This Article is printed in the JulyAugust 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

The Seventh-day Adventist church has always been on the cutting edge of technology.  When radio began in the early 1900’s, the Adventist church was there producing religious programing with H.M.S. Richards on the Voice of Prophecy. When TV began in the 1940′s, the Adventist church was there producing the first religious programing in color with William Fagal on “Faith for Today”.  Back during the Milleriate movement, Joshua Himes used technology in the form of charts and print media so effectively that people begin calling him “the Napoleon of the press”.

While attending Camp Meeting this July in the BC Conference, I had the privilege of talking with a pastor who, just like Joshua Himes, is on the cutting edge of technology.  Michael Campbell, lead pastor of the Wichita Seventh-day Adventist Church, uses many forms of technology to communicate, share and interact with the congregation on a daily basis.  He describes technology as a tool that multiplies his efforts to build community.

“I made a commitment to the church on my first Sabbath to communicate”, says Campbell, and he is aggressively following through with that commitment.  On that first Sabbath, he asked members for their name, phone number and email address. Within a month, he collected approximately 90% of the congregations emails.

With that newly created list of emails, Campbell started sending out a weekly email newsletter that He describes as “one of the easiest, simplest ways to communicate”.

Campbell says one of the challenges he faces is how to meet the needs of the younger generation.  He found that one of the best ways to do that is to engage them through another technology; texting.  He regularly sends out text messages to individuals he did not see in church telling them that he missed them and hopes everything is going well.  “It makes people feel more connected,” says Campbell.

During a sermon about Zacchaeus, the Tax Collector, he asked the congregation, “what would you do if Jesus came to your house today?”  He put his cell phone number up on the screen and asked people to respond by texting their answers.  He received about 30 responses including one from a 13 year old who said he would clean up his room and then bring Jesus in, make a root beer float and sit down to talk with Jesus about his spiritual life.  On the way out of church he gave Campbell a high five.

“It was amazing to see people sitting forward, engaged and listening intently because they had contributed something to the sermon”, says Campbell.

Another cutting edge technology that Campbell has used during his sermon is a live poll.   He displayed a question with multiple answers on the screen and had people text in their votes. “Texting provides a dynamic environment to engage the congregation with the church service,” he says.

The Wichita South Church actively uses social media.  In fact, they have a church position called, Facebook Coordinator.  Campbell says Facebook is a communication tool that his church regularly uses to send out notices of events and invites.  He says it serves as a gentle reminder of what is going on and gives people an opportunity to respond to the invitation.  Also, it gives you an idea of how many people are planning to attend the event.  “We also use Facebook to post sermon topics, ask a question or get feedback from people,” he says.

The Wichita South Church also uses the social medium called Foursquare for members to check in at church.  It acts as an online attendance tracker.  People can check in at the keyaus in the lobby or on a mobile phone.  The names of those who took the time to check in go into a draw for a price at the end of the service.

Campbell tells me they are currently working on a new design for the church website as well as an iphone app in the near future.

“God has used technology in the past, I’ve seen it. And He will continue to use it in the future,” says Campbell.

For more information about the Wichita South Seventh-day Adventist Church or to contact Pastor Campbell, visit their website at http://www.wichitaadventist.org.

This Article is printed in the MayJune 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

Did you know, approximately 925 million people on planet earth will go to bed hungry tonight?  And, every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s one child every five seconds!

Wikipedia describes poverty as, “the lack of basic human needs, such as clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter, because of the inability to afford them.”

Poverty is a rising concern that prevents many people from having the basic needs for life that you and I living in Canada, everyday take for granted.

Instead of just talking about poverty, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), the worldwide agency of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for humanitarian outreach, relief and development, is hard at work to help combat its deadly effects on our society.

The story of ADRA begins shortly after the Second World War when the Church established the Seventh-day Adventist Welfare Service (SAWS).  To reflect its worldwide involvement, in 1973 its name changed to the Seventh-day Adventist World Service and then in the early 1980’s the familiar name ADRA was adopted.

