On Saturday I was able to finally check out the new Nook color ereader. I have a 2nd generation Kindle and I have played around with the newer 3rd generation as well. I have read around fifty books on my kindle, so it is definitely well used. Overall, the new Kindle and the new Nook Color are both great units. I’ve had several people ask me which one is better. So here’s my quick analysis of the features that matter most.

Battery Life

Kindle is the clear winner with a battery that can last up to a month if you turn off wireless. The Nook color has a battery life of around 8 hours with the wifi turned off. With the Nook, you would have to charge and charge often. I took my Kindle on a 10 day trip and didn’t even take the charger with me.

Display

This is a tough comparison because of the two different screen displays. For reading books, the Kindle wins out. It is easier on the eyes and you can read in direct sunlight. For magazines, newspapers, games, and the web, the Nook Color is better. And the Nook Color is a touchscreen, so it is easier to use. I don’t know how many times I find myself poking at the screen of my kindle expecting to navigate pages.

Price

The Kindle 3G is $139, and when you add in 3G the cost goes up to $189. The Nook Color is $249

Web Browsing

The 2nd generation Kindle has a web browser in the experimental menu, but it is just plain terrible. It is slow and the formatting on most pages in unreadable.  The 3rd generation Kindle made a huge jump and switched to a webkit browser, which works great. It is now usable for checking email and basic web activities. However, the Nook Color is based on the Android operating system and it just blows away the Kindle while browsing the web.

Future Potential

Here is where I think the advantage goes to the Nook Color. The Kindle is great for reading books, but that is it. Since the Nook is based on Android, it can expand far beyond a typical ereader. Barnes & Noble has announced that there will be apps available on the Nook in the future. Some people have already rooted the Nook and installed Android apps on it. Pandora is already installed on the Nook and as more apps are added, it becomes more of a tablet and less of an ereader.

Verdict

For reading books, I think the Kindle is still the clear winner. It is the cheaper unit and the longer battery life is the game changer. The Nook Color is much tougher to evaluate. I really like it and I am interested by it, but I can’t see myself ever buying one. It is a hybrid between an android phone and an iPad. The price is good, but I don’t really know where it fits in. When it comes right down to it, I would rather have an iPad. If they open up the operating system and allow you to install any android apps, then it might have a chance. Do you have either one? If so, what do you like or dislike? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

We were snowed in this past Sunday and church was canceled, so I decided to tune and and catch some of the online church services. I listened to the early service at Newspring Live and then tuned in to watch the Northpoint Online service. They opened up with this Christmas medley done completely with iPods and iPads and iPhones. I’ve seen several bands pull this off on youtube, but this was a fun creative way to open a church service. These handbells are actually cool. I wonder how much practice it took to pull this off?

This week at Cornerstone we did a little mobile experiment. Over the past few months, I have seen a large increase in the number of people using the Bible on their mobile devices during church. We’ve even seen a few iPads being used for note taking. Now that android phones are finally available in our area (still no chance for iPhones, since AT&T has no service here), I feel that we will see many more people making the technological jump to using an electronic Bible.

I have known about YouVersion Live for a while now, but until now, I haven’t really viewed it as a good option for our church. This week we tried incorporating it into our service and it was well received. I have heard numerous comments on how great it was to be able to follow along with the message and take notes on mobile devices. If you are not familiar with YouVersion Live, view it as an electronic bulletin. You can list announcements, share your sermon outline, conduct polls and take questions, list Bible verses, take prayer requests, and provide a place for note taking all on one screen. At the end of the service, you simply type in your email address and the entire outline of the service, including all notes and announcements, is emailed to you.

To use this, you will need to have the YouVersion Bible app installed on your android, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry, or other mobile device. To find out if there is a version for your phone, visit youversion.com/download from your device. To understand how YouVersion Live works, please check out their information page. Basically, from their Bible app, you click on the Live option. From there, you can enter in our zip code or church name and you will see our service listed. Click on it and you’re ready to go. For the church, it only takes about 10 to 20 minutes to setup the entire service. If you attend Cornerstone and would like to help with this each week, please let me know. I would love to provide this each week.  Here are some videos that explain the service in detail.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6FACA404132F79A3

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you need someone to pay you, but they only have a credit card? That scenario can happen to you as an individual, as a small business, or even as a church.  That typically means that you are out of luck. Accepting credit cards meant the hassle of a merchant account and an expensive point of sale unit. A new company called Square has an interesting solution. They provide an app that turns your iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, or Android devoice into a complete point of sale system. You can accept payments, send receipts via email, and more.

