FaithEngineer

We are in the middle of a harsh winter in the mountains of southwest Virginia. Starting the week before Christmas, we have had snow almost every week. This picture is the road that goes by our house. It has stayed covered with snow and ice for most of the past month. The schools have missed days and weeks at a time, and it doesn’t look any better in the foreseeable future.

We are digging out now from about 9 inches of snow with more sleet and freezing rain to come. While I’m happy that I have a 4-wheel drive F-150 pickup, it has still been tough getting around. But the snow definitely can wreak havoc on schedules and church activities. We have already missed two Sundays due to the snow and this week may not be much better.

So here is my question. What does your church do when it snows? I know some churches are adamant that they will be open no matter what. Some close at even a hint of snow in the forecast, but what should be the deciding factor? Anne Jackson had a great post posing a similar question and it really made me think. For me, it is always a tough decision. I have tried to delegate it to others, but it is usually a collective decision. Our decision is usually based entirely on safety. Even if we tell people to be careful and stay home if the roads aren’t safe in their neighborhood, many still feel obligated to come. Especially those who are serving. We don’t want to put them and their families at risk. I would feel terrible if someone was injured because of a decision we make.

Why do we feel pressure to have church every week? I enjoy meeting together and I truly miss having church services, but for many churches, the answer is simply money. If your church is operating week-to-week on a budget, then missing a week can really affect paying the bills. Luckily, Cornerstone has built up a reserve for times like these so we can continue on without ministry being affected. We trust and pray that God’s people will give generously when they get back to church. Here are a few other things to consider:

• If you have services, then you are responsible to clear walkways, sidewalks, steps, and the parking lot to ensure the safety of those who come. I talked to a pastor this week who had someone fall and break their hip due to ice in the parking lot. The first question the insurance company asked was if they had someone professionally clear the parking lot and sidewalks.
• If the local police have asked people to not travel due to bad road conditions, then please honor their request
• If you do have services, why not simplify and meet with children and adults all together. Combine services and don’t try to do everything like it’s always been done.
• Why not utilize technology and share a video message or audio message with your church online
• Why not provide resources or encourage people to have church in their homes or communities. Share resources or ideas for children to study as well.

This past week, we tried something a little different. Here is the email we sent out. We pointed people to other churches who had online experiences, and we encouraged them to worship as families. At our house, I got out my guitar and we had church together as a family, and it was an awesome time. What other ideas do you have for when services are cancelled? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Dear Church Family

1. If you have missed any of the past weeks from our current teaching series, we would like to encourage you to go back and listen to them online here.

2. Take the time to have a family worship service at home. Involve the entire family with singing and devotions and a time of Bible study.

3. Tune in to one of the many online church services from around the country. Some of the ones that we recommend are Lifechurch.tv (9:30 and 11am), Seacoast Church (9:30 and 11:15am), Newspring Church (11:15am and 6pm), and Northpoint Online (6pm). Lifechurch also has an excellent children’s website for activities and lessons to do at home.

4. If you are a regular giver at Cornerstone, we ask that you continue to worship by giving your normal tithes and offerings online. This may be a good week to check out the online giving options at our Cornerstone website. Our expenses don’t go away on snow days. If you are not comfortable with online giving, of course you are welcome to simply catch up next weekend. Our weekly operations budget has been down over the last month or so with the weather, the holidays, and possibly extra giving to AEP . We appreciate your generosity in advance as we continue to combine our resources in order to pursue the vision God has given us for reaching the twin counties.

We hope and pray that you and your family stay warm over the next few days and stay safe if you absolutely must head-out. We can’t wait to see you next Sunday!

Enjoy your time in the snow!!

A great use of a church website is for sharing prayer requests. PrayerEngine is a new web service that looks promising. It allows you to embed a prayer wall directly into your existing website. Anyone can submit a prayer request, which is then posted to your website as soon as it is approved. You can share those prayer requests through email, twitter, facebook, and RSS. People visiting your website can click on a counter that shows how many time each request is prayed for. This is such a great use of social media for the church. If you are interested, check out the demo on youtube. I think you will see more services like this in the future that embed directly into your existing website.

