I chose the Fire primarily on price and the availability of  Perkstreet perks that paid for most of the cost.
I’m hoping to use it for more than just reading.

I also ordered a Kindle Touch.  I’ll unbox it after Thanksgiving.

Here’s the videos of the un-boxing.

Part 1.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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Zoom H2 Handy Recorder

At our church Trinity, Creston IA we lack some of the necessary options for recording as Pr. Gillespie suggests (mainly not enough computers and all in the wrong locations).  Fortunately, technology keeps marching on and portable audio recorders have increased in quality and decreased in price.  Enter the Zoom Handy Recorder H2.  This unit is primarily made for recording musician jam sessions.  The price is relatively low (about $150 at Amazon) and the quality is excellent.  It has many features that you won’t need for worship service (or sermon) recording.  However, its portability gives you the option of recording from any location (i.e. fellowship hall, outside, Sunday School classroom).

Because the unit is made to place in the middle of a jam session, it has front and back microphones for recording in stereo.  I place the unit on the pulpit.  The front microphone pick up everything I say (even when my back is to the microphone while I’m facing the altar)  and the rear microphone the congregation.

Front Mic Records Me

Rear Mic Records the Congregation

The recording is stored directly onto a 1G SD card (included).  An hour service takes about 100MB.  After the service simply pop out the card, insert it into your computer open it with an audio editing program (I suggest Audacity – The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor look for a review of this software here sometime in the future).   Cut out the extra stuff before and after the service (or sermon), add an intro, save it, burn it to a CD or publish it to the web.

1GB SD Card

I currently use this great tool to record my sermons every Sunday (http://wattswhat.podbean.com/).  I have plans of recording bible classes, too.

It’s simple, relatively inexpensive and produces a great quality result.

Rev. Jonathan C. Watt

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While I have used Google Books for scholarly papers, I never really considered using it for genealogy. Google scanned in all sorts of public documents, including wills, court records, local histories, et al. It is amazing what can be found online. Just a few years ago, quite a lot of research and hunting in indexes would need to be done just to find a book.

Here’s the link to his article: http://abc3miscellany.blogspot.com/2010/12/google-books-and-genealogy-will-of-john.html

There are lots of free and very useful tools on the web.  Go out and find them use them and let me know what you find.

Pastor Jonathan C. Watt

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I am not, of course, saying that the sermon is about the deceased.  It isn’t.  We preach Christ and Him crucified.  But at a funeral, you are preaching about Christ and Him crucified for a particular person.  That’s where the Internet can be a great gift.

As I prepare funeral sermons (especially for the elderly), I’ve found two sites to be absolutely indispensable:

1.  Sanctus.org:   Just looking at this site in a straightforward way, it gives you the upcoming readings for the historic lectionary in the current liturgical year.  It tells you when Easter is going to be, and such.  But it’s much, much, more than that.  Stan Lemon has produced an algorithm that can give you the liturgical calendar for any year.

If you go to sanctus.org, you will see a calendar for the current year.  If you then click on the right or the left arrow on the side of the month, you will be moved to a page with an address something like this:  http://sanctus.org/lectionary.html?month=01&year=2011

If you look at the last part of the address, you can see how you can find information about the year in which a saint was born.

Look for example at this link.  Here you will see the liturgical calendar for March of 1932.  Two years ago, as I was writing a funeral sermon, I learned that Fred had been confirmed on March 20th, 1932.  By pulling up the calendar at sanctus.org, I was able to learn that Zion Lutheran Church in Accident, Maryland used to traditionally do the rite of confirmation on Palm Sunday.  This information was very helpful to me as I served a vacancy at that congregation and buried eight of their members.

Sanctus.org can also tell you what readings a pastor probably used at a baptism, confirmation, etc.  It is a joy to consider some of the texts that may have been important in the liturgical life of someone who has died.

2.  Wikipedia.org.  Fred was born on November 11th, 1918.  To find out what was going on in the world then, I went here.  Wikipedia has a page like this for every year.  It’s very helpful to know what was going on when someone was born.

