Random Video Thursday: DJ Robb

On Wednesdays Robb is our worship leader and a small group leader for some high school guys.  At home in his free time, apparently he becomes DJ Robb.  Rock what you got, Robb...

Random Video Thursday: Popcorn Button

No need for an explanation, just watch...

Teaching from the iPad

I'm a bit of a tech junkie.  And have become a recent convert (or sell-out as some would call it) to Apple's line of products.  I'm now the proud owner of a MacBook Pro 15", and iPad 2, and the iPhone 4S.

I've begun to use my iPad for just about everything.  I love it.  So, I started teaching from it.  Here's how I go about it:

1. I type my sermon, lesson, or talk in Word.  I prefer to do my typing still on my MacBook, so I can keep everything nicely organized in my folders.  Not only am I a tech junkie, but OCD about organizing my files.
2. Save the file as a .pdf - just about any word processing app will allow you to do this.
3. I copy the file to my Dropbox.  Dropbox is an app that can go on the desktop of your PC or Mac. It also has apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry.  Once you drop it in the dropbox on your computer it automatically syncs to your mobile device.  It's awesome!  You need it.  Trust me.
4. Open the .pdf in Dropbox on your iPad.  Here's what I found out about teaching from Dropbox, though.  I'm visual.  So whenever I look up from my notes I would tend to scroll in Dropbox, and when I'd look down I had lost my point of reference.  Dropbox only allows you to scroll through the pages, rather than flip to the next page.  So, step #5 became necessary:
5. Open the file into iBooks.  That's it.  Then teach.  One thing I try to remember is to go into settings and make sure that the screen Auto-Lock is set to 5 min. so that it doesn't lock on me while I'm in the middle of a point.

That's how I go about it.

Youth Ministry Worship

Sometimes starting a worship team for Youth Ministry seams like a standing in front of a mountain and thinking "Yeah right.  I'm not prepared for this!"  Questions go through your mind like: How do we balance having adults and teens up there?  How much do we push for excellence?  What if the student gets up there without any practice and is horrible?  And so many more...

Here are just a few things I've learned in doing ours.  Ours is not perfect.  But our students are engaging in worship.  And it doesn't get any better than that.

1.  Find (pray for) an adult who loves it...and is good at it.  


I'm the type if it's not going to be done well, I'm not going to do it at all when it comes to stuff like this.  I needed someone who loves worship, and loves teens.  So I prayed for that, and you know what?  God answered that prayer.  I also wanted someone who could lead the students and push them to to excellence.

2.  Shoot for excellence.


Anything worth doing is worth doing in excellence.  If it's horrible, your students aren't going to engage in it.  They're going to sit back and pick it apart - especially if they're musically inclined but not confident enough to get up there themselves.  Shoot for excellent.  Constantly look for new songs.  Evaluate which ones they're engaging with, and look for when it's starting to get tired.  Practice.  Don't just "wing it"!

3.  Allow for mistakes.


Don't shoot so high for excellence that you never end up with any teens helping out.  This is an opportunity to polish their skills and find out if this is an area where God has gifted them.  Allow for the drummer who has trouble keeping beat to try to keep a beat for you.  Allow for mistakes.  You just may have to turn them down a little bit at times.


4.  Be Patient!


We've only been at it for about a year and a half, and we are just now seeing our students love worship.  Now they stand without being asked to.  They're participating instead of viewing like a really bad concert.  They're asking to be a part of it.

This is how we've approached this.  There are other ways to do it, but for us this is working.  What would you add or subtract from the list?  I'd love your feedback.