today. Fast. Simple. Plenty of connection to go around.

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Quite possibly the most well-designed app to hit the iPhone

I’m a bit of a foodie. That’s no secret. My foodie hero is Jamie Oliver. The Brit chef is trying to convert the world back to home-cooking with real, fresh ingredients.

So when his new iPhone app launched last week, I jumped to check it out. Despite the hefty price tag ($7.99 US), I still downloaded it immediately. Later, I found out that this wasn’t much to pay for what I got.

Here’s a few features of the app:

1. It’s essentially a cookbook. There’s 50 “20 Minute Meals” (My first one took about 45 minutes, but I’ll get there.)
2. It’s a mobile shopping list. (Every recipe allows you to add the ingredients to a shopping list. You can add multiple recipes to the list, just bring your phone to the store, which you’re likely carrying anyway)
3. It’s like a pocket sous chef. (It tells you all the equipment you need to layout to prepare the meal)
4. It’s a cooking class. There’s quick video lessons on kitchen essentials like how to use a knife properly and more)
5. It’s visual teacher. (Each recipe has step by step instructions with pictures, videos or sound cues like, “don’t forget to check on your potatoes at this point. Truly brilliant.)
6. It doesn’t treat you like a dummy. (The recipes aren’t like shake and bake chicken. It’s real food, real ingredients and real cooking. But the app is designed to be helpful and Jamie’s attitude isn’t condescending. He really wants you to learn to cook)

This may sound odd…
but this little app was a paradigm shift for me. I’ve got 4 Jamie Oliver cookbooks at home. A bunch of shows recorded on the DVR. But this little app made it so easy for me to plan, prepare and cook an awesome meal, that I feel like it has unleashed a new understanding of the potential of mobile computing for me. Everyone probably thinks I’m a major dork at the end of this article, but I’m serious.

This little app is a game-changer for me.

Oh, and by the way, whoever designed this thing is a rockstar. So well done. So beautiful. So detailed.

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Reflections on DC09

Spent the last few days at the Dynamic Church Conference in Dallas. It’s a conference for users of Fellowship One, a Church Management software from Fellowship Technologies. 

Here’s what I like about this software, these people, their passion:

1. Passion drives their purpose. 
   There is a genuine heart and belief that technology can be harnessed to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus. 
2. They know that their technology is not the end but the means. 
   Fellowship One is about all about helping the church clear the administrative barriers to make way for real relationships. 
3. They have an impressive road map.
   Ftech has clearly been putting in the work to architect or rearchitect the product to be more agile and responsive to the growing technological needs of the evolving Global Mobile Church (GoMo as @terrystorch labeled it).
4. The don’t have the answers.
   They made it very clear that the users of F1 are vital to drive future developments of the product. They call us church partners…and they mean it. 

In my roll @theSanctuary, I see a long relationship with F1 in our future. If we’re diligent about it’s implementation, realistic about putting a SuperTeam around it, and intentional about pursuing the relationships on the other side of the data, this should be a beneficial partnership now and into the future.

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Dante's Inferno as a Video Game. Hell yeah. (ha.)

So, if you only knew how much I would enjoy this if I were a gamer. I’ve spent many a day trying to muggle my way through Dante’s Inferno. I understand about 10% of the references, but I love it nonetheless. The idea of a game based on Dante and Virgil’s stroll through hell sounds freakishly awesome. If only I were a gamer.

Wired supplied the article, and image. Read Wired for other good geek stuff.

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Fellowship One.

At Sanctuary, we’ve recently signed on with Fellowship One. Fellowship One is an online Church Management System that has helps you do the “work” of the church, so you can focus on the ministry of the church.

Today was a big day for us to dive in to what Fellowship One has to offer. I think I speak for the rest of our staff when I say that I was refreshed, relieved and excited as we began moving ahead with Fellowship One today. Their implementation plan is what has sold me on the product.

Basically, they take the first 5 months to make sure we get it. Not just get it, but live it. They learn and listen to who we are. Then, they customize the software to meet our needs. And they hand hold us in the process to make sure we’re ready to be on our own at the point of church ownership. The point when we’re comfortable enough to take off the training wheels and ride away from mom and dad on our own.

Of course, these are early accolades, but compared to our last system, I feel like we’re taking a giant step towards clarity and ease of use. Now it’s just up to us to really use it…

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Things I love about PCs. Really, for real.

1. The start button. If you can’t figure out what else to do, click a button that says “Start.” The only thing easier would be a big red button that said, “If you don’t know what to do, use the mouse, hover over this red button and click it so we can begin.”
2. Whatever is driving the file system in Windows is so much faster than the mac. I don’t know why Apple hasn’t figured out how to fix the Finder and make it faster like Window Explorer.
3. Customization. With a mac, you’re fairly locked in to what Apple is willing to sell you. The options are endless on the PC side.
4. Gaming. PC gaming is still brilliantly better than Mac gaming. Even though Apple is making huge strides, it still falls so far behind the PC world.
5. Sync. You want to believe that someday, Apple is going to make this easier. But syncing devices other than Apple branded devices on a Mac still sucks. PCs are so much better. 

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MacWorld Rumor Mill and Predictions

Warning: This post may only be suitable for Mac nerds only. PC users, read at your own risk.

The Annual Macworld Expo happens next week and the rumor mills are going wild with anticipation. 