Pastor James Astleford, Donor Relations Director for ADRA Canada, told me that in the early 1980’s the Adventist church realized they needed to do more then just hand out “fish to the hungry”, they needed to be teaching people how to “fish so that they could feed themselves for a life time”.  This concept led not only to a name change in 1984, but also to a philosophy change focused on helping people beyond the immediate needs of the day.

The ADRA mission is to “work with people in poverty and distress to create just and positive change through empowering partnerships and responsible action.” In 1985, a year after the reorganization of ADRA International, ADRA Canada was formed and it is currently part of the network improving lives in 120 countries.

In its day–to-day operations, ADRA Canada uses many types of technology to connect and share with people the needs of a world in poverty.

For the past 22 years, ADRA Canada has been sending out video presentations to every church in the Canadian Union.  Originally, these were sent out on VHS tapes, and currently are sent out on DVD, two to three times a year.  These video presentations are an excellent tool for educating each congregation to the life-changing stories of ADRA’s development and relief efforts.  Besides being available on DVD, the video presentations are also made available online through YouTube and the ADRA Canada website at http://www.adra.ca.    James Astleford told me that ADRA Canada is working on integrating a dedicated video platform with their current website that will allow for HD content and an overall enhanced video viewing experience.

Also, in utilizing the technology of video, It is Written Canada recently aired three programs with interviews of Pastor Ronald Kuhn, Executive Director for ADRA Canada and Pastor James Astleford.  And, to aid awareness of the work of ADRA Canada, a short video clip was regularly aired on CTV during the Japan disaster.

Alicia Sawyer, Donor Relations Assistant for ADRA Canada, said that ADRA Canada is currently connecting with people through the online technology of social media including Facebook (ADRA Canada) and Twitter (@adracanada).  “Social media are great ways to get immediate information and inspirational stories out to people”, said Alicia, who is hoping for many new connections to build a greater awareness of ADRA Canada.

ADRA Canada’s eNews (email newsletter), generates many responses from the approximately 6,000 subscribers.  James Astleford said,  “people are quick to respond to requests for immediate financial aide from the eNews stories relating to current disasters such as the Japan Earthquake”.   A growing number of ADRA Canada’s supporters are now donating online rather then through their local church. (Provided donors identify their membership, such contributions still count towards the local church goal.)

As ADRA Canada continues to stay on the cutting edge of technology, it is currently exploring some very exciting technological initiatives for the future.  I am told that text donations may soon be an option for donors and the idea of mobile apps is being explored for iPhone and android devices.

For those who want to learn first hand how ADRA Canada is transforming lives, ADRA Canada has launched a new initiative called, ADRA Connections that Pastor James Astleford describes as, “putting Canadians in direct touch with the activities of ADRA Canada”.   Elizabeth Horniachek, ADRA Connections Coordinator, told me that people are positive about the program and are very excited about getting “hands-on” with ADRA Canada.

I look forward to the day Jesus talked about in Revelation 7, “They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore;… and God will wipe every tear from their eyes”.  Please continue to do your part in the battle against poverty so that Jesus can say, “Well done good and faithful servant.  Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me”.  Help ADRA Canada save lives.

This Article is printed in the March 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

In the last issue (click to view Five Free Online Tools for Ministry Part 1), I began sharing five extremely useful and powerful online tools that can help you more effectively manage your work, church, ministry and life in 2011.  And, the best part about these online resources is that they are all absolutely free.  In Part One of this article, I featured two of the five tools: Google Docs and Dropbox.  Here are the remaining three: Facebook, Bible Gateway and Picnik.

Facebook:

I am confident that most of you have heard of the social networking website called Facebook (http://www.facebook.com).  What you may not know is that as of February 2011, Facebook has approximately 600 million active users, more than 6 million page views per minute (37.4 trillion per year), 2.5 billion images uploaded every month, and 46.2 years of YouTube videos watched on Facebook each day.

