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2September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Founder & Editor-in-ChiefSteve Hewitt - [email protected]
Managing EditorKevin Cross - [email protected]
Contributing EditorsYvon Prehn Nick Nicholaou Kevin A. Purcell Russ McGuireMichael L White
Copy EditorsGina HewittMagen Cross
Corporate Home Office
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© Copyright 2013 by Christian Computing®, Inc.
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Christian Computing® is a registered trademark of Christian Computing, Inc. Written materials submitted to Christian Computing® Magazine become the property of Christian Computing®, Inc. upon receipt and may not necessarily be re-turned. Christian Computing® Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materials sub-mitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publi-cation may not be copied in any way, shape or form without the express permission of Christian Computing®, Inc. Views expressed in the articles and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or employees of Christian Computing® Magazine, or Christian Computing, Inc.
Articles that are highlighed are provided by our partners
www.ccmag.com/2007_03/2007_03editorial.pdf
Applying Tomorrow’s Technology to Today’s MinistryVolume 25 September 2013 No. 9
4 cover storyWhy I Like and Unlike Facebook!By steve Hewitt
3 editorial What Is Apple Doing? Steve Hewitt - [email protected]
8 Protected witH PurPose Shipping Wars By: Steven Sundermeier12 tHe Browser Want to Blog from Your Phone? Try these Four Great Mobile Apps By: Susan Codone14 Ministry leadersHiP Spicing up Social Media - Hot Ideas for Your Church’s Facebook Page By: Amy Scott-Lundy 17 cHurcH windows software Checking the W-2s now will prevent headaches at the end of the year. By: Craig Chadwell
19 HigHer Power witH Kevin 9 Tips for Using Bibleworks 9 Kevin A. Purcell – [email protected]
24 tHe Power and tHe danger Waze By Russ McGuire - [email protected]
28 Ministry coMMunication Is your technology limiting your ministry? Yvon Prehn - [email protected]
31 nicK at cHurcH Reasonable & Essential BYOD Policies Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 3
Steve Hewitt - [email protected]
the iPhone, and email them to others or print them out. It also didn’t take people long to discover they could grab someone else’s iPhone and make calls to their friends, even if the phone is locked. They could simply click on “emergency number”, enter any number they wished (even international calls) and then press the green call button repeatedly in a fast manner. The phone will go blank, the Apple icon will appear for a few seconds and then you will be connected to the person you were calling.What is happening to Apple? They are no longer leading in interfaces (still rumors abound about an iWatch that might be coming, even though cool watches that interface with an Android phone are hitting the market), and they may find themselves VERY far behind when Google releases their new glasses. While I don’t expect the first versions of Google Glass to be a big hit, they are well down the road on Visual Interface Computing (VIC) before Apple.Steve Jobs, we miss you. Apple may begin to falter without Steve’s leadership, just as Microsoft has dropped the ball after Bill Gates got married! Watch Google, they seem to be the leader… at least for now.
Together We Serve Him,
Steve [email protected]
editorial
What Is Apple Doing?
I just returned from speaking at the Dallas NACBA Chapter, and the Salvation Army International IT Conference. At both, I shared much of the same message I have been sharing this year on what is hot and what is coming. I share that Microsoft is dead as a leader of technology, and Google seems to be the one to watch. However, over the last few years, I have become a big Apple fan. But, that might be about to change.Do you remember the day that Apple users would rub it in our faces whenever a new version of Windows would be released and immediately bugs would be reported? In fact, consultants like Nick Nicholaou would often recommend to our readers that they wait before updating to a new version of Windows in order to let others work out the bugs. I am beginning to feel the same way about Apple!I love my AppleTV! Luckily I was too busy to do the newest upgrade for the AppleTV. I now hear that people are having serious problems with con-nections, programs are missing, and some claim that their Internet speed between their WiFi and their AppleTV is cut in half!I DID make the mistake of doing the iOS7 upgrade to my iPhone5. While I am happy to see that Apple fixed hundreds of things that had been frustrating before this upgrade (for example, the time stamp for a series of text messages would only show the time of the first text, not the time for each of the respons-es as a discussion continued), but they also released the iOS7 with some MAJOR bugs! For example, by doing a few unlikely gestures, some people have discovered they can get past the lock screen and actually access some aspects of a locked iPhone, in-cluding the camera, check out photos and videos on
4September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Facebook is important! People spend more time on Facebook than they do checking email. In fact, one survey reported that the average Facebook user is on Facebook 16 minutes of every hour! While this might seem impossi-
ble, and there are certainly many people that use Facebook on a much more lim-ited basis, I also believe that many people DO spend this much time on Facebook. How? Because Facebook streams to their smart phone or tablet, and they are addicted to checking it, reading posts and connecting with their friends. And, of course, every time I log on, there are a couple of people that instantly try to initi-ate chat with me because they love to spend time communicating in that mode.
