Free Resources for the Digital Church

I recently prepared a list of free software tools for church leaders, for a class I'm taking this week at Luther Seminary. I was pleasantly surprised how much material is available, and the spit and polish of it! Most of this software I have used or am currently using - some of it I've only evaluated based on descriptions and reviews. Much of it is multi-platform (not all of my colleagues are married to Windows, after all!); a fair share of it has usefulness beyond church applications.

I think the list is worth sharing. Let me know if you take any of these for a spin, or post a review in the comments below.

Free Resources for the Digital Church

• FreeSerifSoftware.com (www.freeserifsoftware.com)  – Free versions of Serif’s software, including: PagePlus desktop publishing; PhotoPlus photo and image editing; WebPlus web site design and publishing; DrawPlus graphic design and vector drawing; 3DPlus animation and modeling.
   
• OpenSong (www.opensong.org) – OpenSong is a free, open-source software application created to manage lyrics, chords, lead sheets, overheads, computer projection, and more. Download the full application for free and give it a try. If you become a member (also free), you'll have access to additional downloads, such as additional backgrounds, bible translations, and song packs.
   
• OpenLP (www.openlp.org) – A fully featured presentation application written especially for churches. Not only is it custom built from the ground up with churches in mind, but it is also completely free.
   
• ChurchDB (www.thundersoftware.com/churchdb/churchdboverview.asp) – ChurchDB is affordable Windows software that simplifies the maintenance of church record keeping as it relates to families and family members to track participation and progress in ministries, small groups, events, classes, giving and more. Free for churches with registration; $195 for secular organizations.
   
• Free Accounting Software (www.freeaccountingsoftware.net) - Free Accounting Software is an intuitive, easy to use, robust , multi-user inventory business management system and accounting software solution with extensive reporting and more.
   
• AceMoney Lite (www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney) - AceMoney Lite is a freeware personal finance manager. It has all the features of its big brother, AceMoney, except multiple accounts management. AceMoney Lite helps people organize and manage their personal finances quickly and easily. It supports all the features required for home or even small-business accounting needs. More than 100 transaction categories, support for password protection, 150 currencies, and more than 20 supported languages. It supports QIF and OFX file formats, allowing you to download information from online banks or to import it from another account's software. AceMoney Lite can generate custom reports based on any parameters you define, and can call up bar graphs and pie charts.
   
• Melody Assistant (www.myriad-online.com/en/products/melody.htm) – Compose, transpose, and print your own sheet music. Melody Assistant is dedicated to music writing, printing and rendering. Easy to use, Melody Assistant offers a user-friendly interface and powerful capabilities. (Melody Assistant is shareware – you can use it freely, but are requested to register it if it suits your needs. The registration fee is $20.)
   
• OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) - OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
   
• e-Sword (www.e-sword.net) - e-Sword is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software.
   
• Pocket e-Sword (www.e-sword.net/pocketpc) – Free Bible software for Windows Mobile PocketPCs. Multiple translations, original language aids, commentaries, dictionaries, devotionals, and more – the only limit is the size of your storage card.
   
• Olive Tree Bible Software (www.olivetree.com) – The preeminent free Bible software for Palm OS devices. Olive Tree Bible Software provides Bible versions and study tools for Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone and Symbian cell phones, and BlackBerry devices and coming cell phone support for most cell phones sold today. Choose from over 80 electronic translations of the Bible as well as commentaries, dictionaries, devotionals, eBooks, and Strong’s numbering system. The Bible is offered in various languages, including German, French, Spanish, Chinese and many others. Original Hebrew and Greek texts are also available.
   
• NET Bible (www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=3086) – A free modern translation of the Bible. The New English Translation is available for free use at www.bible.org, and it can also be downloaded and distributed free of charge. Print your own copies of the Bible – up to 1000 with no additional permissions needed.
   
• Bible Gateway (www.biblegateway.com) - The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online – all in the language or translation of your choice! It provides advanced searching capabilities, which allow readers to find and compare particular passages in scripture based on keywords, phrases, or scripture reference.
   
• The Text This Week (www.textweek.com) – This site features a wide variety of resources for study and liturgy based on the 3-year Revised Common Lectionary cycle. I intentionally include a diverse variety of resources for scripture study, reflection and liturgy, and purposefully do not restrict the resources to any particular theological/ideological position, including my own. The site is a work-in-progress. I spend between 30 and40 hours each week updating links and finding more resources to link. The purpose of this website is to provide links to resources for study, reflection and liturgy which correspond to the RCL readings you may be using for study, teaching & preaching.
   
• Free For Churches (www.freeforchurches.com) – Directory of software and tools that are available at no cost to churches and nonprofits. Categories include: Audio & Music; Bible Studies; Children; Drama Scripts; Miscellaneous; Software; Teaching; Visual Media; Website Tools; Youth.
   
• E4 Free Bible Study Software (www.freebiblesoftware.com) - Our goal is to put a large Biblical Study Library in every Christian home. We wanted to make this free Library the highest quality possible, so we took the greatest care in choosing which books to publish. Each book is a proven masterpiece, hand selected for its impact in the hearts and lives of Christians in the past. They are sure to lead you to worship Christ. Includes the popular QuickVerse software.
   
• Blogger (www.blogger.com) – Easy and free blogging client. Host your blog with Blogger, or publish to your own web domain. Allows team blogs, comments, “Blog It” buttons in Firefox and IE.
   
• Odeo Studio (studio.odeo.com) – Free podcasting. Host your podcasts on Odeo’s servers, or link to files at your own domain.
   
• dotPhoto (www.dotphoto.com) – Go beyond free photo album browsing and ordering prints. You can set your own prices for each print size (for images the church chooses to sell rather than offer freely). Many gift items are available, as well.
   
• CafePress (www.cafepress.com) – At CafePress, you can create and sell products with your designs - all with no upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website, blog or in our Marketplace. CafePress handles all product creation, credit card processing, shipping and customer service.
   
• Pdf995 Suite (www.pdf995.com) – Create Adobe Reader PDF files with a single click, and distribute your bulletins, newsletters, and sermons online. Pdf995 and its companion applications allow you to “print” your document into a PDF, and to edit the resulting file to insert hyperlinks, bookmarks, file security, and more. Free versions of the suite are supported by ads; register Pdf995 for $9.95, or the suite for $19.95 and ditch the ads.
   
• Copernic Desktop Search (www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search) – Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) brings the power of a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use search engine right to your PC and allows you instantly to search files, emails, and email attachments stored anywhere on your PC hard drive. It executes sub-second searching of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, Acrobat PDFs, and all popular music, picture and video formats. CDS also conducts a desktop search of your browser history, favorites, and contacts.

Plumbing stinks!

So I've spent the night chatting with my plumber, who basically willed my new water heater into working. The old one made some not-good smoke and caused the circuit breaker to make a pretty impressive spark this morning, and with church and a prayer service tomorrow, and a funeral on Monday, getting that taken care of was pretty high on my priority list today.

The problem, as it turns out, is that the plumbing in my house isn't exactly great. It's been cobbled together by generations of well-intentioned church handymen. The job got done, the problems got fixed, but it's a hodgepodge down there, and the quality isn't consistant from one stretch to the next.

Example - it's pretty much impossible to close either of the first two valves coming into the house (the ones on either side of the meter) because the cheap knob-style valves have long since broken. Which means, of course, that to replace those valves will require shutting the water off before it gets to the house. Fun. One key joint right next to the meter (and therefore on the main line) is so corroded that my plumber only half-jokingly told me not to touch it! If (more like when) it begins to leak, the pressure at that point will be enough to produce a spray rather than a dribble... not a comforting thing, considering its location right next to the breaker box!

The reality is that a lot of the plumbing in the house probably needs to be replaced, and probably by a professional, but there's no money in the budget for anything of the sort. Since I couldn't get ahold of any council members, I had to buy the new heater myself; now I get to wait until there's money in the church account to reimburse me. (Wish they could have billed the church - not as though I can do without hot water here.)

It's a fine house, but it's 100 years old and some bits of it show their age more than others.

Anyhow, I should have hot water in the morning, and therefore won't be rank when church time rolls around tomorrow. I'm not sure who's going to be more grateful for that...

Fun with Google

I'm pleased to announce that my blog is presently among the top ten listings on Google for the search "Jesus is not a Republican." Go ahead - try it yourself. I'm even higher on the list when you search for it as a phrase. I'm also high on the list for various queries about Randall Balmer and his new book, which I mentioned in a previous post.

It's funny the things you discover from blog statistics. I'm actually number two in the search "George Bush stroke dropping mouth" due to my piping up (along with much of the liberal blogosphere) on questions about the president's health back in '04. Then again, I'm near the top for "tree looks like virgin Mary north dakota church" too.

And, much to my delight, this blog is one of only two places on the Internet bold enough to say in so many words: "TBN is corrupt" (and the other one doesn't seem to have the text on its page anywhere, even in Google's cache of it).

Bam! Pow! Take that, forces of evil! ;)

(Yes, Mom, it's true - the upcoming Superman movie is probably causing me to revert back to my childhood delusions of superheroism...)

Brian McLaren: Ten Questions

Another lengthy, worthwhile read from Paul: This time, it's an interview with Pastor Brian McLaren of Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Baltimore-Washington region. He's also a key actor in the post-modern movement known as the emergent church. Brian is insightful and articulate, holding a position that is at once wide awake and aware of the world around him, and solidly rooted in Biblical faith (though some in the evangelical community whose boats he's rocked mutter that he's a heretic).

I find myself in agreement with Brian almost point for point. Whether you agree or disagree, you'll find his interview thought provoking. Read it.

An evangelical laments: "Jesus is not a Republican"

Thanks to my colleague Paul Peterson for passing on this essay, published this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In it, Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Barnard College and an evangelical Christian, provides a comprehensive indictment of the alliance between the religious right and the Republican party, as well as a vision for evangelicals to reclaim the heart of their faith.

Religious belief, he argues, is at its best and most powerful when it is outside of its culture - a fringe or counterculture. Free from the power structures, it is able to offer its good news faithfully and never compromise its message to kowtow to political factions in order to grow a power base

In truth, the power base of evangelical faith is the gospel of Jesus Christ, a message that becomes more ridiculous and more dangerous the more enmeshed with the trappings of power and worldliness one becomes. Jesus and his followers acknowledge the rule of those in power for the present, but they did not curry favor or seek to align themselves with those powers. They did not disdain the world - quite the contrary, they constantly did good works to alleviate suffering here and now and to bring joy and hope to those needing a good word - but they knew all too well that every structure of human power is rotted from the inside by the corrupting influence of sin.

Scripture is clear: the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ is the single solid foundation, the base of power, and its cornerstone is the risen Lord himself. The closer that truth is to the heart of the church, the closer the church is to the heart of its Lord. That is the goal toward which all the faithful - evangelical, mainline, Orthodox, and Catholic alike - should be striving with a singleminded determination.

Excellent article, although it's lengthy. For those interested in pursuing Balmer's argument in greater depth, his book Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament is on the presses now. Look for it next month.

Type in your own handwriting

Ever been tricked by an envelope with handwriting that looked so real that you were sure it was something important (or at least legit), only to find it's a sweepstakes, or a credit offer, or a book club sign-up?

More to the point, ever been a little bit jealous and wished that you could do that on your computer?

Take a look at this:

This sample is from today's verse on my NLT desktop calendar - I typed it into the form at www.signaturesoftware.com, and I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed!

See, what makes normal "handwriting" fonts look phony is that they've only got two shapes for each letter: uppercase and lowercase. The vLetter Pro software uses four different shapes per lowercase letter, depending on which letters come before and after it, so that everything connects up naturally, and there is that variety of shapes that makes handwriting look like it was done by a human and not a machine. Very cool stuff.

And for $149.95 you can have a font made in your own handwriting using this system. I can already think of all kinds of uses... too bad there are at least 149 different things that are screaming out for my cash before I get around to playing with custom handwriting fonts. =(

Fine foods from the farms of Dakota

Whether you're a farmer, a North Dakotan, a gourmand, or all of the above, Agraria should be on your radar. In their own words,

Agraria
LLC is a North Dakota based holding company established to own and operate fine-dining restaurants that focus on awareness and promotion of the American family-farmer.

