Ministry Resources Archive

A complete listing of the Ministry Resources from 2008-2016 WELSTech episodes

Bible Study

• 7 Days to Your New Bible Habit
• Advent by Candlelight resources from WELS Women's Ministry
• A planned update to the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible
• Biblia – Beta site from Logos
• Bible Audio Pronunciation – (iOS app | Lite (Free) app | Overview Video)
• Bible Challenge from Back to the Bible
• Bible.com – Mobile apps
• Bible costume ideas on Pinterest
• BibleGateway beta of site redesign
• Bible Geocoding
• BibleGlo.com – Multimedia Bible software
  • Video overview
  • Newsweek review – Goodbye to Gideon?
  • Follow BibleGlo on Twitter. Tweet #bibleglo for a chance to win a copy of the software.
  • Release of the Glo Bible for Mac and iPad – Watch the iPad demo
  • Download the Free Glo Bible Lite
  • YouVersion in Glo
  • Glo Bible released for iPhone/iPod Touch
• Bible history sites Ferrell's Travel Blog and BiblePlaces.com
• BibleMap.org
• Bible Study Resources for Road to Emmaus & Come Follow Me
• BibleStudyTools.com
• Biblex
• Biblos.com – online Bible study resources
• Check out the new Lutheran Study Bible from Concordia
  • Videos
  • Podcast
  • Follow lutheranbible on Twitter
• Church Year A Lectionary from the Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV) of the Bible by the Wartburg Project
• Create a "Free Bible" page from YouVersion – youversion.com/free-bible
  • Visit the sample page for St. John's, Sleepy Eye, MN – stjohnsse.com/freeBible
• Essay files at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary – Doctrine joy!
• Google Cultural Institute's Dead Sea Scrolls – Project Site
• Interactive Faith Bible Study
  • Interactive Faith "Who Is Your God?" online Bible study archive – Videos | Study guides
• In His Sandals on Audible
• Lent and Easter resources – Episode 121
• Logos 4 – released 11/02/09
  • Pastor Aaron Frey from Emanuel in Tawas City, MI blogs about his experience with the Logos 4 private beta
    • Logos 4 Initial Impressions
    • Text Studies, Guides and Searching
    • Library and Resource Management, Conclusion
  • 100 New Features in Logos 4
  • Logos 4 video overview
• Logos 5 Release – Nov-12
• Logos 6 Features YouTube playlist
• Logos for iPhone/iTouch
• Meditations from Northwestern Publishing House is now available for iOS and in Kindle and Nook eBook format.
• Men's Network
• NIV 2011 (the updated New International Version Bible translation) is "live"
• NIV 2011: Every Last Change from the Don't Eat the Fruit blog
• NIV Translation Update from WELS Together
• Now You Can Even Google the Dead Sea Scrolls from Read Write Web
• On My Heart Lutheran Memory Work Program
• One Year Bible Online
• Open Bible Stories
• Prepare Your Hearts: Christmas Devotions from Time of Grace via YouVersion
• Seminary Video Library (RSS)
• Sixty-Six Clouds – Word cloud images of each of the books of the Bible
• Start 2016 with one of the great social opportunities to study God's Word online:
  • One Year Bible Reading Group
  • Your Time of Grace
  • Holy Hen House Online Bible Study
  • Thru the New in 62 (x 5)
  • Video devotions from Pastor Fred Kogler
• Study guides and reviews of The Bible miniseries created by Pastor Jon Schroeder from Faith in Sharpsburg, GA
• The Books of the Bible [INFOGRAPHIC]
• The Daily Bible Challenge by Adam Goede
• The next installment of WELS Interactive Faith online Bible study begins Wednesday, September 9 at 6 and 8 pm Central. Join Rev. Keith Wessel for a study of the book of Elisha. Download the study guide for week 1.
• TopScripture.com for regular browser prompts from God's Word
• YouVersion.com – on the web and on your iPod or other mobile device
  • YouVersion Bible app parallel reading mode on iPad
  • YouVersion Bible is now available for Nook
• Walther's Law and Gospel is now available for Kindle
• WhatAboutJesus.com – Access and share outreach oriented resources covering questions about Jesus and God, life concerns, introduction to worship, worship helps and much more.
• Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly (1990-2010) is available from Logos
• Word Bible Designs by Jim LePage