The service costs a one-time fee of $99. Since there is no monthly fee, it’s a great bargain. As an added bonus, you can head over to MediaSalt and pickup an additional 15% discount for today only!

The Prayer Engine – The Best Way to Share Prayer Requests Online

This is what happens when we cancel church services! The youth ended up at our house and had some fun on Sunday. Add in hot chocolate, fresh homemade cookies, and snow cream, and you can tell we had a great time. Thanks to Ben for taping and editing the video.  I didn’t make the video, but when you’re my size, you gain some serious speed and get some serious air over the bumps. I’m still feeling it.

Over the past few years, I have gotten to know Joe Sangl as a friend in ministry. We have a lot in common since we are the same age and we both have degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Joe is really “fired up” about his ministry and he does a great job teaching people how to get out of debt and live sold out for Christ. Joe’s passion is equipping others “to accomplish far more than they ever thought possible with their personal finances”. He has been to our church a couple of times now to share his Financial Learning Experience and I have seen first hand how he is making a difference.

He recently sent me a copy of his latest book, What Everyone Should Know About Money Before They Enter THE REAL WORLD. It is a great book for youth and college age students. Joe shares about giving, saving, and avoiding debt. He explains in easy to understand terms about student loans, credit scores, and the power of compound interest. And he shares all of it from a Biblical background. This book is short and powerful, and it’s a great gift for young adults. I definitely plan on using it with my own children and I’ll be recommending it for all the youth at church.

We also use Joe’s first book, I Was Broke. Now I’m Not, in our financial counseling at church. It’s a good book about how to budget and get out of debt. Joe also has a great website with tons of free financial tools at iwasbrokenowimnot.com.

Disclosure Policy

Have you ever wished that you could access your home computer from work? Have you forgotten a much needed file? Do your parents need help with their computer, but you’re miles away and can’t work on it? Need to print something at church?  I’ve experienced all of these situations many times and I have tried several different solutions. But I have finally found a free software solution that lets you login and work on a computer from anywhere in the world via the internet.  I’ve been using it for a few months and it works great.

LogMeIn Free is a software application that you can install on any PC or Mac computer.  Once installed, you can access that computer from any computer with an internet connection and web browser. I can even use my Window mobile phone or iPod to access and control the computers.  I have installed this on my home computer, the church computer, and my parent’s computer. Now if I need to login and check something or email a file, I can do that quickly and easily. Everything is password protected, so choose a strong password and you’ll be safe. This is much simpler to use than VNC or remote desktop connection, and it’s a lot cheaper than MobileMe’s back to my mac.

Here’s more info from their site.

LogMeIn Free gives you remote control of your PC or Mac from any other computer with an Internet connection.

Simply install LogMeIn on the computer you want to access (it takes about 2 minutes), log into your account from another computer and click the computer you want to control. You’ll see its desktop and be able to use all the applications on your remote computer as if you were sitting in front of it -- even if you’re across town, across the country, or across the world.

• Works with Windows PCs and Mac OS X
• Two-minute set-up

They do offer a paid version that adds the ability to share files and print, but I can get around needing that by using the free Dropbox utility to move and sync files between computers.

I read a great leadership post by Mac Lake this week and he made the statement:

“Spiritual leadership isn’t just about accomplishing God given results, it’s also about caring for the souls of those we lead along the way.”

And then while reading through John Ortberg’s latest book, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You, I came across two powerful questions. I think God is trying to tell me something. So listen and think about the well-being of your soul and ask yourselves these questions often. Many times we are so busy doing and serving, that we don’t let God work in us.

I asked a wise man, “How do you assess the well-being of your soul?”

He immediately said, “I ask myself two questions”:

• Am I growing more easily discouraged these day?
• Am I growing more easily irritated these days?

At the core of a flourishing soul are the love of God and the peace of God. If peace is growing in me, I am less easily discouraged. If love is  growing, I am less easily irritated. It was a brilliantly helpful diagnostic to assess the health of my soul.

How would you answer those two questions?

For me, the answer is not always good.  When I am stressed, these are my biggest two problems. And if you ask my wife, I’m afraid that she would easily be able to confirm my struggles. So let me ask you, are you becoming the person that God wants you to be?