Here’s a roundup of the rumors I’ve seen: 

• iPhone Nano release
• MacMini update
• iMac update
• Snow Leopard release
• iWork turns into a suite of online applications (Cloud Computing)
• Netbooks (some sort of small form-factor, cheap selling price notebook)
• Tablet Computer
• Home Media Server/Time Capsule/Apple TV 

As for what I think might really happen:

1. Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) will be released and will ship by end of January (not immediately, because Apple like to have release events at the Apple Retail Stores for Mac OSX releases; I’ll guess January 30th as the actual release date).
2. iMac Updates with faster processors and the Nvidia graphics chips.
3. MacMini update. I think these will look different. Not sure how they will mirror the new look of the MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs, but they will start to mirror them in some way…They will also be a greater focus on using the MacMini as a media center. Perhaps it will replace the AppleTV by essentially having the AppleTV built into it.  Or bundled. Somehow, someway, this thing moves from the office to the living room. The folks at apple are smarter than me, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out. 
4. I like the iWork rumor. Not sure how plausible, but it strikes me as a strong potential, although, the current version of iWork ’08 is not that old. I think in order to do this, apple would just bundle it as a part of MobileMe, and give an iPhone/iPod touch firmware update that includes access to iDisk files and 3 new apps for Pages, Keynote and Numbers.
5. iPhone Nano release. I just feel like there is enough evidence to support that this is an imminent product. I think it will be a good move for Apple as well, despite so many who think it doesn’t make sense. I think making it smaller will help Apple jump further into the female market for smart phones, and media phones. (now they just need to work a deal out with Adobe to get the flash player on the iPhone and we can all be happy.
6. AppleTV update. Could be imminent. Should be imminent. Somehow correlates to the MacMini update. More Streaming Video direct from the web, Hulu and others….

Things that won’t happen:

• Tablet: I believe apple has something in the works, but it’s too early to see it come to fruition. Maybe later in the year. 
• Netbooks: I just don’t see apple jumping in to the stripped-down, cheap notebook market. That’s not how they roll. If you want a piece of crap that connects to the internet, but doesn’t do much else, don’t buy a mac. You probably would be happier with something else. 

Well, we’ll see how I do next week when Phil Schiller takes the stage to give the MacWorld Keynote on Tuesday, January 6th. 

Finally, on the fact that Steve Jobs will not give the keynote:

I really think this is a strategic move by Apple to stick it to the media and the stock analysts who throw Apple’s stock price in a tizzy every time Steve Jobs gets a cold. I think Apple wants to take Steve out of the picture, then show the depth of executive leadership at the same time as they roll out new products. That way, we all see that Jobs is not there, but innovation continues. That’s all I think it is.

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Top Post of all time…

I realize I’ve said this before, but sometimes I’m still shocked at the numbers. This is still, by far, my top post of all time.

I must have hit the Search Engine Optimization on the head with this one…

I still agree, that it’s a fairly accurate summary of both the small picture and the big picture of the platform differences.

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A Few Ways Twitter has been useful…

Twitter.com is not just fluff. There’s a fair share of “Making a sandwich” and “drinking my seventh Starbucks,” there’s also a lot of useful ways to use Twitter.

A few ways i’ve seen Twitter be a useful little web app.

1. Comcastcares – Comcast has a person on twitter who scans twitter for complaints about Comcast. I’ve done my fair share in the last 3 months. Comcastcares actually responds, and apparently is a customer service big wig who can make things happen and get problems resolved. This is a great customer service tool, even if you’re usually pissed with the service by the time you make a post on twitter (tweets as us nerds call them)
2. I put up a post on twitter about how I love getting food from our CSA share (community supported agriculture – we own a share with some friends and get a bag of veggies straight from the farm each week). One of my twitter friends was interested but had never been able to get connected to a farm before. I was able to quickly pass on info to her and hopefully she’ll be supporting a local farmer soon too.
3. A while back I posted on twitter that I was working on some new web strategy ideas. A twitter friend, and well respected authority on the issue, responded that she would review my strategy docs and give feedback. It was very helpful in framing this new project. 
4. Had a friend who needed a recipe for chicken breasts. Hit reply, great dinner.
5. Book suggestions
6. Music suggestions
7. Software suggestions
8. Idea sharing
9. Link sharing
10. Useful work-related connections

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Context over Dogma?

Sometimes we get stuck in the rut of thinking the church should have one look, one feel, one experience, one message that hasn’t changed in two thousand years. The reality is that even Jesus put his message in context for the people he was communicating to. When he talked to fisherman he used fishing metaphors. When he talked to farmers, he spoke of the grains in the field.

Dogma is the hard and fast rule. The way things were, and to the dogmatics, the way things should be. Context is the variable that is constantly changing. The mold isn’t fixed. People are different. People who live a mile apart can have tremendously diverse contexts. Things that were once solid, welded, defined, are now taking new shapes and providing flexibility in our experiences.

The Gina Project at BMW represents an aggressive shift in thinking about how we can experience our environments. The user defined experience is going to change the way we do things. Even in the church. Whether it’s through providing content at the touch of button or having our people be a part of developing content and the community around it.

Are you flexible? Are you ready to reach people in their context? Put your innovative foot forward and think about how people experience Christ in your community, or how they could? Be there.

If the church really is the body and Jesus the head, then we should have in mind the human way of doing things. Responding and anticipating the felt needs of our communities.

Check out this video on the GINA project: