Society is becoming increasingly mobile and hectic. Demographics prove this out, but all we really have to do is look at our schedules. The typical pastor may spend his or her day between several different locations, the church office, the hospital, a meeting at McDonalds and a conference at the District office. In between all of that the pastor is expected to find time to study to pray, to prepare a sermon, to put together a program for Sunday morning, do a Sunday School lesson and a devotional for the Wednesday night Study. How do you keep it all straight, never mind accomplish it all?
One of the best tools you can use to accomplish these tasks and make life easier is the humble PDA, or “Personal Digital Assistant”. Typical models range anywhere from US$100 to US$500 in 2008. The most useful for the money tend to be in the range of US$200-US$300, with my personal favorite the Palm Tungsten E2 being US$200.
Those unfamiliar with PDA’s assume they are fancy electronic calendars and not much more. If that were so I would still recommend them, because of the many features the calendars employ. The typical PDA calendar application, such as Palm Desktop, will allow you to keep track of events and set reminders for them. But it will also allow you to sort and categorize entries, displaying only what you need. It will also allow you to synchronize with the Palm Desktop calendar application on your office PC, or with MS Outlook should you prefer. But their usefulness only begins with the calendar.
Scenario – you have taken a group of teens on Saturday to a District Bible Quizzing meet. It is over an hour away from home. It has begun snowing quite heavily and you know that it is not worth going home and coming back, even though you have a Sunday program and a sermon to complete. Solution - You are not worried, because you had the foresight to upload your sermon and the bulletin outline to your PDA. You go upstairs and grab a Hymnal, find a quiet corner to set up your Infrared Keyboard and within three hours it is all done. When the quizzers are finished you drive them home, go to your office and upload the documents to your PC to print them.
Just exactly this happened to me about three years ago. If it had not been for my PDA, I would have had a very hard time finishing everything without putting in a very long night. I attended a seminar with the well-known churchplanter Rev. Ralph Moore of Hope Chapel in Kaneohe, Hawaii about 8 years ago. The seminar was conducted in Nashua, New Hampshire. While having lunch he told us that normally he was traveling for several days out of the week. He would compose his sermons and notes on his PDA, then on Friday he would connect to the Internet to send the documents to his office where his secretary would print them. By the time he got home his sermon and other materials were on his desk waiting for him.
What did I use to edit my documents? Believe it or not I used Microsoft Word, through an application called DocumentsToGo. My PDA writes to native Word format, and I can even keep track of church statistics on-the-fly with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. These applications come bundled with the PDA. Keeping track of expenses is just as easy with the PalmSource “Expense” application. Simply set up your categories and start entering information.
Another very useful application is the “Contact” database, also included with the PDA. This interfaces with your Calendar application and displays items like birthdays on the calendar. Email is easy to compose and you can send it when you next connect to the Internet, either through your desktop PC or by WiFi (if so equipped).
Need inspiration or relaxation while out and about? Use your PDA along with a set of earbuds and listen to the MP3’s you have stored on your PDA or memory card. For an even better experience when traveling you can use your PDA hooked up to your car stereo using a CD-to-Tape converter (US$10-US$20).
One of the blessings you will find right away is the speed and stability of the operating system. The Palm OS is extremely stable, and is nearly instant when turning on. Setup is easy and quick, and is very intuitive. Writing with a stylus should you choose to do so can be quick but takes a little getting used to.
There are many different ways to use your PDA effectively for ministry, and many different add-ons, but it can be life-transforming right out of the box. All of this from a small device that will slip easily into a suit jacket pocket.
One of the best tools you can use to accomplish these tasks and make life easier is the humble PDA, or “Personal Digital Assistant”. Typical models range anywhere from US$100 to US$500 in 2008. The most useful for the money tend to be in the range of US$200-US$300, with my personal favorite the Palm Tungsten E2 being US$200.
Those unfamiliar with PDA’s assume they are fancy electronic calendars and not much more. If that were so I would still recommend them, because of the many features the calendars employ. The typical PDA calendar application, such as Palm Desktop, will allow you to keep track of events and set reminders for them. But it will also allow you to sort and categorize entries, displaying only what you need. It will also allow you to synchronize with the Palm Desktop calendar application on your office PC, or with MS Outlook should you prefer. But their usefulness only begins with the calendar.
Scenario – you have taken a group of teens on Saturday to a District Bible Quizzing meet. It is over an hour away from home. It has begun snowing quite heavily and you know that it is not worth going home and coming back, even though you have a Sunday program and a sermon to complete. Solution - You are not worried, because you had the foresight to upload your sermon and the bulletin outline to your PDA. You go upstairs and grab a Hymnal, find a quiet corner to set up your Infrared Keyboard and within three hours it is all done. When the quizzers are finished you drive them home, go to your office and upload the documents to your PC to print them.
Just exactly this happened to me about three years ago. If it had not been for my PDA, I would have had a very hard time finishing everything without putting in a very long night. I attended a seminar with the well-known churchplanter Rev. Ralph Moore of Hope Chapel in Kaneohe, Hawaii about 8 years ago. The seminar was conducted in Nashua, New Hampshire. While having lunch he told us that normally he was traveling for several days out of the week. He would compose his sermons and notes on his PDA, then on Friday he would connect to the Internet to send the documents to his office where his secretary would print them. By the time he got home his sermon and other materials were on his desk waiting for him.
What did I use to edit my documents? Believe it or not I used Microsoft Word, through an application called DocumentsToGo. My PDA writes to native Word format, and I can even keep track of church statistics on-the-fly with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. These applications come bundled with the PDA. Keeping track of expenses is just as easy with the PalmSource “Expense” application. Simply set up your categories and start entering information.
Another very useful application is the “Contact” database, also included with the PDA. This interfaces with your Calendar application and displays items like birthdays on the calendar. Email is easy to compose and you can send it when you next connect to the Internet, either through your desktop PC or by WiFi (if so equipped).
Need inspiration or relaxation while out and about? Use your PDA along with a set of earbuds and listen to the MP3’s you have stored on your PDA or memory card. For an even better experience when traveling you can use your PDA hooked up to your car stereo using a CD-to-Tape converter (US$10-US$20).
One of the blessings you will find right away is the speed and stability of the operating system. The Palm OS is extremely stable, and is nearly instant when turning on. Setup is easy and quick, and is very intuitive. Writing with a stylus should you choose to do so can be quick but takes a little getting used to.
There are many different ways to use your PDA effectively for ministry, and many different add-ons, but it can be life-transforming right out of the box. All of this from a small device that will slip easily into a suit jacket pocket.
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