Ever since the "big" iPad debuted in 2010, I'm sure that there were a ton of posts (and probably still are) that the iPad was the ultimate tool for preaching and teaching. 

But I haven't read any of those articles, because for a long time, I didn't have an iPad. In 2012, I picked up an iPad, my wife and son fell in love with it, so I used that excuse to get an iPad mini. 

I love the smaller form factor. I love that its the size of my Bible. I love that the screen is the same resolution as the iPad 2, except packed into a smaller size. 

And I haven't used paper ever since. 

My iPad mini coupled with my Bible is all I need to teach a full-length class or preach a standard 30-minute sermon. I've went through many different workflows to perfect my process. And I'd love to share it with you. 

PDF to Dropbox

My first workflow with the iPad involved me styling a pretty document in Pages on the Mac and exporting it to PDF to a specified folder in my Dropbox. With it there, I could use a variety of apps (including the Dropbox app itself) to view the PDF for teaching my class. 

This was a clunky solution. Although pretty, the PDF wasn't editable. I couldn't add or delete content on the go, I would have to open the original document, edit it, re-export the PDF, and sync the changes across my devices. I grew tired of this workflow very quickly. 

Evernote

The second app/workflow I tried was Evernote. Evernote is an excellent all-capture app for things such as text, photos, and even audio. For a while this worked - I was able to write my class notes in the Evernote app for Mac, and after a few seconds the changes would sync to my devices. The problem here though is that I had a WiFi-only iPad mini. Unless the notes are cached and ready to go, it's not possible to pull them up on the go unless you have tethering to your smartphone. (You also run into roadblocks with this in almost every other syncing method, by the way.)

Had I stuck with my Nexus 7 and with Android, I would have stuck with Evernote, and I probably would have been happy. 

Simplenote

Very similar to Evernote in my opinion, except Simplenote is just for text. There's a couple of ways you could compose your material - through the very nice Simplenote interface on the web or through a number of apps such as Brett Terpstra's NV Alt, or with the dedicated iPhone and iPad apps. I didn't have too good of luck with Simplenote, despite loving the service, because I'm a bit too organized for it. Simplenote maintains that you should organize through a tagging system, and while I love tags, I had no need for it in my folder-by-month file structure for all my class and sermon notes. 

Simplenote is excellent for quick notes, and will even sync via my beloved Drafts app, but  that's all I currently use it for. 

.txt to Elements in Dropbox

My current workflow my not seem as simple as some of the others, but it allows me the most flexibility and is, in fact, incredibly simple and automated. I was hesitant to implement this workflow because I thought it may be too complicated, but it turns out that it's right the opposite. 

I compose my lessons in TextEdit on the Mac (or any other text editor that will save as or export to .txt format) and simply save them into the appropriate sub folder in my Elements folder, which is housed in my main Dropbox folder. Writing in plain text (.txt) allows lots of flexibility - namely file size, transfer times, and the ability to edit pretty much anywhere. 

I use the Elements app on my iPad to display my material to teach my classes. Elements will cache that folder's contents on wifi and will allow you pull up the latest version even if the app hasn't connected for a while. If you make changes though, you will have to refresh the file list. But on wifi and even over cell phone signal, this is incredibly quick considering file sizes are a tenth of the size of Pages or Word files. The app will also allow you to create a new text file in the file directory that you wish and will sync that file with Dropbox once a connection becomes available again. 

Elements does allow limited styling of your text through Markdown. If you don't know what Markdown is, it's just a neat HTML-like way to style plain text, with headline sizes, bold, italics, and bullet points. Elements will also allow you to change font sizes as well as pick from many nice fonts to display your text. 

This current workflow seems to be working, because I haven't changed it in the last 12 months. 

I love my iPad and I love the flexibility it gives me to edit my lessons on the go and compose them wherever I want. With 3 apps - Elements, Dropbox, and Drafts - I control my own creativity when and where I want to edit and create new thoughts. 

What about you? What do you use when you preach or teach? 

Disclaimer: I am one of the fortunate youth ministers to be able to work with a great staff and wonderful elders who respect our job titles and let us focus on what we were hired and trained to do. So this rant isn't about me, but rather what I've observed and continue to observe churches doing to discourage and burn out youth ministers.  

<rant> 

Look, churches. Elderships. Leaderships. PLEASE listen. 

I'm so sick of seeing friends drop out of ministry. Good friends who were good ministers who were doing God's work to help young people and their parents get to heaven and they drop out of ministry just because they can't take any more bellyaching. Goodness. Youth Ministers are people too. We're people who make mistakes and have families and hobbies and go on vacations (when we can afford it and we're not paying off students loans). We have feelings too, so stop making out like we don't by talking behind our backs or better yet, publicly speaking out against us.  

Who did you hire? A youth minister or a superhero? We can only do so much. We make half what pulpit ministers make and do the same amount of more, maybe more in the summer. We do the same amount of the work because you're constantly piling stuff on for us to do. We're not just the youth minister, we're the education director, tech support, website administrator, song leader, part-time "associate" minister, children's program director, class teacher on Sundays and Wednesdays, VBS coordinator, Summer Camp coordinator, DayCamp coordinator, and a couple of other things that we forgot about because we're trying to get all the other stuff done. So who did you hire and why don't you let me do what I was trained to do, and what I'm best at instead of piling everything up on me until I quit? 

And another thing: I'm not the savior of your kids, Jesus is. I'm not the leader of your children's lives, their parents are. I can only, at most, be a guide. I can teach kids thoughtful lessons that I spend hours preparing. I can plan fun events and and do fun things with them and magnify Christ in those things. I can have discussions with parents and teens about how to work through problems. 