Personally I am not a huge fan of a few things about Facebook, one being the many hours of time people waste on it.  However, it is obvious that Facebook is very popular.   And it does provide an excellent resource for connecting with people and sharing information online.

One of Facebook’s features is the ability to create “pages” and “groups”.  In order to create a page or group, you first need to be a registered Facebook user.

The finer details of pages and groups are beyond the scope of this article, but I will say that they both provide the ability to connect, share and even collaborate on a topic or idea with other Facebook users.   Overall each allow the administrator to send mass emails and publish news/information to it’s connected members.  Groups provide a few options that pages don’t: event inbox messaging and the ability to restrict access.

By creating Facebook groups and pages, churches can do things like send out event reminders, share photos, present and answer questions about God, share related websites or video links, or respond to prayer requests, just to mention a few.

BibleGateway.com

BibleGateway.com (http://www.biblegateway.com) is currently owned by Zondervan and is a free online service for reading and researching Scripture.

Whether you want to look up a Bible passage, search a keyword or topic, Bible Gateway makes it easy and quick.  With a searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages, there are plenty of translations to choose from and compare.  Also available online are multiple bible reading plans that send a daily email with a link to your daily Scripture reading, six English versions of the Bible in audio, Bible dictionaries and devotional content.

I use Bible Gateway to read and compare texts when preparing sermons or devotionals each week.  Another thing I enjoy about Bible Gateway is the mobile Bible Gateway version which provides a mobile-friendly web experience on my iphone.

Picnik

A question that many people ask me is, “How do I crop and resize my photos for email?” Well, the first thing I ask in response is, “What operating system are you using?” Their answer to that question has a lot to do with my response.

On Microsoft Windows you could use ImageResizer or Paint, on Mac OS X, you could use Preview or iphoto.  And of course there is the over priced and extremely complicated Adobe Photoshop.

Well, last on our list of great free online tools will solve the problem of image editing and what operating system you do or don’t have.  Picnik (http://www.picnik.com) is a free online photo editing service purchased last year by Google.  No registration or download is required to start using it.  Picnik works through your computers web browser on any operating system (Mac, Windows, and Linux).

Picnik allows you to grab your photos from many online photo storage sites like Flickr and Facebook or upload directly from your computer.   Once a photo is loaded into the online system, you can crop, resize, and rotate your photos in real-time.  Also, fix blemishes and change colour with the help of special effects and advanced controls.

Picnik is a great service to resize photos for your church website or to do some touch-ups and adjustments for the church newsletter.

There are, of course, many other online tools that are both very useful and free.  Don’t be afraid to explore them and discover how they might benefit you.  And always be prepared that new, better resources may arise overnight and change how we do things hopefully with even greater efficiency and ease.

This Article is printed in the October 2010 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

Tweet, Tweet, Twitter, Twitter

Throughout history, the communication of information has always been very important. An online source states, “The history of communication is mankind’s search for ways to improve upon shouting.” Subsequently, the lack of communication has often caused loss of money and lives.

“People crave news out of basic instinct.” “Knowledge of the unknown gives them security; it allows them to plan and negotiate their lives.” (Quotes from The Elements of Journalism; page 15.)

Communication Technology has come a long way since Morse sent the first telegraph in 1844 from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles, that said, “What has God Wrought”.

With so many communication technology inventions in our past, I want to mention just a few.  We have seen the invention of the telephone in 1876, the beginning of radio communication in 1896, the introduction of the television with moving pictures and sound in 1936, the internet which was launched and made available to everyone in 1983, satellites, cell phones, text messaging, email, and more recent, in 2006, the launch of a social media application called twitter.

According to the online encyclopedia called Wikipedia, twitter has been called the “SMS of the internet” (SMS means “text messaging”).  Since it’s creation and launch in 2006, Twitter has gained popularity with approximately 100 million users worldwide.

