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> 

A bit of background: I was, up until two months ago, a cable subscriber. I paid $30 a month to start out, and the price almost immediately went up, bit by bit. For the last 12 months, I've paid $71 a month for 250 cable TV channels, 10 of which I watched. I didn't feel as though I was getting my money's worth (most stuff on TV is absolute garbage now anyways).  

So, my wife and I decided to cut the cord. With internet and broadcast TV offerings, the only real risk that I was running was not being able to watch football in the fall. Fortunately for me, my sister who lives 45 minutes away will have every Alabama game (RTR). 

Sports was really the only thing holding me back. ESPN specifically. But even for that, I can get ESPN 3 on my Xbox and get some limited football coverage. Even some full games. 

The other big deal was shows for my son. He's barely two but enjoys shows such as Peter Rabbit, Bubble Guppies, and WonderPets.  

When researching the different streaming services we were going to sign up for, we saw many advantages. One is cost. Amazon Instant Video (coupled with Amazon Prime which is free two-day shipping on most items) is $79 a year, which works out to $6.60/month. We also wanted some shows and movies that were on Netflix but not AIV, which was $8/month.  

So if you do the math, that's $175/year with streaming, $852/year with cable.  

Now, we could use the Xbox to stream all these, but the Xbox is a power hog, it's loud (we have the older 360), and it takes a little too long to start up and get to what we want to do. Plus, all Xbox apps (AIV, Netflix, whatever) must first go through Xbox Live servers before getting to you. That makes the connection much slower, and sometimes your videos are in poor quality.  

Enter the Roku. You may have never heard of it before, but basically it's a tiny internet box that hooks up to your TV via HDMI. It allows you to stream AVI, Netflix, and a ton of other content from other providers such as HBO, PBS, ABC, NBC, and CBS.  

And it's $99.  

With no monthly subscription fee except for the services you use. 

You can even use your phone or tablet as a remote and also stream videos, music, or pictures directly to your TV through Roku's official app.  

There's a nifty remote coupled with the Roku 3 that also allows you to plug up earbuds and listen to your music or shows wirelessly. Talk about convenient.  

Why the Roku and not the Apple TV? Don't get me wrong, I'm the Apple fanboy of all fanboys, but Apple doesn't offer Amazon Instant Video. Which was a dealbreaker. Probably because Amazon and Apple are big competitors.  

To be honest, the only thing my wife miss is being able to record and pause and rewind live broadcast TV. But we can deal without that. We get over 5 local channels in crystal clear HD and about 15 others in SD. And we live at least 50 miles from TV stations in both Nashville and Huntsville. This antenna helped things out. 

Not only did I not watch my cable TV, most of it was available online and the other stuff I didn't need to watch anyways.  

So what say you? Have you cut the cord yet?  

The Roku size as compared to come keys. It's quite small. 

The main Roku interface. You can also customize this with channels and different themes.  

The nifty remote with wireless earbuds. 

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! 

For some of you youth ministers, the end of summer is here. 

Sure, you're probably still wrapping things up. Me? I'm helping tear down buildings and gut houses in Moore, Oklahoma with several of my teens and college kids this week. But this is our last big event until Fall Retreat. You're probably doing the same. Maybe it's VBS, or a DayCamp, a lock-in (let's hope not), or a back-to-school barbecue. Whatever it is, for all intents and purposes, your summer is pretty much over.  

Here's some recommendations I have for you on what to do now. 

Take a break. You've earned it. Spend some time with your family, be it your wife and kids or your mom and dad - or both. Vacation time is now while the kids get back into school mode. Take a breather from work even if it's just a couple of days. And if you don't have any time off left, work only when you have to. You can take it easy for a couple of days and recharge.  

Don't plan anything else in August. Most kids start back to school pretty early in August now, some not until mid-August. Have your back-to-school barbecue or your regular Wednesday night eating deal, but don't plan any major events at least for the next month. Your kids need a break to concentrate on getting back to school and you a break to plan some fall events. Parents will appreciate this short lull as their kids get back into the grind of school. Don't be that guy that figures he has to have an event every week. This is not the time of the year to do that. 

Do a summer review. Get your youth committee, your elders, or both of them together and do a summer review NOW. Don't wait on this. Write a summer report while it's still fresh on your mind - just a couple of pages on your major events and what went right and what didn't go so right in said events. Ask your parents and leadership for suggestions on what could be done better. Were the events spiritually-focused? Were the events managed well? How could they have gone better? 

Organize, organize, organize. I talked about this already, but you really need to do this. Organize your files and papers from your different events, your files on your computer from those events, organize your storage area for supplies and equipment so you're not having to do it before camp next year. 

These are just a few things I will be doing to end my summer. What will you be doing?