What I can't do is everything. I can't teach on Sunday morning, preach that same morning, do a devotional for the older people that Sunday afternoon, lead singing that Sunday night and do a devotional for the kids afterwards. I am not Carl Lewis. I cannot do everything. And when you try to put everything on me, it's just going to burn me out and make me resent ministry, and maybe even the church.  

Elders, Leaders, parents: LISTEN. When you are looking to hire me, do not look at me as your workhorse, look at me as your partner to help your kids get to heaven. Treat me as a person, not a robot. 

</rant> 

Don't you hate it when people say that to you? It's almost like they don't care. It's like they don't sympathize with us about our worries. But...that's exactly what Jesus said to do - not worry about it.  

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I'm a worrier. I worry about things non-stop. But as our pulpit minister Kyle Bolton pointed out in his sermon yesterday, there are some things we need to know about worrying, and some specific points Jesus makes in Matthew 6.25-34.  

Worrying is illogical (v 25). Mr. Spock on Star Trek would say this. Worrying is highly illogical. 

Worrying is a distraction (v 26). We are distracted by so many things in life, and worrying about things is a distraction to us being able to serve God to our full potential. If God can take care of the birds, why can't he take care of us, his greatest creation?  

Worrying is useless (v 27). What good will worrying do? What will it accomplish? Will worrying solve problems? No! 

Worrying is pointless (v 28-30). Have you ever seen Caffeine-Free Diet Mountain Dew? Neither have I. But apparently, it exists. What's the point of drinking a drink like Mountain Dew with no sugar and no caffeine? If you are the type of person that drinks that, you don't drink it for the lack of those things, you drink it in spite of and because of those things. Just like Caffeine-Free Mountain Dew, worrying is pointless. Why even bother with it?

Worrying is faithless (v 31-32). This one hits me hard. If we as Christians are supposed to be the "called out" and distinctive in this world, why do we worry about trivial things so much? When we worry, it demonstrates a lack of faith. 

Worry is out of focus (v 33). If we would put the first things first (i.e. God, Jesus, and His church), then all the small things in our lives would fall into place.  

Worry is borrowed trouble (v 34). Most of worrying is completely unfounded, meaning what we worry about usually never comes to pass. Think about that. When we worry, we are just borrowing trouble from the next day, week, or month - and friends, this day has enough trouble on its own.

Take one day at a time. 

Refuse to borrow trouble.  

And don't worry...be happy! 

I love to grill. Like, hardcore. When my wife and I had a grill that worked (we've been "grill-less" and too busy to buy one lately), we'd grill out every other night.  

When I was in college, however, we couldn't have grills in the dorms. Something about setting off smoke detectors and being a "fire hazard." Whatever.  

So I got a George Foreman grill. Biggest mistake ever.  

This funky clamshell cooking apparatus had such promise. It was going to be the savior to my college grilling problems. I had dreams of cooking hamburgers and steaks for my friends, and us having one of those dorm parties that makes all the other dorms jealous.  

It worked fine for a week. Then reality set in.  

For some reason, the GF Grill didn't want to get hot anymore. It would literally take 4 hours to cook a burger to medium rare. I believe the hottest the grill got was like 85 degrees. It was like sitting my meat outside on the sidewalk or by the pool. In fact, it got so bad that I would start to put my various meats in the grill to keep them cool. 

And if that wasn't enough, when it did work, there was this handy little grease tray THAT DIDN'T ATTACH to the grill. If you know anything about Foreman Grills, they're kind of set on this downslope so all the unhealthy grease just slides right off your food and into this little tray so you can have the illusion of being healthy. But if the little grease tray was one micron off, all your grease from your food would be like a waterfall of nastiness spilling out into your countertop and floor. 

The grease tray design was bad enough. The grill didn't work properly either, so about 11 days and 50 bucks later, it was retired to the closet. I was too embarrassed to even bring it back to Target.  

So what's my point this morning? Don't be a George Foreman Grill.  

Don't promise the world and then not deliver. Specifically, for youth ministers, don't make grand plans and promises you can't keep. Keep it real, be realistic with your goals for the ministry you work for.  

Don't be lazy. In a couple of weeks, school will start back. It's what youth ministers refer to as the "Happy Month." You need to take a break, yes, and perhaps even a vacation, but don't look at August-September-October as the "easy months." Be aggressive and get some things done. Organize your youth storage room so you won't perpetually be looking for stuff come May. Write out a report for your leadership on the events of the summer, letting them know just how awesome you are. Maybe, after school has settled in, you plan an extra even for your teens. Look far in advance to any camps and retreats that need speakers booked and events planned. Don't be ineffective after a period of work like a George Foreman Grill. 

Realize your ineffectiveness. Is an event or tradition that you have not having the same effect for your youth group or church? Maybe it's time to take a hard look at what is doing a good job of getting people to Jesus in your ministry. It's so easy to do the same things over and over, year after year, but what about when things become ineffective in leading people to Christ? What about when you start to become ineffective? It may be time to look at a break, a vacation, go to a conference, or even, in the last resort, a move. We as youth ministers can become burnt our very quickly if we don't watch ourselves. 

Don't be a George Foreman Grill. Don't be broken, badly designed, and ineffective at what you do. Always be striving for the best to get people to Christ. 

(And I swear if anyone comes on here and says "I loved my GF Grill, it was the greatest!" I'm going to punch you in the face.) 

That snide comment about your preaching? Move on.  

That lack of respect for you as a youth minister? Move on.  

Criticism of your wife or kids? Move on.  

You will move on from these petty things because you have a job to do - spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot control what people say or how they react, only what you say and how you will react.  

Move on.  

I needed this as much as some of you do.