096 – Failure For Free

This week the WELSTech podcast includes motivation to try something new for gospel outreach as well as an interview about midi music for worship.

The discussion:

Do something! – Martin and Sallie return to their discussion of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, this time focusing on chapter 10, Failure For Free.  In terms of ministry opportunities this chapter helps us realize that it’s easy and free for our outreach, communication and technology committees to brainstorm creative methods and test drive today’s digital resources as tools for sharing the gospel without fear of failure.

• WELSTech & YOU! – Help us celebrate WELSTech’s 100th episode by sharing your tech-in-ministry success stories via any of the WELSTech communication channels.
  • One lucky contributor will win a WELSTech Sigg Water Bottle

The interview:

(16:00) Digital music for worship – Layman Danny Weymeyer from Good Shepherd in Deltona, FL joins Martin and Sallie to talk about the use of MIDI in worship settings, particularly when congregations do not have full time instrumentalist available for worship.

• Cakewalk sequencer software
• Request Danny’s MIDI CD from your District Mission Board contact

Ministry resources:

• (38:18) YouVersion.com – on the web and on your iPod or other mobile device
• A planned update to the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible

Picks of the week:

• (40:44) Mobile Google Sync – Sync Google calendar and contacts to your mobile device
• BackBlaze.com – Online file backup

Community feedback:

• (49:17) David Savatski from WELS Missions suggested Dropbox and Box.net for sharing large files
• Pastor Jeremiah Gumm from Cross of Christ in Liverpool, NY added his congregation Facebook page to the growing list on the WELSTech Wiki
• David Schumann from Peace in Janesville, WI asked about embedding a flash player for MP3s in his web site for cross-browser compatibility
  • Flash audio player for WordPress blogs from 1 Pixel Out
  • Apply that same technology to any web site using this Tutorial for Flash MP3 Player

Coming up on WELSTech:

(56:04) Episode 097 – Tips for maintaining your computer including fighting mal-ware, registry cleanup and disk de-frags wil be the topic of next week’s podcast. (Release date 09/16/09)

The featured artist:

(57:45) This week we close with the music of WELS artist Michael Schroeder (www.michaelschroeder.com) – Paradise from his CD titled “A Witness”

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