The communication technology of twitter “enables its users to send and read other user’s messages called tweets.” In short, twitter allows information up to 140 characters to be instantly sent then received by other users (followers), making the knowledge of current news available by the second.

I was very interested to know if and how twitter was used during the 59th General Conference Session held in June of this year.   I made a few enquires and was put in connection with Megan Brauner, Media Relations Assistant for the General Conference.

In my conversation with Megan, she told me that the General Conference Communication department used two twitter accounts during this year’s session, @AdventistNews (currently with approximately 2000 followers) and @gcsession.

Regarding the @gcsession account, Megan said, “I spent more than half of my time answering questions on Twitter. People didn’t want to know just the dry facts. They wanted to know what it was like to be there, or what I was seeing and experiencing.”

She continued to say, “ A lot of my followers came to Atlanta for only one or two days, or weren’t able to come at all, so they appreciated knowing behind-the-scenes details and getting the inside scoop.”

The use of twitter during the eleven days of the GC session provided approximately 2500 hits to the news.adventist.org website as people clicked on twitter links to the full story on the news website. “It was important to be as timely as possible.” Megan said,  “I tried to tweet elections the minute they happened, not hours or days later.”

Megan tells me that the comments from the twitter followers were very positive and appreciative of the news and information shared to them.  Several people were from isolated areas of the world and the use of twitter was for them the best way to keep informed of the latest GC news.

Megan said she enjoyed using this new communication technology because, “it’s very rewarding to feel like you’re truly part of a global community”. “It felt good to do my bit” she said, “a process many Adventists may never get to experience.”

The official twitter account of the world church is @AdventistChurch and can be found at http://twitter.com/adventistchurch.

I remember sitting at my computer back in the year 2000, while I was pastoring in Newfoundland, trying to watch a video over the internet on a 56k dialup connect.

What an unpleasant experience that was.  Kind of like driving through a Newfoundland snow storm in January.

The video would start and stop every few seconds and you spent more time staring at the word “buffering” on the status bar then watching the video.  And to make things worse, for a few seconds that the video actually played in between stops, it was choppy, pixilated and hard to see.

Well, those early days of Internet video and the unpleasant experiences associated with it are long gone.  Streaming video and audio have come a long way since then.

Youtube

According to an online source, 57 million people listen to Internet radio every week and in 2006, people watched more than a million streaming videos a day on YouTube YouTube has just announced in May 2010, that the number of videos watched daily at the website has broken the two-billion mark as the service begins celebrating its fifth birthday.  (Source from Yahoo News)

21 million Canadians viewed more than 3.1 billion videos online during the month of Feburary 2009

Online video consumption continues to grow at an astonishing rate. comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world,  released a report showing that 21 million Canadians viewed more than 3.1 billion videos online during the month of Feburary 2009. comScore, Inc. also reports that an average of 15.5 billion videos are watched online in North American each month and 27 billion hours were spent on the Internet globally in Sept 2009.

With the recent technological advances in faster networks for mobile devices such as Apple’s 3G iPhone and the Blackberry Storm, online mobile video consumption is alive and well.

With these staggering facts in mind about the Internet and online video consumption, streaming your audio/video sermons is a huge evangelistic tool.

Getting Video Online

Here are the steps you need to follow to get your next sermon from the pulpit to the information highway:

Step 1. Record the events from your church (sermons, seminars, etc…)

To record an audio file, you can use a computer with audio recording software or a small mp3 recorder with a line input.  To record the video you should use a digital camera that has a firewire output.

Step 2. Transfer your recording to your computer.

Connect your video camera to your computer using the firewire connection and cable. The computer will detect that your camera is now connected.

To get the audio from a mp3 recorder you can connect the devise to your computer by a USB cable.  The computer will detect that your audio devise is connected.