It’s amazing how much things can change in a decade.  Twenty years ago, I started dating a sweet girl named Jennifer. After three kids and fourteen years of marriage, I can look back and realize how lucky I was. Check out this video Jenni made to introduce our family at our local homeschool cooperative. Our oldest daughter is in middle school, but our two younger boys are still homeschooled.

Thankfully, we didn’t include many pictures from the 70’s and 80’s (I still can’t believe plaid used to be in style), but I am thankful that we can look back and see how God has blessed our family. Enjoy the journey!

For many parents, facebook is like a foreign country full of surprises. If you can’t speak the language and you don’t know where things are, it can be a frustrating experience. With the recent surge in both parents and youth jumping into facebook, I wanted to share some ideas about how we can prepare and protect our children. I’ll tackle several issues that have come up in conversation with parents I know.

How Old Should My Child Be Before They Get a Facebook Account?

Based on the terms of service for facebook, children must be at least 13 years old. I see no reason not to honor this. In fact, here are some reasons why I think it is a great idea.

• As a social network, the power of facebook is connecting with your friends who are already on the network. Most children under 13 don’t have accounts.
• What are we teaching are children about truthfulness if they have to lie about their birthdate to create an account?
• Most younger children are still innocent enough that they don’t see the danger in sharing personal information. Their pictures and status updates are available to everyone if you haven’t changed the default facebook settings.
• One word: Drama
• Children under 13 would have a tough time differentiating between legitimate people wanting to be your friend and those who are selling something. I even have a tough time. Just today, I accepted a friend request from someone who looked like a normal user and then clicked on their profile to find out that they were linking to porn. There are dangers online, and we must be willing to protect our children.

How Do I Prepare My Child For a Facebook Account

If your older child or teen already has a facebook account (and they probably do), then how can you talk with them and help prepare them and teach them proper online safety and accountability? I would suggest the following:

• Change the default privacy settings: Go to the facebook help section on privacy and learn how to set the privacy options. I would suggest changing the default settings on status updates, photos, and photo albums to make them viewable only to their friends. Also go into the privacy settings for their profile and change each option as you deem appropriate.
• Check their profile information: It is never a good idea for a child to share their address on facebook, so make sure personal information that could compromise their safety is deleted from their profile.
• Learn about Limited Profiles: You can create a friend list for those people you don’t know quite as well and assign them to a limited profile.  You can further restrict what certain people see about you by setting this up. Check the help section for more information on how to set this up.
• Discuss with your child who to accept/invite as friends: Are you just going to add people who you know in person, or will you expand it out to friends of friends? What about people who you don’t know at all? As a cautious parent, I would suggest not adding someone if you don’t know them.
• Discuss the importance of accountability: As I mentioned earlier, there are dangers with inappropriate sites on the internet. I feel that the benefits of reaching the online generation far outweigh the dangers, but let’s help our children to see the importance of accountability. Encourage them to talk with their friends about the language they use online, about the pictures they post, and about the sites they visit. As a parent, take the steps needed to protect your child. It may mean that you look through the browsing history daily, it may mean that you install filtering software or accountability software, it may mean that you only let them on facebook in the family room with others present.  Take the time to discuss and talk with your child, and come up with a plan that will protect them and teach them the proper use of the internet.
• Remind them that you can’t delete what you post: Yes you can delete a post or status update, but someone somewhere will have a copy of it. Think before you post! If you join a group with an nasty name, guess what, everyone knows. If you attend a party and pictures are posted, guess what, everyone knows. Encourage them to live a life of purity of Holiness. 1 Timothy 4:12 tells them that they should be an example to others. Teach your children that facebook is a mission field, with the entire world watching.  What kind of example will you set?

What are some other questions you have? Leave a comment and we’ll keep the conversation going.

My heart is breaking as I look at the pictures of devastation from the earthquake in Haiti. I have had several people ask how they can help. The quickest way to help is by sending money. They will also need food, water, and supplies as the relief effort continues. We are working at Cornerstone to see how we can help. For now, here are some ways you can contribute.

