Blog

With hundreds of thousands of apps in the Apple App Store, it’s easy to give up finding quality apps that turn your iPhone into a robot more powerful than Optimus Prime. Finding new, useful apps is definitely a side hobby, and this curated list below is a dozen of my favorite apps. Please share your favorite apps in the comments so we can all have awesomer iPhones. $5 will get you the whole collection of apps below. [To check out volume one of my favorite apps, click here.] Mailbox This app makes me want to read my email. It’s all about getting through your inbox so nothing remains when you finish. It has slick gesture controls and I love the overall feel of the app. My favorite feature is the ability to delay email until later. Then, emails don’t sit in your inbox, staring you in the face, waiting for you to move. You can have emails reappear in your inbox when you need them like a perfectly timed ribbon-around-your-finger reminder. I use the delay feature to remind me of appointments or tasks I need to complete, but don’t need to do today. You also get to see a new jaw-dropping photo hand-chosen from Instagram each day when you get to #InboxZero, which is at least half of my motivation for getting through my inbox. A few downers: you must use Gmail or Google Apps and there’s no way to access labels from within the app. I understand, since it’s all about processing email, so I keep Sparrow around for when I need to search through labels. Also, you’ll have to get into a waiting line for access to the app, but download it today so you can start the timer. ...

You may be prone to missing deadlines for work or school projects. You may leave your friends waiting so often that they have to tell you an earlier time than everyone else when you are meeting somewhere. You may be the person no one wants in their group because you’re just not dependable. or You could be the person who always finishes projects on time, arrives 5 minutes early to everything and wears a cape and spandex when it comes to group projects. If you’re in the first group, you don’t intend to be. Some disconnect happens between when an expectation is communicated and the result that you produce. Personally, I’m more than a little OCD. I hate being late, missing a deadline or not carrying my weight. I haven’t always been that way, though. One principle changed that all for me. Are you ready for the reason some of us (maybe you) can’t help but drop the ball? ...

If you think learning stops when your formal education ends, you’re wrong. It’s a lifelong process, especially if you want to have a meaningful life that makes an impact on the world. Over the last six months as we’ve lived abroad in Ljubljana, Slovenia, we’ve stumbled through a few hours of Slovene language class each week with a tutor. It’s not our primary focus while we’re here, but it’s been helpful in understanding the world around us and connecting with students. Practically everyone in Ljubljana speaks English. Only 2 million people in the world speak Slovene, so it means the world to Slovenes when they discover we’re actually attempting to learn the language. They’re honored that we’d invest time to learn their language–especially since it’s not essential to life here.  In fact, that’s the most difficult thing about learning the language: you don’t have to learn Slovene in order to survive. It’s inconvenient not knowing what everything means at the store or when you suspect people are talking about you on the bus once they hear your North American accent, but it’s equal to the frustration of not being able to find the remote control and having to get off the couch to turn up the TV volume. It’s a rare exception when I have to push my Slovene language to the limits to communicate something (in which case I string 12 nouns together and make hand motions to communicate). Since everyone speaks English, once I make a mistake using Slovene, people automatically switch to English to help out the gringos. But that doesn’t actually help. It keeps me from using the language. It keeps me from actually learning. That’s how I realized the first step to learning anything. [ ...

One of the most challenging Bible passages to me is in Psalm 1:2. It says: …his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. I’m deliberate about spending time in God’s Word each morning–a spiritual discipline that’s taken me a long time to develop. I know if I try to tackle my day without feasting on God’s Word, it’s nearly impossible for me to walk in His Spirit. If I go a few days without spending time reading and mediating on the Bible, look out. At that point, my sin has gravitated to the surface and is bursting out of my skin.  Something I’ve done a poor job of is spending time mediating on God’s word at night. First, let’s define what mediation is. I love what John Piper says, ...

Crafting beautiful designs and compositions will get you far in life. It will get you extra far on the Internet. I never took a true design course in college. I took one Art History class where I learned worthless crap (artist names from the 15th century) and important CRAP (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity, which is more helpful than memorizing 15th century artists) and that’s about it. Everything I’ve learned has been from the Internet, conversations with friends and examining quality design. I love designing invitations, advertisements, t-shirts, thank-you cards and documents.It’s a skill that anyone can develop and it’s one that will pay serious dividends in the way of cost savings from doing your own work instead of hiring it out and could bring in some cash if you’re good enough to do some freelance work on your own.  There are unemployed designers people who have doctorates in Art Hisotry who may disagree with what I say below. They’re totally entitled to their opinions that they paid someone else too much to develop for them. This stuff works, trust me. **Without further ado, practically everything I know about design that will carry you down the road of being a self-made designer. ...

We all receive more email than we know what to do with. I receive a lot of email from other missionaries sharing their update letters. I love reading those letters and hearing about how the Lord is using my friends around the world. Unfortunately, my friends who send a massive BCC email have no clue how many people are actually opening their emails. Knowing who is reading about your ministry (or group, company or organization) is incredibly valuable. My favorite service for large group e-mailing is MailChimp. It simply blows normal emailing out of the water, and it’s incredibly easy to use.  Here’s why: ...

Feedback is one of our greatest assets in life. Unfortunately, we don’t always get it as often as we’d like or sometimes at all. Instead of waiting for someone to give me insight, I crafted 30 questions to ask myself to see how I’m doing from my perspective. Hopefully these questions will help you become more self-aware and more effective in the work you’re doing.  ...

When I was leading a Bible Study for leaders in our movement at Ohio University, I wanted to spend time affirming the guys in my group and helping them encourage one another. Just before we started our Bible Study, I scrapped our plan for that evening and the Encouragement Hot Seat_ _was born. Here’s how it works. Everyone sits in a circle, and we randomly start with one member of the group. It’s great if the group leader (or the one who has arranged for the The Seat_ _to happen) selects a person to start with and then sets the tone for the time.  Say we start with Charlie. I, as the leader, spend 20-60 seconds or so telling Charlie what I admire about him, appreciate about him, and how I have seen him growing and developing. Each other person in the circle takes their turn sharing about what they see in Charlie until everyone in the group has spent time encouraging him. Then we move on to another person and the process repeats. None of this has to have a clear flow or direction–just let people start speaking as they feel led. People will naturally know when it’s their turn to encourage. The Encouragement Hot Seat has become one of my favorite activities for uplifting a team or group (especially in winter months). It’s incredibly simple, and I love it for four huge reasons. ...

I like making my ears happy. You may enjoy making your ears happy too. Here’s my (eclectic) mix of what’s on my digital turntable, bringing sweet joy to all who listen. Click the album images for a link to Amazon MP3s. Zion – Hillsong United I’ve always preferred Hillsong United’s studio albums (like _Aftermath) _to their live albums. My current go-to worship album. A more electronic sound than usual (even for them), but enjoyable nonetheless. Four word review: Christocenteric electronic extended worship. Favorite tracks: Stay and Wait and Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) ...

Reading books is helpful, but remembering and putting into practice what you’ve learned are equally important. There’s no sense in learning something but not applying it (especially true when it comes to the Bible, see Luke 11:28). I’ve struggled for a long time to figure out the best way to track things I’ve read and store the life-changing pieces of text to reference later and continue to apply. I love what John Piper says about sentences. What I have learned from about twenty-years of serious reading is this:It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don’t begrudge the 99%. Well-written sentences that deliver a thought in a new way can change the trajectory of your life. Here’s my process of maximizing a book’s impact, making sure I remember (and apply) the 1% of the book that was most significant (and any percent beyond that is just gravy). ...