Church Office

• 7 Reasons Pastors Love Church Management Software – Whitepaper and Webinar from CTS
• Do Saturday Emails Increase Church Attendance
• Open Source Church Software Roundup
• Save 25% on Shepherd's Staff 2015
• Shepherd's Staff church management software year end process
  • Instructions (PDF)
  • Support forums
• Thanks Brent Nemmers for pointing us to this Microsoft announcement that Office 365 is now available for FREE for non-profits!
• VolunteerSpot.com (Video Tour)
• Worship/bulletin art from WELS artists
  • Corissa Nelson's Worship Art Shop
  • Ian Welch's Paramentics

Copyright

• Copyright Community blog
  • Check out all of the WELSTech Wiki resources on copyright
• Find Out How Churches Benefit From Religious Service Exemption

Education

• 100 Open Courses to Make Yourself an Internet Whiz
• Bible Crafts for Kids on Pinterest
• Brainscape flashcards
• Check out Rachel's Advent board on Pinterest
• Flashcards for Greek and Hebrew from Logos Bible Software
  • iTunes
  • Google Play
• Free introductory online course from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
• Free Social Media Tools for Teachers from Mashable
• Google's Education on Air is archived. A few recommendations:
  • Transforming learning with technology
  • And you thought you knew everything about Forms!
  • Set your sites on Sites
• Google Translate Adds Latin
• Have you tried the Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet? Let us know what you think of it.
• Israel 2013
• KidBlog.org
  • St. John's Sample KidBlog site
• LiveMocha language training with a social twist
• MemorizeNow.com
• Memrise – Memory drill Web 2.0-style – Recommended by LifeHacker
• Pandora in the Classroom
• Pastor Rob Guenther uses Flubaroo to automate grading catechism quizzes
• Rachel Feld blogs on the topic of Teaching Little Ones About Lent at Bread for Beggars
  • Check out Rachel's Bible Lessons – Lent Pinterest board
  • Lent Prayer Pals
• Reformation Flannelgraph
• ShopWELS vendor, Troxell, offers special pricing on a Toshiba Chromebook
• Tech-Enabled Religion Class – a WELSTech podcast discussion dedicated to ministry resource examples
• Video Tutorials for Logos Bible Software
• Websites for Kids – A list of great kids sites including …
  • SwitcherooZoo
  • Storyline Online

Fellowship

• 31 Christmas Fellowship Ideas from Women's Ministry Toolbox
• October is Pastor Appreciation Month
  • 10 Gift Ideas for Pastor Appreciation Month
  • Pastor Appreciation on Pinterest
  • Focus on the Family Guide to Clergy Appreciation Month (PDF)

Mobile

• Be a beta tester of the new WELS Mobile app! Surf over to m.wels.net in your smartphone or tablet web browser, and kick the tires.
• Bible Gateway's Mobile App
• Granny's Bible Dojo – iOS app for memorizing the books of the Bible
• Luther's Small Catechism for mobile devices from Concordia Publishing House
• Pastor Guy Marquardt from Christ in Lodi, CA reviews the PastoralCare app for iPad
  • iTunes links – PastoralCare | PrayNow
• Prayer Notebook | Prayer Notebook Lite for iOS
  • An alternate digital Prayer Notebook, shared by Pastor Rob Guenther from Grace in Kenai, AK, is to create a Google Calendar solely for prayer prompts and set the calendar to send e-mail reminders
  • Pastor Guenther also recommends the Daily Bread prayer e-newsletter by Pastor Mark Gabb of St. Paul's in Beverly Hills, FL
• The Atlas Lens comes to the Glo app for iPad and iPhone
  • The 10 coolest book apps for fall from USA Today includes The Glo Bible
• The Table iPhone App
• WELS Mobile
• Who is Jesus? iBook