On the basis of the information I was able to glean from sanctus.org and wikipedia.org (and in just a few minutes) as well as little smidgens I heard at the funeral visitation, I was able to write this introduction to my funeral homily for the next day:

“Alta, Robert, James, Debbie, Leslie, Brett, Dennis, Jeffrey, Gladys, Ruth, family and friends of Fred —.  Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Fred was born on the last day of World War I.  When Jonas and Laura — celebrated the birth of their beloved son, the world celebrated that the war that had taken ten million lives was coming to an end.

“On a Tuesday, just a month and a half later, the joy went up from earth into heaven when Jonas and Laura brought Fred to the waters of baptism.  On that day God put His Own Name on Fred by the waters of Holy Baptism.  On that day Fred became not just the child of Jonas and Laura but a child of God Himself.  The Holy and Blessed Trinity gave Fred the gift of faith on that day.  He was washed in the blood of Christ, and he received the gifts of life and salvation in which he lived throughout his earthly life and which he enjoys even now.

“On that day there was joy in the presence of the angels.  Fred’s Savior, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, rejoiced that another little one had been snatched from the clutches of death and hell and brought into His fold.

“After Fred’s baptism, his parents faithfully brought him to church and Sunday School here at Zion.  His mother taught him to pray when he went to bed.  Every night Fred would say, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’

“Fred was able to pray this prayer with confidence.  The confidence wasn’t because of Fred’s faith, though he had it.  It wasn’t because Fred was growing into a devout young man, though he was.  Fred was able to pray with confidence because of who His Savior was.  Jesus had won every good gift of life and salvation for Fred when He bore his sins to the cross and suffered the penalty that Fred deserved.

“As Fred grew in years, he was instructed in the Christian faith and confessed it on the day he was confirmed at the age of thirteen on Palm Sunday.  After Fred’s confirmation, God continued to give Fred great and wonderful gifts.  Fred received into His mouth His Lord’s true body and blood, and when Fred received this gift, he also received all that God promises to give through it:  the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.”

From here I talked a little bit about Fred’s wife, children, work, and hobbies (about two paragraphs).  Then I transitioned with these words:

“But all Fred’s virtue could not prevent the hand of death from closing around him this past Friday.  During all of those years, and even while God was giving Fred all of those blessings, death was lying in wait.  Death was there because Fred was a sinner.

“From the moment that Fred had been conceived, he had been soiled with iniquity.  Even on the day of his birth, Fred was a sinful man in need of the Lord’s mercy.  And sin longed to pay Fred its wages.  Those wages, as we know, are death.  And so now, ninety years later, the grave has claimed Fred.

“This brings us to today’s Old Testament reading from Hosea. “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”  Hosea gives us the Lord’s answer to death.”

What follows is the bulk of the sermon, and you can probably guess where it’s heading.  The cross and our Lord’s resurrection.

The Internet has provided us with some wonderful tools that can be used to add a personal touch to our funeral homilies.  By preaching the specificity of the person who has died, we are also able to preach the specificity of the Savior who has done all that is necessary for their salvation.

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First, you will require a number of components:

• PC or Mac (and perhaps Linux). Minimal hardware is needed. A old Pentium or G4 Mac will do fine, as long as it has a decent hard drive and soundcard (PC). It is preferable that this is networked with shared drives so the system can be headless and accessed via Remote Desktop or VNC. Configuring such sharing is outside the realm of this tutorial.
• On the PC end, Total Recorder ($35.95) recording software. I’ve used the AGC [automatic gain control] add-on ($32.95) since the host sound system does not have compression of sound level on its tape output. They also offer a video recording solution, but that will have to wait for another episode. On the Mac end, Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro is the best solution at $32. You may qualify for education or package discounts.
• Automated FTP upload (either via Applescript or http://www.primasoft.com/ftp.htm) if you’d like to have it automatically uploaded to web site. I have used an open source “wput” FTP uploader on PC. Generally, you will want to edit the audio before uploading it to any server. Copyright laws apply. So, I won’t cover this here. Broadcast rights can be tricky too.
• Decent audio editing software is needed to edit the final product. Audacity is by far the most popular and free. On the Mac side, I use Rogue Amoeba’s Fission. They have a package deal and education discounts if you have a school.