Why I Like and
When Betty White was invited to host Saturday Night Live a few years ago, it was in response to requests by her fans, using Facebook to encourage Saturday Night Live to invite her to host. In her open-ing monologue she thanked everyone. She stated she wasn’t even sure what Facebook really was so she checked it out. She said she discovered it was a fantas-tic waste of time!
However, churches need to realize that Facebook shouldn’t be overlooked as one of the leading ways to connect and communicate with their congregation AND might well be the leading way to encourage their congregation to reach out to their friends and share their faith with others.
Last week I was invited to speak to the Dallas Chapter of the NACBA (National Association of Church Business Administration). I did a quick survey
and asked the group how many have an active Face-book site. The response was about 1/3! While that was encouraging, the answer should be 100%.
How should you use Facebook? You should use it to distribute anything that you might have distributed in the past through email! You should encourage every person in your congregation to come to the site and “like” it. Then, whenever you post an announcement, promote a link, post a video, etc., etc., your informa-tion will be pushed out to everyone in your church. It is PUSHED out to them. This is much different from posting these items on your website where they will only be seen IF your members come to the churches website. And, there is a very BIG reason why using Facebook in this way is important!
Every member that receives your posted status (again, a video, link to the churches newsletter, an
By Steve Hewitt
Unlike Facebook!
cover story
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 5
announcement about a new ministry, etc.) can instantly share this informa-tion with all of THEIR friends and family by simply clicking “share” which is an option when the see your post!
I have way too many people who have signed up to be my “friend” on Facebook, so I really can’t use my-self as an example, but in checking with my wife, she has 67 people that have “friended” her on her Facebook site. Now imagine that you have 100 members of your church that use Facebook and have 67 friends. If you were to post an announce-ment, video, etc., on your church’s Facebook site and it showed up on your members “walls”, if they were to share it (and each had 67 friends and family members on Facebook) you would quickly reach over 6,000 people with your information!
But wait, there’s more! (I love that phrase.) While I don’t have an immediate source for what I am about to say, I have seen evidence of what I am about to share from sev-eral sources over the years. It seems that when people come and listen to your sermon on Sunday morning and your message is to encourage them to do something specific, it has some impact. Let’s say your mes-sage was trying to encourage them to read their Bible more. Sociolo-gists say that IF you recorded your message and made it available as a podcast, those that listen to it in that form are 30% more likely to be im-pacted and encouraged to read their Bible! Why? Because we live in the personal communication age and people value information that has the perception of being personal.
If you listen to a message live, sitting in a large room with many others, at a specific time, the mes-sage isn’t perceived as personal. However, if you download that same message and listen to it at your
6September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
leisure, the listener carries the subconscious perception that the message is one-to-one and is personal because it is heard when THEY wanted to receive the message.
So, if your goal is to get your message out to others, why wouldn’t you upload a podcast (audio or video) and post a link to it on Facebook? Here are two important reasons you should do this!
First, your members can now go to the site and listen at their leisure if they were not able to make it to church. BUT, more importantly, IF they were moved by the message, when they go home and find it is now on their Facebook site, they can click “Share” and send your link to all of their friends. They can also in-
clude a short word about the message. Imagine if they shared it with all of their friends and stated how much the message touched their lives! Imagine the impact. Their friends would be much more likely to take some time and listen to the podcast since it came to them from someone they knew personally. The odds of their listening, and the impact of your message, will be much greater since it came from someone they knew, as opposed to the chance that those who don’t know you or your church will actually visit your church’s website to listen to the recorded message.
Second, one of the reasons I believe less and less people are attending an organized worship service is
because it goes directly against the rules of the personal communica-tion age. They are invited to sit and listen, but are not offered the op-portunity to ask a question or voice a comment. However, I believe if you announced on a regular basis (every week at the close of the service) that the service would be posted on the church’s Facebook site (hopefully within an hour or so after the morn-ing service) and encouraged people to click on the “comment” option and leave a comment or question, it will go a long way in helping to open up communication and con-nection between a preacher and his congregation!