Multi-Media

• 10 Reasons Video Should Be On Your Radar in 2016
• 23 Church Podcast Ideas
• A Helpful List of Short Apologetic Videos
• A Man Named Martin – Part 1: The Man video series – Study Resources and Martin Luther Booklet
• A 'short' discussion on stock photography
• Check out the 30-day free trial of Proclaim 2.0
• Check out the Jelly Telly channel on YouTube – Sample 1 Samuel video
• Christmas Story Images from FreeBibleImages.org
• Christmas worship media giveaways:
  • Worship House Media – 12 Days of Christmas
  • Centerline Media – Daily freebies
  • Muddy River Media – Christmas giveaways and an excellent $10 media package
  • Tips for formatting video clips
• Church Marketing Lab Flickr group
• CreationSwap.com shares images and multi-media for congregational usage
• FaithClipArt.com
• Free Bible Images for Advent and Christmas
• Free Bible Images has free Bible maps
  • Bible regions
  • Blank relief maps
  • Blank satellite images
• FullOfEyes.com Biblical images by Chris Powers
• Gospel Outreach With Media online conference
• Greek, Latin and Hebrew Bible audio recordings
• Greg Mink from Peace in Eagle River, AK shared "No Fear!" sermon promo videos created by Pastor Rob Guenther at Grace in Kenai, AK using Xtranormal.com. Check out Pastor Guenther's YouTube channel for lots more examples.
• HearChoirs.net
• Heritage and Hope: Celebrating 150 Years at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
• Lent and Easter resources – Episode 121
• Light Stock
• My Son, My Savior
• The Nativity Factor
• New at FreeBibleImages.org are early childhood friendly Bible story images of the stories of Zacchaeus and Daniel in the lions' den.
• Open Resources
• Our Path of Worship graphics were featured in a recent post from the WELS Hymnal committee
• Proclaim – Cloud based worship presentations
• Public domain Martin Luther images from The Library of Congress (1 | 2 | 3) and Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (1 | 2)
• SermonDrop.com
• ShopWELS vendor, Troxell, offers special pricing on a Toshiba Chromebook
• Sign up for Church Presentation Software freebies from Proclaim
• Sing For Joy from St. Olaf College
• Thanksgiving backgrounds
• The Jesus Movie – Full version | Animated version
• The Source for Youth Ministry
• Video presentations of Martin Luther's Morning and Evening Prayers
• Videos from WELS Churches group on Vimeo
• View sample congregational and school videos created using iMovie on an iPad.
• WELS Deaf & Hard of Hearing YouTube channel – Sign language and close captioned videos of The Lord's Prayer and The Apostle's Creed
• WELS Stained Glass
• What is Lent video from Concordia Publishing House
• Wing Clips

Music

• Alive in Christ Music
• Free-Scores.com
• My Sunday Solutions
• OpenHymnal.org

Outreach

• Assimilation guidelines for new members
• Christmas 2016 outreach postcards – Order by October 26
• Free e-book downloads on May 15, 2011 for Internet Evangelism Day – ieday.net/eb
• Frequent Church Attendance survey from Gallup
• May is Digital Outreach Month. Check out the resources at InternetEvangelismDay.com and listen to our archived podcast interview with IE Day founder Tony Whittaker.
• Media in World Missions Conference – October 12-14, 2012
• New Mover Church Postcards and the postcard design for Grace, Kenai, AK
• Share these Latin American Missions sites with your Spanish speaking friends:
  • Academia Cristo on Facebook
  • Academia Cristo
  • iGlesia Luterana Cristo
• Watch the March 2016 Update from WELSTech friend, Missionary Mike Hartman, regarding online outreach efforts via Academia Cristo.

Productivity

• Check out WELS Technology Projects on Trello, an example of a method of communicating project progress
• Dutch Girl's Guide to Becoming a Better Writer from ChurchM.ag
• Get Better at Creating Church Website Material
• How to Get Things Done – Using Your Calendar Effectively
• 17 Tips for Staying Productive in Ministry

Recommended Reading

• The Bible App for Kids Storybook – Order on Amazon
• Bread for Beggars
  • NBC's "AD" review and reaction
  • Ministering to Millennials series
• Christian Computing Magazine
  • September 2011 magazine links
  • Join the mailing list
• Christian History Magazine – Donation-based subscription
• Church Juice – Ways to Improve Your Church Bulletin
• Parenting in the Digital Age
• Purchase 364 Days of Thanksgiving from Northwestern Publishing House or Amazon
• Shepherd's Study from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary's Grow in Grace
  • Read a review of Getting to Know the Church Fathers
• WELSTech friend and blogger Steve Brown (Worship Ideas You Can Use) has a new book available on Amazon – Lifestyle Worship – Poems, Prayers & Ministry Resources
• WELS Women's Ministry – Ministry Ideas