Second, run a tape out from the audio system (in have in the past split/multiplied the output so it goes to both tape and computer.) Connect this to the line input on the sound card. Depending on the electrical grounding situation, you may need to use a direct box that transformer isolates your sound system from the PC. Quality matters so try something like the Whirlwind pcDI. Alternatively, make sure everything is on the same AC circuit and ideally in the same outlet block.

Third, configure the software end.

On a PC, configure Total Recorder to automatically record the services (from 9:55 am to 10:50 am). Total Recorder is set to run in the “startup” folder so will be running on restart or on power loss. The BIOS is configured to restart on power loss. By default Total Recorder minimizes to the system tray. It must be running for the automated scheduling to occur. To access the scheduling, select “Scheduler…”

Configure a schedule to record each of the services. I have had Total Recorder record both an MP3 for easy editing in Audacity and a WMA Lossless for archive and CD burning.

The “auto create” filename scheme automatically saves this file with a dated file name and suffix. All ID3 tag data is editable.

On a Mac, things are very similar. Audio Hijack Pro’s scheduling service will run automatically after install and reboot. I have it marked to “open at Logon”anyway (ctrl-click on icon on dock and select options.) Next, configure a recording program for church services:

Then, setup the schedule of recording.

Then configure the recording options. I record straight to AAC for enhanced iTunes podcast. It would be suitable for CD burning in a pinch:

Adjust the tagging. This saves me 10 minutes as it tags the file perfectly, even embedding album art:

Finally, drop in any helpful (and free!) AU plugins to adjust your audio output. I do some slight compression and some significant limiting. These do tax the CPU, so be wary of too many.

You’ve made it! You have an automated recording system making suitable MP3/AAC for editing for podcasting.

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Now for Something Completely Practical.

One of the most important aspects of Pastoral care is the home visit.  I remember old time pastors telling me “A home going pastor makes a church going people.”  While I reject the idea from a theological standpoint (only God working through the Spirit in Word and Sacrament makes peoples’ faith grow) it is true enough from a sociological view.  A congregation whose pastor is regularly in their homes is a congregation who knows the pastor loves them and is concerned for their spiritual welfare.

The problem with home visits?  Scheduling.  Phone call after phone call yields little in the way of appointments.  Cold calls most often fall on empty houses.  Society isn’t just mobile in the sense that people move from community to community, people are active outside of their homes many nights (especially if they have children at home).  I don’t have a solution for the busyness of people.  I do have a simple way to help you plan, schedule and keep track of your visit schedule.  Once again we turn to a free web service “Remember the Milk”.  (http://www.RememberTheMilk.com)

One of the great things about RTM is its simplicity.  As far as to-do lists programs go, this one works the way I use a to-do list.  (Frankly before RTM, I used about a hundred slips of paper shuffled about my desk, this was not organization this was chaos).   It is a testament to RTM’s flexibility that I have found ways to use it that I hadn’t planned.

Scheduling Home Visits with Remember the Milk.

I’m going to outline three steps here to help you create and maintain a visit schedule using the free web service Remember the Milk.

Step 1: Generate a list of the households to visit.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this.  If you have a membership database you can export it to a text file.  You could create the list in a spreadsheet and export it to a text file.  (as an alternative you can enter the data directly into RemembertheMilk.com, but my list is quite lengthy and I prefer an electronic solution if possible).  The list should have everything you need to contact the household you want to visit.  It is important to note that the first item is how the list will be sorted in Remember the Milk.

Here is the data in the list that I use.

