What is the measure of grace? There is an abundance of books on the subject of God’s grace, some of which I have read. And I have come to understand grace in theological terms. However, grace also applies to human relationships. It is the measure of that human relational grace that I want to take here.

When our enemy hurts us, we are told to “turn the other cheek” (MAT 5:39). I have often pondered what Jesus meant by that. Was he talking about physical or psychological abuse? Does that apply to the coworker that we perceive is sabotaging our project so that theirs can succeed? I tend to think that Jesus saw physical abuse on the streets of Nazareth. When a Roman soldier came through town, by law he could demand anything of the people. If you complained, then more than likely you got the back of his hand across your face and the soldier just took the item away from you. Who would stop him? Yes, the soldier was being barbaric, and we would say that he was no better than the mugger who stops us today on the sidewalk. But Jesus knew that the way to respond was to change the heart of the soldier, not start a fight over a piece of bread. In a fight, you would more than likely just get killed, and the soldier would be that much more filled with guilt. When you turned the other cheek, the soldier would realize that you weren’t going to oppose him, and he would be left wondering why. That is grace in action.

You see, it is grace that enables our “other than by instinct” response to human situations. Without an understanding of grace, our responses would be “tit for tat” – i.e. violent and vengeful. And we all know about the cycle of violence, that it just spirals out of control. Wars have been started following a simple disagreement. With grace in our lives, we can “turn the other cheek” when provoked. We can respond with love for our enemy, and do the right thing to heal the situation. Our enemy may not always understand why we aren’t responding the way they would – i.e. they may expect us to be seeking revenge. But ultimately, they will learn to respect us, because they realize that we are seeking justice.

This is the work of Jesus on the cross. And it has a benefit in our everyday living. The measure of grace is the impact it has on our human relationships. It affords us a chance to be human beings who are more concerned with doing the right thing that exacting revenge. With finding justice instead of perpetuating injustices. With sharing God’s grace rather than hoarding it.

May your life be filled with God’s grace – i.e. overflowing and abundant!

How do you learn HTML? HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It represents the lingua franca of the Internet. Learning it, in all of its variations, is a mind boggling task. But you can get started on it with a simple editor and a browser running locally. You first have to learn the syntax of the language.

There are a number of excellent introductions to HTML. One is found at W3C School – i.e. the standards body for the Internet. W3C stands for the World Wide Web Consortium, and it has a web site at www.w3c.org that contains the standards. Their introduction to HTML can be found at introduction.

Scheduling staff is usually taken care of via internal calendars or event management systems (i.e. EMS). But how do you schedule volunteers? Why not devise a calendar system on the Church web site that would let volunteers schedule themselves for various tasks. You would assign each volunteer a set of roles, e.g. sound technician. They could then look at the calendar and pick the days that they are available to run sound in worship. The calendar system would then keep track of the fact that they had volunteered to run the sound desk on a particular date. If they needed to change, the system would allow them to drop that commitment of time and post the task back to the available tasks pool. Another volunteer trained in sound could then volunteer online to take their place. You might need a hot list of items that were coming up, so that volunteers accessing the calendar would see what was most needed. Overall, this would take care of scheduling volunteers for technical ministry tasks automatically.

Does such a system exist? Perhaps, but it would need to be flexible and role based. If you know of such a system, then please comment below so that others can discover it.

You can read the Bible in a year. All it takes is 15 minutes a day, 365 days, and you will know the content of the Bible! For more information, see the reading plan:

One Year Bible

The current readings for this week are listed below so you can get started reading.

Many churches are now capturing the worship services for later playback on their web site. The technology to do this is readily available. People can even playback the service on their video enabled cell phone. Or they can play the service back on an iPod – i.e. in audio or video mode. Or they can play back the service on their computer over a broadband connection. Or they could receive a DVD of the service via mail or home delivery. Or they could just read the sermon online.