Step 3. Edit your audio/video file on your computer and convert it to a format suitable for use on the web.

You can use one of the many specialized video editing software programs available like Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas Pro, Quick Time Pro or Final Cut Pro for the Mac OS X to edit your video files.

For editing audio files you can use software like Audacity or Fission for Mac OS X.

Then you can export (encode) your file(s) to a web format like: Flash (.flv), MP4, Widows Media (.wmv), Real Media (.rm), Quick Time (.mov), MP3 (for audio).

Step 4. Upload your file to a media server.

Contact your website provider to ask for media storage. Then use a FTP program to upload your file(s) to the media server.

There are many choices available for a good FTP program.  File Zilla is free for Windows.   For Mac OS X an excellent choice is Transmit.

Step 5. Add information about your file(s) on your website and link to them.

If your church website is an Adventist Church Connect site that is provided by the North American Division to every church in North America, then you could use the media modules already available to you.  These features make it easy to add info about your audio/video files like: title, description, URL (a link to your file location to the media server), duration, size etc.

If your church is not using an Adventist Church Connect website then the best option for video is called, “JW FLV Player” and can be found online at http://www.longtailvideo.com/.

If you are using a website that is powered by a WordPress CMS then you could use the sermonbrowser plugin available at http://www.4-14.org.uk/wordpress-plugins/sermon-browser.

Well, I hope this information and step by step guide will help you in getting your audio and video files from your church to the internet.   Lets continue moving forward and learning how to better use the technology opportunities God has made available to us for Leading People to Jesus.

I remember when I was young, my dad would setup a camcorder on Christmas morning and video tape us kids running down the hall into the living room to open our gifts.  Oh, the excitement of it all.

The video camera my dad originally used has been obsolete now for about 15-20 years.  It recorded the video onto something called a “VHS” tape.  As the years went by, the camcorders changed (VHS to mini-VHS to Hi-8 to DVD to HD) and the video revealed something very interesting.  As I look at the gifts we received back then and compare with the gifts kids receive today, I see the transition into the technological age.

Technology has changed many other things about Christmas past.

Like those digital Christmas cards you can create on the computer.  Insert a picture of the family from your digital camera, enter in as many email address as you like, and press send.

Gone are the days of having to write a personal message on every paper card with an ink pen.  Gone are the days of having to buy Christmas stamps and sending a Christmas greeting and family photo by snail mail.

Amazon

And what about Amazon.com?  Amazon has changed the way many people do their Christmas present planning.  You create an account and start adding to your “wish list” or start buying for someone else.

• A new iphone (my old model is already obsolete because it doesn’t take videos and the internet connection is too slow).
• A blue-ray DVD player (“With Full HD 1080p output and the ability to decode the latest HD audio formats… for the ultimate entertainment experience.”)
• A new digital camera (with 10.2-megapixel, image stabilization and 10x optical zoom)

“Wish List”

Others can look at your “wish list” online at Amazon’s website so they know what to buy for you.  Or as Amazon words it, “to make sure it’s something you really want.”

Amazon might have perfected the “wish list” in past years, but they didn’t invent it.  Christmas wish lists have been around for a long time and no doubt technology will be at the top of most lists this December.

But putting aside all the technology and gadgets for a moment, we must not forget the real meaning of what Christmas is about.  We must never let technology stand in the way of our personal relationships with loved ones or distract from our focus on Christ.

Don’t be like the innkeeper who missed Jesus because he was too busy.  Turn off the cell phone for a while and power down the computer.  Make time for the Lord.

And don’t run your life like the Roman Empire, who missed Christmas because other gods took the place of Christ in their lives.  Put down the xbox and Wii, switch off the TV.  Allow nothing else to take the place of worshipping Jesus Christ.

On my wish list this year, “I wish you Jesus”, because when I wish you Jesus I wish you everything: joy and peace and forgiveness and salvation and abundance and purpose and prosperity and eternal life. When He’s the Lord of your life, His presence is all you need. It is my prayer that you not only connect with Jesus this Christmas season, but that you cling to him the rest of your life.