What I Hate About FacebookI think Facebook is a great way
to connect and communicate with your immediate group of family and friends. I also think it is a great way to communicate and connect with organizations or institutions. We will begin posting our magazines, Chris-tian Computing Magazine and The American Church Magazine from our new Christian Digital Publishing Facebook site!
However, I am bothered by many of the posts I see from Chris-tians, that I really don’t know or hardly know, that are my “friends” on my personal Facebook site. Here’s why. Again psychologists and sociologists have noted sev-
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 7
eral alarming trends you can see from people’s posts. Many use Facebook to use it as a means to create a version of themselves that isn’t really who they are. I am a big fan of Janet Beverley’s book, “Creating Lov-ing Relationships” and have taught it several times to adult groups. She states that one of the leading causes of relationship problems is because people want others to like or love them so much, they create a “false self” and spend a lot of time doing what she calls “prove I am”. They are seeking to project a version of them-selves that they think others will like. So, for example, psychologists say that if a person is constantly posting funny pictures, jokes, and “likes” to humorous pictures or videos, they are probably very sad with their life but are working extra hard to convince everyone that their life is full of contentment.
Along these lines, I am both-ered by some Christians I have followed who post a quote from a famous Christian or Bible verse about every hour or two. I am not learning anything about their life, nor are they allowing me to be their friend. They seem to be trying to project that they are a strong Chris-tian, yet there is an obvious missing of a personal connection with their savior. On the other side, some post VERY personal prayers to their savior on Facebook, opening their heart up and trying to evoke a very emotional response. However, I am uncomfortable with such displays. It seems to me to be similar to those that Jesus rebuked for pray-ing on the street corner for others to observe. Facebook has become our new public street corner.
Even though there are things that I personally don’t like about Facebook, I use it. So should you!
Use Facebook. As a church, use it to communicate, connect and provide outreach opportunities for your membership. On an individual basis, use Facebook to be yourself and connect with your real friends and family!
As for me, if you are a “friend” on my personal site, yet we don’t
exchange presents on birthdays (grin), you will soon find that I will be contacting you and encouraging you to “like” our Christian Digital Publishers Facebook site. There we will post our magazines (where you can share, comment or “like”). In addition, I will start to post more about technology issues, things I like or things I don’t in technology, etc... For those that I re-ally count as friends or families, I will be keeping up on my personal Facebook site, so you will get to see the cute pictures of my new pug, Peanut!
8September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Shipping Wars
By: Steven Sundermeier
protected with purpose
As the owner of the security company Thirtyseven4, a husband and a father of three small children, it can become quite a challenge to find any downtime, especially downtime that
would involve watching T.V. The other night I decided to take fifteen minutes to sit down and let my brain rest in front of the T.V. As I flipped through the stations I came across the show ‘Shipping Wars’ on A&E. As a newbie to this show, I was quick to realize that this show centers around six independent shipping carriers that go out and bid on jobs that the traditional carriers can’t handle or have no interest in carrying. I have to admit I didn’t watch very much of this show but I mention it because of what happened next.
As in typical fashion before I call it a night, I head to my office, check emails, and prep my work for the next day. As I checked our filtered emails [to see what is getting proactively blocked by our Thirtyseven4 Mail Scanner], I noticed a flood of emails with subject lines like “Shipment Notifi-cation”, “Your package is available”, “Delivery Information”, etc. Given my exposure to the real-ity show earlier in the night I was fascinated by just how many maliciously crafted mail/package carrier emails we receive each day. It was as if there was
a cyber shipping war taking place in my inbox. The next day at work, I used the resources
and tools available to me to investigate just how prevalent these shipping emails are. What I found was surprising: fraudulent emails relating to the delivery of packages and/or mail are received in higher volume than any other type of spam run. They even outnumbered those relating to bank-ing information and merchant account services (ie PayPal) almost 2 to 1. I am sure much of this can be contributed to our love of shopping and buying
10September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
online, using eBay, etc. The ease, anonymity, and turnaround time of shopping online has fed our cul-ture’s desire for more and having (more) quickly. But the bad guys are hoping to capitalize on our sprees. Be on your guard for false notifications about parcels.
Statistics of what I found:
Most commonly exploited mail/packaging com-pany/service:
USPS – 31.8%• UPS – 25.1%• DHL -> 17.4%• FedEx -> 13.9%• Other -> 11.8% (ie. Royal • Mail)
Most common malware fami-lies associated with these Spam runs include:
Trojan.PWS.Farit1. Trojan.Agent2. Trojan.PWS.Tepfer 3.
