Leopard: First Impressions

I finally got Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5, installed yesterday. So far I've got to say its nice. I started the install yesterday while we were prepping for Saturday night worship, and it was up and running before the service was over. I really like the UI updates (except for the mirror dock). Stacks are great. I've consolidated a lot …

Transformed by Generosity Weekend

This weekend we celebrated our annual stewardship campaign. For the most part it's been a great weekend, we had a few logistical glitches, but overall it's been outstanding. We're blessed to have had Richard Blackmon from Viscern speaking this weekend. Richard and his wife Debby have been long-time friends of Schweitzer. Richard preached a great message about three stewardship stories: …

Conferences Galore: Innovate then MAX

I'm going to be travelling a lot the next two weeks to back to back conferences. One ministry related, one tech related. I'm incredibly excited about both. Wednesday four of the media team volunteers and four of us from the Schweitzer staff are leaving for Innovate (Aviles is leaving Tuesday, for a preconference workshop). Innovate is hosted by Granger Community …

Worship Planning with Google Spreadsheets

We've been wired in our worship meetings for a little over a month now. What does that mean? As part of our new, improved worship planning process we're planning more weekends in advance than ever before. As I said earlier we've basically got a preaching calendar through Easter including series groupings. Our creative team will handle branding of these messages …

Flash Versions: schweitzerumc.org

  I was evaluating some new content for the church web site this morning and I got to wondering what the ubiquity of Flash Player 9 was for the population that accesses our site. Thanks to Google Analytics I was able to quickly look at the information. I was pleasantly shocked by what I found:  Flash Player 9:  91.20%Flash Player …

onAIR Bus Tour – St Louis

Originally uploaded by kerner. Went to St Louis for the Adobe onAIR bus tour event yesterday. I drove up in the morning, bummed around the city for the afternoon, then went to the event in the evening. This morning I got up, ate breakfast and continued to be touristy in St Louis. I even went for lunch on the Hill …

Willow Creek Leadership Summit: Day 1 Thoughts

Most of the staff and several other leaders at the church are attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit (at a satellite site) this week. Day one was fairly good, the highlight was clearly Marcus Buckingham. I've read some of his writing and heard him speak before and it's always informative and entertaining. I wonder how much more effective the church …

Worship Planning Retreat

Last week we did a two-day worship planning retreat for the entire team. We've had some level of team-based worship planning for the entire time I've been on staff, but this takes it to a new level. We're using a modified version of the Big Idea approach used by a numerous churches. Our worship team (four pastors, media director, traditional …