To that end, Agraria works to education consumers about the benefits of family-produced agricultural products - economic, social, and in terms of quality - and then to provide the ultimate teaching tool: show-and-tell.

Agraria demonstrates the quality of family-farmed foods at its brand new showcase fine-dining restaurant, located in the Georgetown section of our nation's capital. If you're in the D.C. area, I'd love to share your review of the new Agraria restaurant - post it as a comment to this item, or e-mail it to me so I can share it with my readers.

Thanks to Grace for the tip!

Because you can never have too much data...

Ever wonder what the current voltage of your car's battery is? What about the coolant temp? Maybe the average and maximum speed your vehicle's traveled at? (Good for parents, I suppose!) Something more mundane, perhaps, like your fuel economy?

What about the power to read engine trouble codes... and to clear the "check engine" light if you're tired of looking at it? =)

All this and more can be yours with the ScanGauge II, now available at ThinkGeek.com. Now you can indulge your automotive stat jones... um, stat! Just remember to look up at the road once in a while.

LBW/WOV Font for liturgical publishing

The Lutheran hymnals "Lutheran Book of Worship" and "With One Voice," as well as a host of other professionally designed liturgical material, use a series of small icons to clue worshipers in on which lines are theirs, and which belong to the worship leader, choir, etc. If you're "rolling your own" and would rather not use the oh-so-blah P: or C: to mark your lines, visit Augsburg Fortress to download the free LBW Symbol Font. It's a simple dingbat font that contains the rubric icons you'll need to give a nice polish to your homemade liturgies.

Music from a good Lutheran boy

A bit more than a year back I stumbled across the music of Jonathan Rundman, a Twin Cities rocker who happens to write his stuff from a decidedly Lutheran perspective. His double-CD set, "Sound Theology," is never very far from my CD deck. Jonathan's recently released a new double set as a companion to "Sound Theology" (yours is on the way, Jeff) as well as his first music video. Enjoy the clip below, and consider this your notice - you ought not be without these discs!

"On the cover of the Rolling Stone..."

I'm in Hutchinson for a few days, visiting my family for Mom's birthday. Per our usual routine, Jeff and I were bellyaching about politics into the wee hours of this morning. He referred me to this remarkable cover story from Rolling Stone - an in-depth analysis by a prominent historian, concluding that Bush 43 might well be the single lousiest American president in our nation's history.

Pearls from the stinging indictment:

• In early 2004, an informal survey of 415
  historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton -- a category in which Bush is the only contestant. (Remember this is a poll taken before Katrina, before Valerie Plame, before things went completely to hell in Iraq.)
• According to the Treasury Department, the forty-two presidents who held office between 1789 and 2000 borrowed a combined total of $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions. But between 2001 and 2005 alone, the Bush White House borrowed $1.05 trillion, more than all of the previous presidencies combined.
• While forcing federally funded agencies to remove from their Web sites scientific information about reproductive health and the effectiveness of condoms in combating HIV/AIDS, and while peremptorily overruling staff scientists at the Food and Drug Administration on making emergency contraception available over the counter, Bush officials have censored and suppressed research findings they don't like by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture. Far from being the conservative he said he was, Bush has blazed a
  radical new path as the first American president in history who is outwardly hostile to science -- dedicated, as a distinguished, bipartisan panel of educators and scientists (including forty-nine Nobel laureates) has declared, to "the distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends."

I never thought of Rolling Stone as an important journal, but taken together with its disturbing investigation of the "Church" of Scientology, and Robert Kennedy Jr.'s sifting through the shady details of the 2004 election, Rolling Stone is rapidly rising in my esteem as a relevant, courageous publication.

Which, in all likelihood, means that to this administration it's a traitorous, anti-American, terrorist-loving, God-hating, out-of-touch, radical leftist heap of lies, half truths, and propaganda whose editors, contributors, and readers are soon to be extraordinarily-renditioned out of the White House's hair, and good riddance. Yep, I like it already!

This... is... your... birthday song, it isn't very long!

Happy birthday, Mom!