Most common Subject lines:Track your parcel1. Track your shipment2. Package is available for 3. pickupDelivery Information4. Shipment Status5.
What started as a 15 minute TV break quickly turned in to a call to educate others (you!) to a safer online environment. I’ve corralled a few suggestions focusing on ways to safeguard and educate ourselves against falling victim to such scams, as it can become very difficult for the average user to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake. This is also why these types of emails are increasing popular and readily used by cybercrimi-nals.
Below are a few tips to identify a fake email:
The overuse of embedded links.1. These are the hyperlinks, embedded in the body of the email message that may say something like ‘Track your package here’ or ‘Get Shipment Info’, etc. However, when clicked on instead of going to the carrier’s site you are instead directed to a maliciously crafted website. Another form is to literally display a link that looks like it is going to the carrier’s site but again is masked to visit the maliciously crafted website (rolling over the link will allow you to see where it is actually going to take you). Another tactic under this category
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 11
would be to display a website link that ap-pears to be the real site but instead as a slight misspelling, etc. For example, instead of thirtyseven4.com it may display thirtysevn4.com.Urgent wording.2. Cybercriminals will usually create an email message that has an urgent tone to it, knowing that this may create anxiety and concern and users may become less aware of what they are doing. It usually involves clicking on one of the links (as detailed above). Generic greeting.3. Emails arriving under these types of emails are usually not person-alized and arrive with a generic greeting. In my personal experiences dealing with legiti-mate Tracking notification emails, etc. they are always personalized.Request personal information.4. Most reputable companies institute policies where they do not ask for your personal information through email or make you reply to a request for confidential information.Attachments. 5. Again, most legitimate busi-nesses will not be sending these emails with attachments. It is never recommended to open and run these attachments. Cyber-criminals also know that many gateway mail filters will scan for and remove these attach-ments so it is a common practice to include password protected attachments [that can’t be scanned] to these emails and include the password in the body of the message.
Another way I like to relax is to wet a line fish-ing. And after cleaning about 50 pounds of yellow perch tonight, a metaphor comes to mind, or to nostril. If an email smells fishy, looks fishy or even feels fishy: it’s probably fishy! Fish have a distinct smell and we know it when we smell it. These malicious emails almost always invoke some sense of question in our minds or our gut. If you have doubts: avoid it, delete it, and definitely DON’T OPEN IT!
Beware of the “Shipping Wars” going on in your Inbox, and use my simple reminders to help you identify them. I know it is exciting to receive a package, but be aware that cybercriminals are trying to prey on that excitement to bring you harm. If it seems fishy: leave it alone.
Now your church can have a beautiful and welcoming website that is simple to maintain with our Websites for Ministry.
▶ Engage current members ▶ Educate everyone about the faith ▶ Attract visitors to your parish ▶ Welcome newcomers and returning members
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12September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Want to Blog from
By: Susan Codone
the browser
Blog writing has changed so much in the last few years that companies which study blogging activity now refer to the “blogosphere” or the “blogconomy”. The website Social Me-
dia Today reports in a recent infographic that 6.7 million people blog using blogging platforms and over 12 million people blog on social media sites like Tumblr.
Your Phone? Try these Four Great Mobile Apps
Recent apps for the iOS and Android mobile platforms have made blogging from your phone or mobile application simple and easy. I’d like to recommend two useful blogging apps and two Biblical apps that Christian bloggers can use to craft and post blog entries from mobile devices.
The two most prominent blogging platforms are Wordpress and Google Blogger. Both provide mobile apps from the App Store that make post-ing a pleasure. The Wordpress app allows you to create and edit posts in an email-like format, adding photos, checking spelling, and embedding links without bothering with any code. Comments
can be moderated with a swipe, and even bulk moderated if your comment traffic becomes over-whelming. The app allows writers to draft and preview posts before publishing. I use this app for my blog. Recently I wrote a quick blog update while sitting in an airplane waiting to take-off. With pressure from the flight attendant to turn off my phone, I was able to quickly draft, preview, and post to my blog in just a few minutes.
The most popular blogging platform remains Google Blogger. Probably used by more hobby-ist bloggers, Blogger connects to your Google account and automatically posts your blog to the
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 13
Google blog directory and allows you to use Google Adsense. The Blogger mobile app of-fers many of the same features as the Wordpress mobile app, offering bloggers the chance to draft, preview, and publish blog posts, use images, and send links and photos directly to your blog. Both the Wordpress and Blogger app are free from the App Store.