We are finding ourselves more in a cashless society where transactions are increasingly made with debit or credit cards, and this app opens up a new world of possibility. Do you have a cafe at your church? What about selling tshirts or snacks as a fundraiser? With your phone, you can literally accept payments anywhere.  There is no monthly fee and their per transaction fees are competitive. The system works by using a small card reader that attaches through the audio port of your device. The card reader is free and I should be getting mine any day now. See the pics and video below for more information.

To signup, download the app for your device and go to Square’s website to setup your account.

I’ve recently jumped into the world of Android so I wanted to share some of the apps that are working great for me. It’s amazing how much computing power you can carry in your pocket.  I’ve even found myself leaving my laptop at home more because I can do so much from my phone. Here’s a quick rundown of some apps that you may find helpful. These apps are all free, although some of them require you to subscribe to a service.

1- The Bible by YouVersion

This is by far my favorite app on my phone. I use the Bible reading plans they offer, and I am constantly looking up verses. It integrates with facebook and twitter so you can share passages, and you can even contribute your thoughts on Bible passages. They also offer churches the ability to share notes and Bible verses during your services.

2- Evernote

Evernote is a great tool for taking notes. It allows you to access your notes from the web, from your phone, from your ipod, or from your windows or mac computer. I use it to collect sermon ideas, illustrations, and any other type of information that I might need later. I also use it to take pictures of whiteboards after meetings. Evernote will recognize the text within the photo and allow you to search through it.

3- Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to Sync your files between your computers and your phone. It is a quick and easy way to get photos and other files transferred to your computer from your phone, and it also allows you to quickly transfer files from your computer to your phone. I use dropbox to store files I am working on.

4- Thinking Space

I like outlining my sermons and teaching topics using mindmaps, and this is a great app for mindmapping on your phone. I have stored my sermon mindmaps in my dropbox folder so I can access them from my computer or from my phone. It works great when you want to add an idea.

5- WordPress

This doesn’t apply to everyone, but if you host a blog through WordPress, then you definitely need this app. It allows you to post new blog entries, as well as moderate comments directly from your phone.

6- Planning Center Online

Again, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but if your church uses Planning Center Online, then this is a must-have app. The app is free, but it requires that your church has a subscription to their service. We use it to schedule our band and our children’s workers, and we use it to map out our services each week.

7- Tweetdeck

The official twitter android client is nice, but for now I am sticking with tweetdeck. They still have some work to do to bring it up to the same functionality in their iPhone app, but they are definitely heading in the right direction. I love having the ability to update Facebook, twitter, and Buzz from the same app.

8- Remember the Milk

I almost forget to include Remember the Milk, that’s why I need this app on my phone. I use it to track my to-do list. I’ve created different categories ranging from who I need to call to what I plan on blogging about. The app is free, but it requires a Pro account on Remember the Milk’s website, which currently is $25 per year. I’ve been using it for several years now, so I don’t mind paying the yearly fee.

9- Kindle

Even if you don’t own a Kindle, you should get this app. Not only can you find great free books, you can also find great deals on Bible resources as well. I bought the ESV Study Bible for only $7.99 and I access it all the time from my phone. You can also highlight passages and even take notes with the app.

10- gStrings

And finally, a list for ministry wouldn’t be complete without an app to tune your guitar.

What apps have you found helpful in your ministry? What would you add to the list?

It seems like most churches are either dissatisfied with their current software or are looking to make their first purchase of major church management software. I want to spend several blog posts talking about the different options that are out there and giving you a few questions to think about. To start off, we need to define what church management software is. Here’s a starting definition from Wikipedia

it is a specialized software that assists churches and other religious organizations in organization and automation of daily operations. These packages typically assist in the management of membership and mailings, fundraising, events, and report generation.

In order to better understand how software can help the day to day operation of your church, I think it is good to think about your current processes. How do you follow up with visitors? How do you do reports? How do you handle communication? Software solutions can help you automate and improve these and they also help improve the communication of your staff and leadership team. If you are currently evaluating software, I want to give you a few questions to think about. There is not one solution that is right for every church. You will need to spend time analyzing your biggest needs and developing your goals for the software.