Christmas morning we will unwrap our presents, but eventually the novelty of it all will wear off.  The present that was once so precious to you will end up stuffed in the closet or handed off to someone else.  A newer version of your latest gadget will arrive that has more megapixels, or is smaller, or faster, or has better battery life.  In time, your Christmas gifts will mostly be forgotten.  But God has given us the ultimate gift—the gift of His Son Jesus Christ who will “save His people from their sins”.

Matthew 1:21-23, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Don’t miss Christmas this year.  As Watts and Handel once wrote, “Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room.”

What’s on your wish list this Christmas?

It is often said that “all roads lead to Rome,” and in fact, they once did.  The Romans built a network of roads that were one of the greatest engineering accomplishments of their time.

The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 kms including more than 80,000 kms of paved roads.

Although the Roman road system was originally built for the speedy movement and accessibility of the Roman troops throughout the empire, it was also used for many other purposes.

Purpose of Roads

The roads provided an opportunity for trade.

The roads made travel and communication possible that allowed for the spread of the gospel.

Rome’s impressive and enduring transportation network was of such an extent that it stands as a historical example of a connective technology linking together a globalized empire, transforming education, communication and evangelism.

Just as the Roman road system in New Testament times enabled the rapid spread of the Gospel, so also the Internet has become an effective worldwide channel for evangelism.

Let’s look at Matthew 24:14 and explore how God is using the Internet as an evangelistic tool to spread the gospel.

Matthew 24:14, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Traditionally, preaching the gospel to the “whole world” has been viewed as one person in front of another person, face to face, or one person in front of a group.

But, we are fast approaching a technological phenomena where preaching the gospel, as Matthew 24 says; “in the whole world”, will soon become a digital reality.

1.6 billion active Internet users

Statistics tell us that there are currently 1.6 billion active Internet users across the world with the potential for about 3.5 billion over the next 2 to 3 years with the increase in mobile Internet devices like the iphone and Blackberry.

Millions are looking for answers about God and a spiritual connection. Since the Internet is a “pull” medium, unlike literature and radio which are linear “push” mediums, the Internet is their front line source for information.

The Internet generation of today may never step foot into a church building or bible presentation but are willing to seek out answers in the quiet hours of their home or during their lunch break at work.

The Internet Church

Walter Wilson, in his book, The Internet Church, says this, “Questions about God can be asked in complete privacy on the internet.  The Internet displays no culture, no race, no gender, and no age.  It provides a seeker with the ability to navigate his or her way to the foot of Calvary’s Cross.  You can explore the internet in search of answers without having to reveal who you are.”

The Internet sees no country borders.  Your church website can be viewed by someone living in Vancouver, BC and Hong Kong, China both at the same time.

God is doing something incredible.

As Christians, we must not be afraid of the Internet or see it as just a technology of networked computers.

We must see the Internet as an evangelistic tool that God is using to tell the world about Jesus.

We must recognize that we live in the digital communication age and learn to use the Internet as an effective worldwide channel for evangelism as never before.

“I will be making your church website my online virtual church from now on”

In 2006, while I was pastoring in Aldergrove BC, I inquired about a certain software program that would help in the administration of the computer training classes we were offering to the community.

I sent an email to an unknown person who was located in Australia and after several emails back and forth, I explained who I was, and gave him the website address to our church.

After a few more days, I received an exciting response.

He said this, “I checked out your website and watched a video of one of your sermons.  It touched my life in a very powerful way. You see, my wife is a Buddhist and I am a Christian.  She doesn’t want me attending church.  I want you to know that I will be providing you with 10 licenses of our program for your computer lab free of charge and I will be making your church website my online virtual church from now on.”

From the Roman highways to the information highway, God has been using technology to spread the gospel.

Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”