For Christian bloggers who desire portability, mobile Bible apps are essential. Along with over 100 million others, I use the YouVersion Bible app to check multiple translations and versions of Scripture. I enjoy the ability to change translations and versions easily, use the bookmarking fea-ture, and the clean, white backlit screen is easy to read even in the dark.
For Bible study and refer-ence, though, nothing beats Blue Letter Bible (blueletterbible.org). Now, Blue Letter Bible comes in a mobile format, available free from the App Store. Christian bloggers can now use Blue Let-ter Bible on their mobile devices to compare versions, consult dictionaries and concordances, and view the Greek and Hebrew translations of words and phras-es. The App offers 30 different Bible versions, including an audio bible, a Hebrew and Greek lexicon, and advanced word searches. Users can customize the app by changing fonts, colors schemes, and even display paral-lel versions. For on-the-go Bible study, the Blue Letter Bible app is a superb source of informa-tion, and even offers Cloud backup for any notes you take while studying.
If you want to begin a blog related to your faith, now you have blogging options beyond the desktop. These four apps give you the Scriptural founda-tion you need along with the blogging power of the two major blog platforms. Do you use any
of these apps? I’d enjoy talking about blogging with you. Send me a message and let’s talk.
Happy browsing!
Susan is an associate professor at Mercer University. In Mercer’s Technical Communication undergraduate degree, students can specialize in Ministry Media & Technology. Contact Susan anytime for more information at [email protected].
14September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
By: Amy Scott-Lundy
With worship services, Bible studies, small groups, and events, churches and organizations offer multiple opportunities each week for visitors, members, and prospects to connect with your
ministry. But, how do you nurture these connections on the other days of the week when people aren’t physically together?
Spicing up Social Media Hot Ideas for Your Church’s Facebook Page
A church newsletter is a great idea, but people usually read it and set it aside, or it gets lost in the sea of e-mail. Church websites are great for sharing news, but people have to check them periodically.
Chances are your parishioners are already using a social media outlet overlooked by many churches – Facebook fan pages.
A Facebook page lets your church, school, or organization share content and connect with members, visitors, parents, students, and pros-pects. Not only does a page provide visibility for your church, it also shows that you’re keeping up with the times and using technology to your ministry’s advantage.
What are Facebook pages? Facebook pages represent businesses, brands,
and organizations and have “fans” rather than a traditional friends list. Members of your church, visitors, and others in the community can “like” your page to receive status updates on their Facebook timelines. You can add photos, events, polls, links, and even videos to customize your church’s page, engage your audience, and provide an online bulletin board for your church.
Unlike Facebook profiles, which are limited to 5,000 friends, pages can have an unlimited number of fans and you won’t have to approve requests. Since pages are public, anyone can search and find your page, making it a great out-
ministry leadership
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 15
reach tool for your ministry.
Setting up your Facebook pageTo set up a page, log out of Fa-
cebook (if you’re logged in) and visit Facebook- Create a Page. Cre-ating a page is much like creating a profile, as you must sign up for Facebook, name your page, and make it public. Be careful when naming your page, as page names can be difficult to change.
With Facebook’s current set-tings, you can only change the page’s name when it has fewer than 200 followers; otherwise, you must submit a change request to Facebook. To learn more about creating a page, check out this article from Church Mag.
Promoting your pageOnce you create your page,
you’ll want to promote it to your congregation and community. Here are a few ways to promote your page:
Add a Facebook page badge • to your church’s website. A page badge displays your page’s name, profile picture, status, and number of fans. To do this, visit Facebook Page Badges for the html code to paste on your website.
Advertise your fan page in • your church’s newsletter or by adding a link to your e-mail sig-nature.
Write a blog post about your • church’s fan page.
Invite your own Facebook • friends to like the church’s fan page. This is like word of mouth for the digital age, as once your friends became fans, they can then suggest their friends become fans.
Posting on your pageSince Facebook posts move
quickly on user news feeds, it’s a
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16September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
good idea to post on your page regularly. If you post infrequently, you miss out on opportunities to engage your congregation, but if you post too frequently, people may get annoyed seeing mul-tiple updates in their news feeds and unsubscribe from your page.
Facebook recommends posting about once per day. You may feel like you’re posting too much, but remember, your page’s fans don’t see every post immediately, and unless they visit your page, they only see posts displaying in their news feeds.