Questions to Think Through

• Do we want a system just for leadership or for everyone in the church? Do you want everyone in the church to have access so that they can lookup addresses and find and share information, or do you just want leadership to use the software.
• Do we want a server based solution or a web-based solution? Many older software solutions are based on maintaining a server with the software at the church. All information is stored in-house, and you need access to the church network if you want to access the system. Newer software solutions are based on storing information on servers hosted by the software company, so that you can access the data from any computer at any time. You have to decide if you trust the privacy controls that they have in place for your data.
• Do we want to create a new online community for people in our church, or do we want to utilize existing online communities? Neither is wrong or right, they are just different. Some software solutions enable you to create a protected online community, while others integrate with services that people are already using like Facebook and Twitter.
• How do our current processes fit into the software? If you have good systems in place, you don’t want to change the way you do things because the software isn’t flexible. Visitor followup and assimilation is a good process to think through. Will the software make your life easier or harder?
• Do we want to utilize the software for tracking attendance for youth, children, small groups, worship services? Many solutions offer check-in or barcode attendance tracking. If you have this information, how will you use it?
• Do we need to track giving and contributions? What about all bookkeeping? Several software solutions offer this built-in, while others integrate with your current accounting software.
• Do we need to integrate this into our current website? Online giving, small group directories, and event registration are all possible with the right software.
• Do we need mobile access? How connected is your church? Is smartphone access important? Specialized apps and mobile websites can help people access the information from anywhere.
• What is our budget? This will automatically eliminate some of the solutions
• Do we need a better way to communicate with leaders and church attenders? Some solutions excel in communication, while others neglect it.

As you work through these questions, you can start narrowing down your possible solutions. In the next blog post, I’ll share my thoughts about the future of church management software. But for now, I want to list some of the solutions that you can research.

Church Management Software Solutions

Web-Based Small Group and Communication Solutions:

• SoChurch – A new communications control center with great pricing
• MemberHub – A group communication tool with membership management built in
• ChurchTeams - Allows you to manage and lead your small group ministry more effectively
• Groups Interactive – Specializes in integrating with your current website to improve your small group management

Community Based Solutions:

• Church Community Builder – Church Management Software that specializes in building community within your church
• The City – The City is a web-based communication and administration platform for your church that builds community

Do Everything Church Management Solutions:

• Arena – One of the best solutions for larger churches
• FellowshipOne - A powerful solution geared to churches of all sizes
• BVCMS – A free open-source solution for church management
• ACS Technologies – A server based system that does everything
• ConnectionPower – It specializes in visitor assimilation but has additional modules for everything else

What questions or solutions would you add to the list?

Here’s a video to give you a hint.

After waiting a long time for a decent smartphone to be offered in our area, I picked up a HTC Desire Android phone today from US Cellular. It’s essentially the same as the Google Nexus One, except is is a CDMA phone offered by regional carriers. I’ve been playing with it all evening, installing apps and learning how it works. Overall, I’m happy with it.  It came with Android 2.1 on it, but I’m already looking forward to the 2.2 update so I can install apps to the SD card.  It’s fast, it’s sleek, and the screen is incredible. I’m excited to see how I can integrate it into my workflow for church. Already, I’m looking forward to not having to carry my iPod and my phone everywhere I go.

Here’s a list of the apps I’ve installed so far.

• Bible app from Lifechurch
• Evernote
• Dropbox
• Pandora
• 1Password
• Google Voice
• Advanced Task Killer
• Barcode Scanner
• Amazon MP3
• Dolphin Browser HD
• Google Goggles
• Amazon Kindle
• Mint
• Photoshop Express
• RunKeeper
• Remember the Milk
• ScoreCenter
• Seesmic
• Shazam
• WordPress

What did I miss? Looking forward to trying it out over the next few weeks.

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I downloaded and installed a new app today for Bible memorization. Check out the screenshots embedded above for an idea of how it works. It’s called the Verseminder Topical Memory System by NavPress. It costs $3.99, but is well worth it if you want to get serious about memorizing Scripture. The only drawback I see is that it only contains 60 verses.

What tools do you use to help memorize Scripture?