Social Media

• 7 Ways to Use Facebook Live This Week
• Creating a Facebook Page for Your Ministry from Church Crunch
• Facebook Questions app
• Follow Concordia Technology on Twitter – @ConcordiaTech
• Installment 1 of Martin's "Facebook for Churches" journey
• Martin's Facebook for Churches Journey, Part 2
• How to Build a Facebook Page from Mashable
  • More on FBML (Facebook Markup Language)
  • Check out the new FBML-enabled WELSTech tab – set to be the landing page for "non-fans"
• Katie Luther – Public Figure Facebook Page
• LWMS on Facebook
• Pinterest Christian Easter Resources
• Request the Social Media Quick Guide: Instagram from Church Tech Today's eBooks page
• Social media advice from Church Tech Today – 3 Mistakes Churches Make With Social Media & How the World Uses Twitter [Infographic]
• The Natwivity
• Use Pinterest to share the Christian Good News
• Visit the Time of Grace blog
• Why Pastors Should Blog

Utilities

• Analyze ministry demographics with the NYTimes Mapping America census data maps
• BabelWith.Me – Real time translation engine for chat
• BulletJournal.com
• Christian Tools of Affirmation gift ideas
• Logos Ref Tagger creates roll-over links to Bible passages on your web site
• New on the Google Lectionary Calendar is Church Year A 2015-16. Thanks to Pastor Jon Schroeder for your work on the calendar which is a huge help in worship planning to many!
• QR "Quick Content" Codes
  • Create your own QR Codes
  • Decode QR Codes with your smartphone or an online decoder
  • Why churches and Christian groups should use mobile QR codes
• ref.ly from Logos generates short URLs for Bible references
• Planning Center Online
• Print My Cal
• Proclaim cloud-based church presentation software now supports multiple monitors
• Shop for Ministry:
  • Goodsearch & Goodshop
  • AmazonSmile
• Spiritual Gifts Discovery Tool
• Use Dropbox.com cloud-based file storage to provide resources for students and parents
• Zoom.us video conferencing

Web Development

• 5 Harsh SEO Truths that Ministries Need to Know from Church Crunch
• 5 Ways to Simplify VBS Registration
• 8 Ways You Can Welcome Church Visitors Online
• 20 Examples of Church Website Navigation
• Adding Google Analytics to Facebook Fan Pages
• Bible plugins for your web site from Logos
  • Sign up for targeted e-mail notifications
• Claim your church in Google Places
  • Listen to the Internet Toolbox for Churches podcast to learn how.
  • Check out Sallie's sample
• Copy Matters series from Church Marketing Sucks – Tips on Writing for the Web, Writing Better Emails, Writing for Social Media and much more
• Cory Putz from St. Matthew's in Winona, MN recommends Marketing Grader and LikeAlyzer for search engine optimization and site analysis
• Create simple event web sites (like MLCDay.com) with WordPress.com or WordPress.org
• my.BrainShark.com is a simple way to narrate files and embed them on your web site – View a sample WELSTech presentation
• Perry Lund from Grace in Oskaloosa, IA pointed us to the online embeddable book 125 years 125 Stories Martin Luther College.
• Should Your Church Have a Blog
• We asked for online donation options, and our WELSTech listeners responded with several:
  • Jared Mahnke from Luther High School in Onalaska, WI uses Just Give.org – Visit their donation page
  • Joshua Johnson from Nebraska Lutheran High School in Omaha, NE shared that they use Vanco powered by e.services for donations, tuition payments, and other giving needs – Visit their donation page
  • Martin shared links to EasyTithe.com and MinistryGive.org
• Lesley Bergemann shared instructions for using Vimeo Channel RSS
• WELSTech's Church and School Website Content eBook
• Wysija is a slick WordPress plugin for MailChimp-like e-newsletter management from your WordPress blog

Youth Ministry

• New "Transformed" Youth Ministry Resource Available (Video Intro) – Order from NPH