• We have several connections to Harvest International based in Ocala, Florida. They are a missions group based out of Florida with missionaries already in Haiti.  Todd Shaw from Cornerstone has been on two mission trips with them to Haiti.  You can go to their webpage to donate and contribute directly to their missionaries who are there now.
• Locally God’s Pit Crew is gathering water and supplies to transport to Haiti. You can find out more at their website and at SpiritFM.
• Samaritan’s Purse is also gathering supplies and donations to help. Find out more at their website.
• Water Missions International is working on providing clean water. Find out more at their website.

There are many organzations and churches providing relief, but don’t let that lull you into not doing anything. Let me ask you this question that I shared last Sunday.  Do the things that break God’s heart break your heart? Let’s show the love of Christ by loving and serving as Jesus demonstrated for us.  Here are some pictures from the Red Cross. Watch them and pray for the people of Haiti.

Just wanted to share some random thoughts tonight.

• I enjoyed spending the day with my family in Christiansburg and Blacksburg today. Emma was able to go with us since school was canceled due to a power outage.  It’s always great going to Hokie country, and I’m slowly getting my kids used to the campus. It’s such a great town.
• I unplugged completely from church activities today. I need to do that more often since our weekends are so crazy. Honoring the Sabbath is not a suggestion, but a command, and I need at least one day a week where I can rest and enjoy my time with God and family.
• Speaking of a crazy weekend, Cornerstone was awesome this week. We had a great leadership retreat on Friday and Saturday, planning and dreaming with our elder team and administrative team. I’m excited about the direction we are going and the unity we are building in our group. God is blessing us with talented and gifted people who are in love with Jesus. I’ll be sharing more about some of the exciting new things that are in store for this year.
• Sunday was incredible as well. We had the highest weekend attendance ever this week and I saw many new faces in both of our services. You don’t hear me talk about numbers very often, but I want to share with our Cornerstone family that we had 330 people in attendance this week. For a small church in a small town, that is exciting! And I think we’re just seeing the start of what could be. I have heard so many people talking in the community about how God is moving and working at Cornerstone. Keep investing and inviting.
• I’m really enjoying our series on 20/20 vision. This past week we talked about discovering and following your Holy Discontent.  For those of you wanting to find out more about what that could mean for your life, check out the book Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision by Bill Hybels. It goes into far more depth about some of the things we talked about this weekend.
• And finally, I’ve been spending a little time on facebook recently.  Why can’t young people spell? I’m not sure what the root of the problem is. I don’t think it’s texting, because most of the misspelled words are longer than the correct spelling. You can’t blame it on public schools either, because I see the same thing in many of the homeschoolers.  I’m thinking we are seeing the results of a generation raised on Hooked on Phonics and spell check. Just sound it out and it’s close enough. Are there any teachers out there who know why there is such a decline in basic spelling skills?

I finally got around to setting up a good backup strategy for our church computers. Over the Christmas holiday I found a great deal on the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo file server.  I got one for the church for only $239, and it has worked flawlessly. This is a dual drive 1TB network storage device and works great for homes or small businesses. You simply plug it into your network and access it from any computer on the network. I’m using it with Apple time machine to backup my mac, and I’m also backing up our windows computers to it.  It also functions as a great media server and file server.

Let me urge you to think through your backup plan. Eventually you will have a hard drive crash, so what will happen to your data?  By having a regular plan in place, you can save yourself from all the despair of losing important files. I recommend having a network storage drive or an external hard drive as your primary backup, and also using an online backup service to protect your most important files. If something happens to your building or home, it is great to have a backup that is not at the same location.

At home, I’m using MozyPro, which is an online backup solution.  My computer uploads any changes to their offsite servers during the night. It has worked great and is only $4.95 per month.  Other good online solutions are BackBlaze and Carbonite.

Dropbox is also another great way to backup important files. It synchronizes files between different computers. It has been a great way to backup some important files and transfer files from my home computer and my laptop to the church computer.

Whatever you do, DO SOMETHING. Don’t wait until a failure, develop a plan and start backing up. You’ll thank me later.

If you’re interested in the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, here is some more info.