The technical demands of these processes are enormous. It takes a lot of hard disk space to record and process the service. And it takes a broadband connection to upload it to the web server. And the web server has to be capable of handling streaming media. A good rule of thumb is as follows for capturing video live:

For every 5 minutes of video (DV), you will be using up 1GB of hard drive space.

That implies that a one hour service will occupy 12 GB of hard disk space. If you just record the sermon, then you can cut that in half – i.e. 30 min or 6 GB. But this is still a huge load on system resources. Since you want to maintain quality, you will want to capture the service at the highest resolution possible – i.e. in these examples, standard resolution or DVD quality. High Definition would be even more. Then, to process and store the service, you will use up intermediate storage – i.e. rendering space for programs like Final Cut Pro. The overall load on hard disk space is enormous.

How do you plan for and manage this load? There are many approaches you can take. One would be to size the hard disks of your video editing system to handle a year’s worth of worship services, using the rule of thumb above. Another would be to use NAS (i.e. Network Attached Storage) technology to store everything except this week’s worship service. You also need to plan for having a web site with sufficient storage and bandwidth to support all of the services you want to have online at any given time. You will need to manage these spaces so that you do not exceed the limitations of the web host system, as that will incur high fees.

How do you design a church web site for good accessibility? There are a number of issues that come up, such as readers for the blind. Yet, the church should be one place where we take these things into consideration, so that the very least (Mat 25:40) can use the web site.

One issue is color. For those with color blindness, a beautiful color scheme may really be unreadable. This surprisingly affects a significant percentage of adults – i.e. over 10 million adult males in the US. However, those of us who don’t suffer from color blindness don’t recognize it. There is a web site that helps you visualize this effect. Check out the Color Accessibility wheel by Giacomo Mazzocato:

These days it seems like everyone is vitally concerned with security. Political rallies have to have security. Sports stadiums have to have security. Airports are sometimes so tight that you have to plan to leave an hour earlier than normal, just to get through the security screening. Employers check the background of new employees, to make sure that they aren’t a security risk. So what about people working in the Church as a volunteer?

There was a time when the Church was considered a haven for those in trouble. Perhaps that time has passed. These days, with the concerns over security, perhaps we have to make sure that Church employees are people who are trustworthy. But what about volunteers? Should they have background checks done to make sure they are also trustworthy? What do you think?

WordPress has now released version 2.5. MinTech will always strive to be current, so we have upgraded to this release. Some of the new features that this upgrade provides are as follows:

• New Search Capability

If you have any questions, then please take a look at WordPress.

It is Easter! On this day, the celebration of the Resurrection takes on new meaning, as we gather in our churches to worship. May you be blessed as you worship the Risen Lord today!

His eyes Did open again!

Bradley@Roberts.net

No, I’m not referring to Paul’s dramatic conversion on the Road to Damascus Acts 22:6. Rather, I want to consider lighting in the sanctuary where there are video cameras. The cameras need a lot of light in order to generate a good picture. Typically, that means stage lighting is needed. Now stage lighting is an art in itself, and well covered elsewhere, but what does it do to worship to have all of that wattage? Does it make it harder for the legally blind to see? And does it affect the worship service?

I think it has an impact. Specifically, those who are on stage can easily feel like they have been blinded by the lights. This reduces the connection between people on the stage, e.g. the pastor, and the congregation. If the pastor can’t see them, because of the glare of the video lights, then the pastor can’t tell from their faces whether the Word is getting across or not. This can be a problem for a pastor. What do you think? Do you have stage lighting in your sanctuary? And how do you use it?

Welcome to Ministry and Technology! This blog is dedicated to all of those servants in churches who use technology to enhance the Gospel message. May you find here a useful resource for those times when you struggle to find the balance between the two. Here you will find articles and discussions on various topics encountered in the church, from how to’s to whys to where can I find it. Come check it out frequently, as things will change daily. May you be blessed by your time here.