• Household name
• Label Name (name that is printed on labels)
• Address Line 1
• Address Line 2
• City, State, Zip
• Phone Number
• eMail

Along with Remember the Milk, at Trinity (Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Creston, IA) we use Shepherd’s Staff from Concordia Technology Solutions for our membership data.  It is an easy prospect to get a list of members households from the program.  My goal has been to visit every family in the congregation about once each year.  I do this process when the list in Remember the Milk is all complete.

Here is the process I use to create the list in Shepherd’s Staff:

In Membership select Reports – Mail Merge

Set up the merge like this:

1. Select Members for Subgroup
2. Merge Type should be Household
3. Use the primary address
4. Uncheck Field names (removes headers) and make sure to include unlisted phone numbers
5. Export with “User-defined” separated.  Clear the “Wrap text with” (should be a space not a “)
6. Select the fields you want in your list.  (Remember the first field is how they will be sorted in Remember the Milk

Click on Merge and save the file to the desktop.

Here is an example of what my file looks like.

Step 2: Send the list to RemembertheMilk.com via eMail.

Now it’s time to send the data to RemembertheMilk.com.  The best way I have found to import a large number of tasks in to a task list on RTM is to send it via eMail.

In the RTM Help FAQs you will find this list of instructions on how to set up the eMail.

To import a list into Remember The Milk via email, first you will need to find out your import email address.

Click on ‘Settings’ at the top of the page.

Click on the ‘Info’ tab.

Your special email address will be displayed under Import Email Address.

Emails sent to this special address are automatically converted into tasks.

How to format your email

The subject should be the list where you want tasks to appear (if left empty, tasks will appear in your Inbox).

The body should contain a list of tasks (one task per line). If you include bullet characters (e.g. * or #) at the start of each line, they will automatically be removed.

Note: If your email client is set to automatically wrap lines (a common setting is to wrap at 72 characters), tasks that are longer than 72 characters will be split over multiple lines, and will import as multiple tasks. If this happens, try disabling wrapping in your email client.

Example email

Subject: Personal
To: [Your Remember The Milk import email address]

Buy birthday present for Mike
Pay the phone bill
Make dentist appointment

(See: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/importemail.rtm )

Here are a couple of important tips for using eMail import for RTM

1.       Don’t try to import more than about 40 items at a time.

2.       Don’t use Gmail.  It is necessary to send your email without automatic text wrapping.  Gmail does not have a way to disable text wrapping.  (I created a hotmail account just for this purpose. It’s free, and the default setting is “no wrapping” See: http://www.hotmail.com ).

3.       Remove any “ marks using Search and Replace in a text edior (the resulting list looks much better without quotation marks).

4.       Insert a ~ at the front of every line in the body of the email.  (This prevents “Smart Add” features from being interpreted in your text. See http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/smartadd/ ).

5.       Leave the Subject blank.  I’ve found it is easier to move the tasks to your desired list out of Inbox.  Please note, make sure you Inbox is empty before you begin.

It takes several minutes for all the sent items to appear in you inbox.   Your list will look something like this.

Click on Select:  All to select the whole list.  Click on the “More Actions” drop down list and select your list destination  (i.e. below).

Your visit list now ready to use for scheduling, tracking etc. in RTM.

Step 3: Managing the List

Remember the Milk gives you many tools to help you manage your list.  First and most important is the ability to add a date and time to a task.  Use the date and time to record your visit appointment.

First select the family you plan to visit by clicking anywhere on the item.  The item will show selected by shading it yellow.  (Don’t use the check box on the item as it is used to select multiple items).  Use the contact information in the selected item to place your call and schedule an appointment.  If you don’t find anyone home, simply select a new contact by clicking anywhere on the item (except the checkbox).

When you reach someone at home and are ready to set an appointment date and time find the task details on the right hand side of the screen toward the top.  The details for your selected item are in the Task tab there. To set a time and date, click on the calendar and enter the date and time.

The date will appear in standard RTM format.