Google announced their new phone today and it looks sweet. I’ve been waiting for a iPhone to come out on a different network, but this has definitely got my interest now. Especially since it will be available on Verizon in a few months. Check out the video below

We’re starting a new series at Cornerstone this week on Vision. We all need fresh revelation from God. Vision gives us focus, endurance, and peace. Proverbs 29:18 NIV reminds us that “where there is no revelation, we cast off restraint….” In other words, we end up imitating culture rather than influencing it (read 1 Samuel 8 as an example of what happens when we seek imitation over revelation).

Our minds alone can’t even conceive what God has prepared for us. The Spirit, however, searches all things, even the deep things of God, and reveals them (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). This is a great way to start the new year, so invite your friends. My prayer is that we will develop our spiritual vision to clearly see God’s plan for our lives. Here is the video intro for the series.

20/20 Vision: Video Intro for Sermon Series from Mike Morris on Vimeo.

Using Keynote to Create Videos

If you’re interested on how I created the video, I’ll let you in on a secret. I didn’t use any high powered software to create it. I didn’t have much time to spend on this project so I cheated on this one. I did a little work in Photoshop Elements to create the logo, and then I used Apple’s Keynote to create a slideshow for the movie. I used the built-in transitions and effects to handle all the text and images. I setup timings and delays and then set each slide to automatically advance so that it was one continuos slideshow with no clicking. Since most video editing software is pretty tough to use, I have a feeling that more people know how to use presentation software.

Keynote gives you the ability to export a slideshow as a quicktime movie, so I used that to create a high res version. The quicktime file is not a true movie, but it is a slideshow playable on both macs and windows. I loaded it up in Quicktime Player 7 on the mac and exported it as a quicktime movie.  I then loaded the movie into Garageband and added the audio. All together, it took just a couple of hours start to finish. If you are dealing with mostly text, then Keynote may be a better option than a full-blown video editing package.

If you haven’t noticed, my blog has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks. It’s been a busy time with all the excitement of the Christmas season, and I have definitely been doing a lot of planning and thinking. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking through some long term goals. In order for me to be the best husband, father, and pastor that I can be, I am making some changes.

One of the biggest changes is the amount of time I use the computer in the evenings.  While it may seem minor, I am making sure I am fully present for my family. That means I am disconnecting from much of the tech world after I get home until the kids go to bed. Although, I’ve had much less time to work on the blog, there is no doubt that I am making the right decision. I will continue posting to the blog, but it will not be as frequent as in the past. My goal is 3 high quality posts per week. I simply don’t have the time to do more than that right now with the demands of a growing church and a busy family.  I will still be on twitter for other day-to-day thoughts, so you can follow me there.

I am also making changes in the way I take care of myself. I want to finish strong and I want to finish healthy.  That means I will be working out and eating healthier and taking more time off. I’ll share some more of my goals for the next few years in a future post. I am excited about the changes and I want you, my blog readers, to know that this site will continue to have great information about church technology, about ministry in a small town, and about the lessons I learn along the way.

One of the most used apps on my iPod is the YouVersion Bible app by Lifechurch.tv. I have blogged about YouVersion numerous times in the past (see the posts here), and I am excited about the continual updates that the digerati team at Lifechurch keep pushing out. Last week they announced a new milestone. YouVersion users have spent one billion minutes reading the Bible on mobile devices! But they didn’t stop long to celebrate and now they have added the ability to track a personalized Bible reading plan on your mobile device. The feature came out today for the Blackberry application and is coming out soon on the iPod/iPhone. It is also available on their website.

I have kept a little printout in my Bible for a long time that I use to track my reading progress. It works great until you lose the sheet, which I have done several times in the past year.  I’m planning on switching over and using this to track and guide my reading starting January 1st. There are multiple reading plans to choose from, so what’s holding you back? Will you join me in reading through your Bible in the upcoming year?

If you want to find out more about how this works, check out the video below.

ChurchCrunch had the news about this yesterday.  If you want to utilize technology for ministry, then definitely check this website out. It is a great blog with an active forum of church tech users. Definitely one of my favorite ministry websites. Check it out at www.churchcrunch.com.