Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM)

This article was originally posted as a blog post at Urban Scholar:

Earlier today I was contemplating the thought of purchasing a new print Bible. One of the first posts I made on this site was about my switching to the ESV. Well, the only print ESV I own is a 2001 text edition, and there have been a number of changes since then with the 2007 & now 2011 update. So, I started to think that I should purchase a new ESV to have on me, especially for when the opportunity presents itself to teach again. I thought about it to the point that I even tweeted about the kind of Bible I wanted, saying the following:

considering buying a new print Bible… yes, a print Bible… thinking it’ll likely be a new thinline ESV w/2011 text updates

As the day went on, with the thought still on my mind, I wondered if the local Lifeway store had any 2011 ESV Bibles in stock. Then, as I thought about it some more, I was thinking, “Oh, I need a nice ‘preaching’ Bible too, to go with the thinline as my everyday ‘handy’ Bible!” After a while, I finally paused and asked myself a question. If I do all of my studying of the Bible digitally, why should I have a Bible that I only use for teaching? Shouldn’t the same Bible I study with be the same Bible I teach from? The answer was: why not?!

As I thought through this some more, I wondered what this would look like for me. Preaching from a tablet is nothing new and has become more popular in the last couple of years, so it’s not like I’d be breaking new ground or anything; yet, there could be something that better suits how I do things. In my thought process, I quickly realized that the way I teach requires lots of “page flipping” because I typically cross reference a lot of Scriptures. How could I leverage a tablet to my advantage? Right now Logos is my primary tool for study, but their mobile app doesn’t support a split screen of Bible & notes; so, that wouldn’t work. Then, I remembered that I have Olive Tree, which does & can also sync with Evernote. Having Evernote means that I can simply copy/paste or dump my passages or notes into an Evernote note and sync it with Olive Tree quite easily. Then, I can have my notes split with my Bible, and tap to open a reference. Now that could work! That would completely eliminate the need for a print Bible & printed notes.

So, let’s take this further because now I’m thinking about completely getting rid of my laptop from the pulpit. This proves tricky because that’s how I run my PowerPoint slideshow for the congregation to follow along. If you’re asking, yes, I usually run my own PowerPoint. Then I started thinking that this is somewhere that Logos could come back into play. They recently released Proclaim Church Presentation Software and it is built for this kind of thing. So, I just get a computer, any computer, connected to the overhead projector (whether it be my own or the one in the sound booth) and load it up; then, I can use my phone (or the tablet) as a remote to progress the slides as needed. Now that would be cool!

I could really see myself teaching in that fashion, and it’s right up my alley. I’m a digital guy, so working in this fashion keeps all of my notes accessible to me from multiple devices and I’m not in a jam if I ever forget or lose my print Bible. Plus, there’s always the freedom of being able to switch translations on the fly, which is nice. I also feel that technology is at a point now that it is fairly reliable, especially in terms of battery life, where no real red flags are raised for me anymore. I truly think that this is the route that I’m going to go in the future, however the Lord sees fit for that to happen.