(Incidentally you can enter the date in a variety of formats see: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/basics/dateformat.rtm for more information)

Repeat this process for as many appointments as you’d like to schedule.

Now you have a list of scheduled and unscheduled visits.

Your scheduled visits appear with a date at the right most end of the line.  (Unfortunately you can’t see the time unless you select the item and look in the detail box).

Use RTM’s reminders features to send your reminders using SMS messages (to your cell phone) or eMail.  To setup reminders click “Settings” in the menu across the top right hand side of the RTM screen and then select the “Reminders” tab.

When you return from you visit simply mark the item as completed by selecting it and clicking on the “Complete” button.  You can see all your completed visits by clicking on “Completed” list in the List tab on the upper right hand side of the screen (when no items are selected).

New families can be added one line at a time by entering the information to the left of the “<< Add a new task” field.

There are many other features you may want to use to help you manage your list: Priorities, tags, location, notes and many more.  I’ll leave those for you to explore on you own.

My brother pastors, home visits are a critical part of your ministry.  They can be difficult to arrange but every minute you spend with your people in their homes connects you closer to the people your Savior has given you to serve (not to mention making you a better preacher).  Take the time to visit.  Use whatever tools you find to help you manage the task.  I suggest that RTM could be a valuable free tool to help you out.  God will bless your efforts.

Rev. Jonathan C. Watt

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church

Creston, IA

For comments or questions please email me: Pastor@TrinityCreston.org

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My main computer tool for studying the Scriptures is Accordance.  It is fast and very easy to use.  More important to me, though, is that the layout and structure puts the actual study of the text first and foremost.

Here is a screenshot of my workflow with Accordance for Trinity 12:

You can click on the file to get a large view of it.

Basically what you see is four tabs.  In each tab I have each of the readings for the Sunday.  Then when you activate the tab, you will find the text in as many translations as you want.  I have four in this case.  ESVS, Luther Bible, the Textus Receptus (I alternate looking at that with NA27), and the Vulgate.  Then below you have my own notes on the bottom left, and another set of notes on the right.  Right now on the right I have the Catena Aurea, but I also have lots of other notes like the ESV Study Bible, all of the different textual apparatus, and tons of other resources.

If you hover over a word you will get a quick window with the definition.  If you double click a word a new tab opens with BADG, or Spicq, or TDNT, or whatever else you want to look it up in.

I then keep my Accordance window open on one side, and my Scrivener window open on the other.  It rocks as a setup.

How do you study for your sermons?

-Todd Peperkorn

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Lectionary at Lunch at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

You don’t get more geeky than the internet and original language bible study.  Well, I’m a geek and proud of it.  Next in my series on “Free Internet Services that Really Work” is Concordia Seminary St. Louis’ “Lectionary at Lunch.”  When I was a lowly Seminary student every Wednesday I used to sit at the feet of the Exegetical (bible study from the original languages) Professors  at lunch time and listen to them translate and explain the Old Testament (in Hebrew) and the Gospel Lesson (in Greek) for the upcoming Sunday’s readings in church.  It was a great way to prepare for when my teachers called on me to translate passages of the bible in class.

When I became a pastor I discovered that keeping up on translating the bible for preaching became very difficult.  The parish ministry has many demands on a pastor’s time.  Unfortunately, it’s very easy to let the deep study of God’s Word in the original languages slide because it is very time consuming.  The thing is, in preparing to be a pastor that kind of deep study was a daily occurrence.  I spent countless hours parsing verb, diagramming sentences, and memorizing vocabulary.  None of that time spent was useless as it has paid off in spades every time I open the texts in Hebrew and Greek.  As one of my professors said, “Reading the bible in English is like kissing your wife through cellophane.” (I think it was Gibbs).

Enter Lectionary at Lunch.  In the old days those lunch reading sessions were recorded and posted to the internet for download.  Now they are podcast and available through many different channels on the net (see list below).  They have since removed the Lunch and added the Epistle reading.

