Living Open Source» Preaching

Running PowerPoint (and everything else) with your iPhone

Tim — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:11:31 +0000

Instead of throwing something at the guy working your projector when you need to change PowerPoint slides, you could use your iPhone or your iPod touch as your remote. With a swipe of your thumb, your next slide appears majestically on the screen. And what if you also had a view of your slide and its associated notes in your palm too?

Even if nobody got what you were trying to say, they would at least be in awe of your wizardry.

There are three iPhone Apps that can help you achieve this. All of these rely on a wireless network to connect your iPhone to your computer. Each also needs their own program installed on the computer to make the link. If you don’t have access to a network in the place you will give the presentation, then you can create an Ad-Hoc computer-iPhone network and all three apps will work with this.

So now for the Apps…

1. i-Clickr

With i-Clickr you can control your presentation from your iPhone or iPod touch with your thumb and have in front of you a preview of the slide or the notes attached. The best thing about this app is that it now supports OpenOffice as well as PowerPoint.

Using it as your note aid is fine if you have passed the vision test for astronauts, but it is a good attempt. This is probably the simplest to use of the three, but then it only controls your presentation. It is also far from perfect – room for improvement or for somebody to better it. The other Apps below also let you take control of every other app on your PC or MAC.

2. Air Mouse

If you want to control other programs like your media player or your song projection software, then i-Clickr isn’t much help, great though it is. What you need is your mouse and keyboard in the palm of your hand with a few custom shortcuts to favourite key strokes. This is what AirMouse dose and very well.

It works like your trackpad or mouse but also has a mode that uses the iPhone accelerometers to respond to movement. This takes a bit of getting used to, but it tries to turn tour iPhone into a pointing device, not unlike a WII remote. You are able to create custom profiles for your favourite PC or MAC software and so you can tailor it to work the way you want to. This app has far wider application than just presentations.

3. Hippo Remote Pro

Like AirMouse, HippoRemotePro turns your iPhone into a wireless trackpad and keyboard. Like with airMouse you can have different profiles for each of the programs you want to control and all works fine. It also throws in some other so-called social networking bits that seem to make it all just a bit too complicated. It works well, but I just think AirMouse is the slicker option.

Conclusion

If all you need to do is run PowerPoint or OpenOffice Impress, then i-Clickr is all you need. But you might as well have AirMouse too, you will find an infinite number of uses for it.

Looping the loop in Blackpool

Tim — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:35:52 +0000

Just got back from 3 days in Blackpool on our local ministers conference. We were privileged to have Steve Holmes with us for the 3 days as our main speaker, talking about communication and preaching. Against the often cited criticisms of monologue preaching, he asserted that in the world of business and politics, the monologue is actually the king of persuasive communication techniques. This is how Apple announce the next greatest fruit embossed gadget (see the video). This is how Obama got a new home in the White House (see him in action). We shouldn’t therefore be so quick to right of the ancient art of preaching in monologue. Instead we were encouraged to consider some of the advice available in the school of new homiletics, whatever that means, to make our preaching scratch where people itch.

Part of Steve’s solution was to introduce the conference to the “Lowry loop”. I found it interesting that so few had heard of it. I have been using the OOOOHS, and WEEEEEEEs since they showed us this stuff at college. It transformed the way I approach a sermon, even if the congregation may not think it has transformed my delivery. Interestingly many who had never come across this concept, seemed to realise that when they had preached well, their natural instinct had led them to preach in this looping the loop way. We all listened attentively to the first sermon we heard after all this, but I never saw Phil Jump (our Regional Minister) doing a 360 at any point during his sermon.

Steve only really scratched the surface, but here are a couple of books from my shelf that unpack this approach to the task of preaching in more detail. Including the book from Lowry and some sermons from someone who is renowned for her approach to preaching.

The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form

How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons

Mixed Blessings by Barbara Brown Taylor

Unfortunately I never made it down to south shore to try a very literal looping the loop sermon. The Revolution was the first 360 degree looping roller coaster in the UK.

Post image from John Burke on flickr.

Lament, what does it do?

Tim — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:45:28 +0000

Thought I’d take on the challenge of preaching the text in Lamentations 3:23-33 this Sunday. I came across a really helpful paper by Walter Brueggemann, The Costly Loss of Lament, which reflected on what we have lost in our modern culture, in losing the prayer or song of lament.

It is true that if you flick through hymn books, it is hard to find a lament. It is also true that people seem to love a good old sing when they come to church. But as Brueggemann explains, we have lost something fundamental to authentic covenant relationship with God by having lost such a song.

Without lament, genuine interaction with God is lost. We become voiceless, permitted only to praise. What kind of relationship is that? In physchological terms, the outcome is:

a false self, bad faith which is based on fear and guilt lived out as resentful or self deceptive works of righteousness.

A second consequence of the absence of lament is the stifling of any questioning of the status quo. Much lament in the Psalms comes out of the experience of injustice. In the face of injustice lament allows the speaker to appeal to the hesed of God.

A community of faith which negates lament soon conclucdes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne.

Perhaps that is similar to what Marx said when he said that religion was the opium of the people.

Turning this all around, what lament gives is:

An assertion about God:that this dangerous, available God matters in every dimension of life

Only then can we turn to praise, as most laments in scripture do.

Bruegemann, W., The Costly Loss of Lament, JSOT 36 (1986) 57-71
photo from Jokke on sxc.

Jonah on YouTube

Tim — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:46:46 +0000

I‘m not preaching the lectionary this week, as I’m preaching away from home. I thought I’d use the story of Jonah for which there seem to be endless animated versions of the story, like this one.

