De-cluttering your life, your ministry, and your file cabinet

Ever wonder if you should keep that old bank statement? Tax return? Employment application? Insurance policy?

The Getting Things Done blog has made a helpful list of how long to hold on to paperwork. This could be a valuable reference for both family and church records.

Happy shredding!

Benefits of a recession

Tired of all the bad economic news? Michael Hyatt shares ten benefits of a recession:

1. It causes you to get more creative.
   
   
2. It forces you to make the tough decisions.
   
   
3. It thins out the competition.
   
   
4. It makes you realize you can’t take anything for granted.
   
   
5. It reminds you that real wealth isn’t about the stuff you own.
   
   
6. It fosters out-of-the-box thinking.
   
   
7. It makes it easier to abandon business-as-usual.
   
   
8. It brings you back to the basics.
   
   
9. It accelerates change.
   
   
10. It causes you to be less wasteful.

That's a positive way of looking at it! On the other hand, if the government keeps bailing every industry out, we are going to lose some of these corrective measures that the free market will naturally take.

Several of these benefits apply to the church as well. While I don't "enjoy" these tough economic times, it has caused our church to become better stewards of what we have, and to think creatively about how to do ministry in the most effective way possible. For example, we switched from color bulletins to black-and-white, and installed window unit air conditioners in our offices that saved us hundreds of dollars this summer. If our budget hadn't been tight, we may not have made these simple, cost effective changes.

Inland Empire Meeting

In church life, meetings are necessary (I'll refrain from calling them a "necessary evil"). But we should never have meetings just for the sake of having meetings; time is too precious. And as much as possible, leaders should try not to make meetings long and boring.

Meetings, like every other aspect of church ministry, are an opportunity to worship God. They should be conducted joyfully, peacefully, and for the purpose of edification. And I believe this was accomplished at the Inland Empire Association annual meeting last week.

On Tuesday, Oct. 28, I and another family from our church attended the annual meeting for our Southern Baptist region. Here are three things I appreciated:

1. Hospitality. This year's meeting was hosted by First Baptist Church (Primera Iglesia Bautista) of Moreno Valley. This church did a fantastic job of showing Christian hospitality. Young and old were working side-by-side to serve all the guests. No detail was overlooked. Parking lot attendants waved flashlights, greeting people and offering directions. A delicious Mexican meal was catered, complete with chips and salsa at every table. Tables were set up outside in the courtyard to create a nice 'alfresco' dining experience. Servers were standing by, offering coffee, and taking our plates as soon as we were finished. The whole atmosphere was relaxing and conducive for fellowship, which brings me to the second point.
   

2. Relationships. If our association just wanted to give an annual update, they could save a lot of time and money by e-mailing everyone the Book of Reports. But that would miss one of the most vital elements of ministry: building relationships. One of the highlights of last week's meeting was carpooling with the Poes from our church, then visiting with Pastor Pete and his assistant Doug during dinner. Pete is a pastor in Ontario, and it was a delight to learn about his church and his passion for VBS and prison ministry. It was also nice to briefly see Walter Price from Fellowship in the Pass, David Sqyres from Palms Baptist Church, Tony Brown from One Eighty Ministries in Joshua Tree, and Rex Shaver and his assistant Michael from Wonder Valley Community Church.
   

3. Organization. The meeting had a tight schedule, and for the most part, they did a good job sticking to it. From what I could tell, every report was limited to 3 minutes. These were interspersed with some congregational singing and a video presentation. The music was appropriately upbeat, though I would have appreciated a more cross-centered emphasis in the lyrics. Reports were pre-printed in the book, along with a calendar of events for the upcoming year. It was all sort of a whirlwind, but I think it was just enough to give us a sampling of what God is doing across the region. Some of the reports were repetitive from last year, which might discourage people from attending year after year, but thankfully the meeting only lasted two hours total. I wouldn't agree philosophically with everything these churches are doing, but it did illustrate the diversity of the Body of Christ and the importance of engaging the lost in each community.

Overall, it was a good meeting. I think our Director of Missions did a fine job planning and executing the event. I'd encourage others in our association to attend next year. Hopefully, we'll be back at First Baptist Church for more of those tamales!

Big discount for Microsoft Office

The Logos blog announced today:

Microsoft is again offering Office Ultimate 2007 for only $59.95 to all students! It retails at $679.95, so this is a savings of more than 91%.

Ultimate includes these 10 programs:

• Word 2007
• Excel 2007
• PowerPoint 2007
• Outlook 2007
• OneNote 2007
• Groove 2007
• Publisher 2007
• Access 2007
• InfoPath 2007
• Accounting Express 2008

That’s only $6 per program!

There are two stipulations for qualifying:

1. You must have a .edu email address.
2. “You must be a student at a U.S. educational institution and must be actively enrolled in at least 0.5 course credit and be able to provide proof of enrollment upon request.”

While there are a couple of good Office competitors out there, Office is still the standard and it integrates best with Logos (e.g., Bible reading schedules in Outlook, search results in Excel, and copying and pasting text with auto-citations into Word).

Looks like starting September 8 you can also grab the upgrade to Vista Ultimate SP1 for only $64.95 (retails at $239.99).

Sharing files in .pdf

This past week, I submitted an advertisement to the local newspaper for our upcoming Christmas services. I created the ad in Microsoft Publisher, but when it came time to email it, the Ad/Sales Department said they need to receive all ads in .pdf format. How do you create a .pdf document?

If you work with .pdf regularly and need lots of editing features, you may want to purchase Adobe Acrobat. But, in my case, I don’t need all those bells and whistles – just a simple program that creates .pdf documents. And Pdf995 does just that. The basic version can be downloaded for free and enables you to create your own .pdf files.

.Pdf files are very useful because they create high quality documents from any application and can be read on any computer with a PDF viewer (e.g. Adobe Reader). Here are a couple examples of how you might use Pdf995:

• Sharing a document with people who don’t own the original program. For example, not everyone owns Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft Publisher, but by making your document into a .pdf file, it creates a “snapshot” of your document that others can easily view. Our Christmas newsletter this year was made in Microsoft Publisher, and then converted it into .pdf before emailing it to everyone.

• Sharing a document with people who don’t have the same fonts installed on their computer. This is handy for desktop publishing, creating a class syllabus, or uploading an article to the internet.

So, how does Pdf995 work? After you download and install the driver and converter, just open whatever document you want to convert into a .pdf file. Then, click the "print" command, and select Pdf995 as your printer. The program will take a few seconds to process the request, then, voila! Your own .pdf file!

Fridays are often dedicated to practical church ministry issues. If you have a question or suggested topic for the future, please email me.