Lectionary at Lunch is no substitute for personal deep original language study of scripture but it is a great way to begin preparation for preaching.  The professors read and translate the texts from the Lutheran Service Book Three Year Lectionary and then add a few suggestions for preaching.  One of the best features is the variety of ideas and emphasis that come across as the Exegetical professors take turns in the task.

As a side benefit, a busy pastor is able to keep his hand in the original languages even when his schedule is packed.

Concordia Seminary Web Site http://www.csl.edu/Resources_AudioVideo_LectionaryatLunch.aspx

Concordia Seminary on iTunes

http://itunes.csl.edu/

Pr. Jonathan C. Watt

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Open DNS Logo

A few months ago (back in December), Google rolled out Google Public DNS and it encouraged people to use it for a faster Internet experience. This was the first time for many that the term DNS became a household word. DNS stands for Domain Name System (click for Wikipedia Entry). DNS is sort of like a phone book for computers on the Internet. It looks up the web address that you type in and turns that into a number computers can use to locate the website. For instance, when you type “google.com” into your web browser address bar, DNS turns that into the number 72.14.213.147. If you enter that number in your web browser, you will go to Google’s home page. Without DNS, we would have to type in a series of numbers for every web page that we visited — sort of like looking up the name in a phone book and punching in the number on the phone.

So why would you want to use Google’s Public DNS or another service like OpenDNS?

The two basic answers to this question are speed up your Internet experience and improve security.

A third answer is available if you use a service like OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com) – web filtering. This is a great option if you have children at home who have access to the Internet. Both of my kids have Nintendo DSi’s that can access the Internet. The Nintendo DSi has a web browser built by Opera on it. My nine year old son likes to search YouTube and Google for funny videos like boys making funny noises or things blowing up, etc. It isn’t too hard to imagine him typing in something “innocent” and receiving a picture or video that is completely inappropriate or downright nasty. Or he might hear something on the playground at school or on the bus and type it in … next you know, something you don’t want the kids exposed to is on the screen. While every parent should supervise their kids on the Internet, it isn’t possible to do it every moment — especially if your kids have a portable device that can access the Internet. OpenDNS solves that problem for our family. If the kids accidentally (or purposely) type in something inappropriate, the web page is automatically blocked based on criteria my wife and I set. All in all there are about 50 different categories that can be blocked ranging from academic fraud (paper mills) to gambling to lingerie to sexual themes. In addition to these sorts of categories, OpenDNS automatically blocks illegal activities and malware.

OpenDNS has two basic options that will interest the home user: the free account and the $9.95 per year (that’s right — per year) Deluxe account that gives you more customizable options. Besides the “custom” option, where you decide by selecting from 50 categories what to block, there are four basic pre-set options: High, Moderate, Low, and None. High level filtering: Protects against all adult-related sites, illegal activity, social networking sites, video sharing sites, and general time-wasters. Moderate filtering: Protects against all adult-related sites and illegal activity. Low filtering: Protects against pornography. None: Blocks nothing, but still offers the benefits of faster DNS service and malware protection, etc. With the Deluxe version you can add Whitelisted sites, etc. My house uses the “Moderate filtering” option with some minor customization.

One of the best things about OpenDNS (besides its price) is that it requires no special software, etc. Instead, you change the settings in your router to point to the OpenDNS servers. This provides protection to any computer, even guests’ computers, in your house. So you don’t have to worry about your children’s friends coming into your house with their computer or portable Internet device and downloading the latest album or movie leaving you to get in trouble with the RIAA or a large fine to pay for piracy.

The Internet offers many wonders but also many dangers for the family. It is great to have a tool like OpenDNS for the home to help keep your family safe from bad and dangerous things on the Internet. Another advantage is faster Internet surfing, protection from Malware and illegal activities. Considering you can use it for free, go give OpenDNS a try.

(originally posted here)

– Rev. Albert B. Collver, Ph.D.

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