Christ Community Church in Omaha, NE have produced a set of great animations of the story which can be found on good old YouTube. Here is the first in the series.

Five more sites for not-so-desperate preachers

Tim — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:53:55 +0000

I wrote a post a while back highlighting some of the resources I find helpful for preparing worship and preaching for Sundays. Here is some more help for the preacher of the not so desperate variety.

I enjoy dipping in and out of the lectionary, so many of these reflect that. I think one of the great blessings about following the lectionary online is the ability to join a conversation about the texts – to hear the texts explored in a thousand and one different ways and then to add your own strange thoughts, words or even pictures!

Working Preacher is a wonderful site with textual and audio commentary on the lectionary texts. This week for example you can join Professors Karoline Lewis, David Lose and Rolf Jacobson for their weekly podcast on preaching the lectionary texts in the brainwave feature.
On the GBOD Worship Site (General Board of Discipleship, The United Methodist Church) you should check out the lectionary based worship planning helps and the preaching helps.
The Work of the people produce lots of creative moving pictures (video). Worth a look each week, even if you can’t afford the download or the technology to use it on Sunday.
Sermons4Kids is for when I am desperate for some way of relating the texts to children. Though I don’t always find their slant on things all that helpful. The colouring pages come in handy quite often though.
Cartoon Church and We Blog Cartoons keep me sane by exploring the funny side of church.

So no need to be desperate. These sites get you thinking about the text rather than offering downloads of extremely dull sermons like other sites I could mention.

Of course I sometimes publish the odd visual or movie on this blog too when I’m feeling creative.

Singing and Preaching Resurrection

Tim — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:17:11 +0000

Since Easter day, we have been exploring the theme of hope and resurrection in church. Making much use of Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope, it has been an interesting experience to challenge some of the accepted understandings that people hold to. Having noted the lack of appropriate songs, I’ve also had a go at writing one.

The Surprise

In the four years I’ve been here, no subject I’ve preached on has prompted as much response as this one. Maybe it has only been at funerals these texts have been used; maybe it’s because no one has ever preached on this; maybe it’s because we all have our own idea about the life beyond this one. Maybe it is just that my preaching is usually so uninteresting. Who knows, but it has got people thinking about their faith.

A New Song

Anyway, I had a go at a new song for our congregation to sing, which has been better received than some of my recent attempts at writing music. You can download the sheet music and a backing track below. Like most things I put here, I am releasing this under a Creative Commons license, which means you are free to use, remix and share legally.

The song is called Jesus Now lives and reflects some of the themes of resurrection and hope.

Of course if you can improve on it in anyway, feel free – it is an open source song! Just let me know so I can see what you’ve done.

Sheet Music

Available in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format:
Download Jesus Now Lives Sheet Music

Backing Track

This is a backing track I knocked up on my keyboard. It is available in mp3 format:
Download audio file (jesus-now-lives-backing.mp3)
Download the Backing Track

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

5 Sites for Not so Desperate Preachers

Tim — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:53:17 +0000

There are lots of sites for desperate preachers around. Places where people have uploaded all their sermons for others to replay somewhere else. I’m not sure of the benefit or justification for such desperate action by a preacher, though I do admit to having used the words of others in my own teaching and have often turned to such sites when the panic sets in on Saturday evening. But there are some awful sermons online, and I don’t intend to, nor want to add to them.

However, there are a few sites that I use almost every week in my quest for inspiration and understanding of the bible. Sites that provide great resources for preachers and worship leaders, that help you get to grips with the texts and leave room for, and actually encourage, regular offline inspiration. In this post I’m going to share five sites that I visit regularly.

The List…

Some of these sites are lectionary based, but that doesn’t mean that if you have some hang up about preaching the lectionary you should bypass them. Most sites have scripture reference indexes, so whatever the text, you’ll find something here.

1. TextWeek.com

TextWeek.com is simply indispensable. It is a huge collection of lectionary and scripture related resources. Just look what is available of for Luke 9:26-36 as an example. Content ranges from links to the text itself, through detailed contemporary and historical commentary, to the odd sermon (well not so odd actually), full liturgies and worship resources. The movie database provides a concordance of movie clips. The Art Index catalogues ancient and modern art masterpieces related to the bible reference or subject. And because you can’t leave home without it, there is PDA version that means you can take this week and next week’s resources with you!

2. LectionaryStudies.com

Rev. Bryan Findlayson’s bible study notes are like an online commentary on the lectionary. The Lectionary Bible studies are all based on the the NIV. Bryan in each study provides a fairly detailed exegesis on the passage, describing context and content. There are discussion starters and some detailed notes on Greek etc. Here’s his take on Luke 9:26-36. The layout of the studies is also pretty pleasing to the eye and easy to read.

3. ATLAS Serials

ATLAS gives online access to a collection of some of the best theology journals. You can read articles published in many of the leading journals from as early as 1924 to the present. I wish I’d discovered this at college! It does cost $99 for an annual subscription (less than most journals) but if you go through the link on textweek.com you can try it free for 30 days.

4. Preacher’s Magazine

Published by the Nazarene Publishing House, Preacher’s Magazine is distributed three times a year, with content that relates to the three seasons of the Church calendar: Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter, and Pentecost. Each edition features different aspects of the pastoral task of preaching.

5. Reverend Fun

Now we’d be very boring people if there was not some humour thrown in somewhere. On this site you’ll find an endless supply of cartoons.

(Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc – www.reverendfun.com)

There you have it. 5 great sites for preachers that are not desperate for anything but wanting to understand and communicate the message of the bible today.