The Divine Crash

Recently I had some extra money and after praying about what to do with it I felt God leading me to get an iPad.  It was as if God was asking me to be compassionate towards the monetary needs of Steve Jobs, I know he is hurting during the recession.  Actually, the first moment I saw an iPad I knew it would be perfect for me and it would sustain my gadget addiction through Christmas.  In August I bought my iPad.  The 32Gb 3G version.  My initial thought was that if I could condense my book shelves into something the size of one tiny book.  Then I would be able to read them anywhere.  The other thing I thought was that the books were cheaper and some were free.

As I continued to think of reasons I should have an iPad it occurred to me that at my United Methodist Annual Conference there is no internet outside of the Internet Cafe where there are three 15-year old computers that are always full.  I was sold, I officially wanted one.  Now I just had to convince my wife and my paycheck.

About the end of August I was finally able to buy the iPad.

After I got it home the first thing I did was set up my Evernote account so that I could have all my class notes, sermons, sermon ideas, and everything else on it.

After a few weeks of playing around with the idea I decided to preach from it, instead of paper.  This is awesome!  I find myself actually using my notes less and able to walk around.

Now, I do not hold my iPad while I preach, it stays on the pulpit and unless you knew it was there you couldn’t see it (of course, I want the pulpit shown in the picture).   I had to change the settings to not auto-shut off ever because it would lock the screen five minutes into my sermon.

So then, for me the iPad is a wonderful addition to my preaching on Sunday morning but also being able to carry theology books with me everywhere and being able to write a sermon anywhere.  There is a free Bible APP from the folks at BlueLetterBible that allows more research than I could ever imagine at the swipe of a finger.  That app and my Evernote app make this the best tool for a pastor since the wireless mic.

It isn’t for everyone but for me it is great.

Filed under:
Pastoral Life by RevBT