Here are some posting ideas for your Face-book page:
Post about your church’s upcoming events, • such as Vacation Bible School, fundraisers and benefits, small groups, volunteer op-portunities, and mission trips. You prob-ably already promote these events in your church’s newsletter or on your webpage, but taking advantage of another digital medium doesn’t hurt.Ask questions in your page’s Facebook • status, and then use the reply function to respond to those who answer questions. This drives a conversa-tion on your page and inspires engagement. Mul-tiple choice or open-ended questions work well. For example, you could ask questions regarding what’s discussed in Sunday’s ser-vice to keep your congre-gation thinking about the message later in the week.Don’t limit your Facebook • posts to just words! Post-ing pictures and videos to the page attracts more attention. For example, you could use a picture to give readers a sneak peak of Sunday’s sermon or any upcoming event, or you could film and post a video of your praise band’s latest song. With permission, you could also film and post video testimonials from members.
Take Facebook on the road. Since you • can post pictures or videos from a mobile device, don’t feel limited to post only happenings at your church. For example, if your ministry team volunteers at a soup kitchen, quickly snap a picture of your volunteers after they serve and share it on your page. This shows your community’s involvement and is a great way to show your volunteers you appreciate them.
Building your church’s Facebook presence may not come quickly or easily, but don’t give up. It may take a while for everyone to catch on, but post regularly and interact with those who fol-low your page. Consistency is key, and soon your congregation and community will embrace Face-book’s benefits for your ministry.
Amy Scott-Lundy is a technical writer for the support and training departments at ACS Tech-nologies.
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 17
Checking the W-2s now
We suggest that after running the final payroll of September (but BEFORE running any payrolls in October), that you manually calculate or, prefer-ably, print informational copies of W-2s for all em-ployees. It’s also a great idea to check numbers as they would appear on the Form W-3. If your soft-ware has not yet been updated, please note that the data on the form will be 2013 data, but the physical year 2012 might print on the forms. That’s OK; you are looking at them for information only. Software companies typically update to the 2013 forms in a late-year release.
When looking at the W-2s:Does each W-2 contain the social security • number and address for the employee?
Look at the amount in box 1: is this approx-• imately ¾ of the annual amount budgeted for the employee?If the criteria for Federal and State wages • are the same, does the amount in box 1 agree with the amount in box 16? If the criteria are different, are the amounts differ-ent?If you have employees who participate in a • dependent care program, is there an amount in box 10?Do amounts that are required to be stated • separately show up in box 12 with the ap-propriate code?Is box 13 marked for those employees par-• ticipating in a retirement plan?
will prevent headaches at the end of the year.
church windows softwareCHU
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For churches who do payroll manually or who use payroll software, now is a great time to look ahead to avoid poten-tial headaches (and embarrassing situations) when it comes
time to present final payroll tax documents to church employees.
By: Craig Chadwell
18September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
If box 14 is used, does it provide the infor-• mation expected?
Make a list of any items that need to be investi-gated or corrected.
Gather the 941s for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters. Add together the amount on line 2 for each of
the three quarters, and then do the same for lines 3, 5a, 5c, and 9. (If any amended 941’s (Form 941x) have been filed then substitute the corrected num-bers when totaling the 941s.)Compare these totals with the W-3. Here is what should match:
Total of the 3 quarters of form 941, line
Should equal Form W-3, box
2 13 25a 35c 5
The wages from box 3 of the W-2 multiplied by 6.2% should be within a dollar of the amount in box 4 of the W-2. If any employee’s box 5 wages
are in excess of $200,000 there is a two-step pro-cess for the next calculation. If no one has wages in excess of $200,000, then the wages of box 5 of the W-2 multiplied by 1.45% should be within a dollar of the amount in box 6 of the W-2. If employees have wages in excess of $200,000, make the previ-ous calculation, determine the amount of wages in excess of $200,000 and multiply that by .9% and add it to the previous calculation. Compare this total with the amount in box 6, it should be within $1. There should only be wages on line 5d of the 941 if an employee is subject to Additional Medi-care Tax (wages over $200,000). If the employee is a minister, then boxes 3, 4, 5, and 6 should be blank.
Gather your state and/or local returns for the first three quarters and compare these with boxes 17 and/or 19 on your W-3. If there are discrepan-cies, work to resolve those before December pay-rolls.
A little extra effort and preparation now can certainly save time, embarrassment, and headaches later.
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 19
9 Tips for Using
Kevin A. Purcell - [email protected]
Bibleworks 9
higher power with kevin
In this third installment of our Bible software tips, we look at nine ways to improve the use of Bibleworks 9. The previous tips slid over to the beginner side of the spectrum that ranges from neo-
phyte to power user. This time we’re going to give some basic level tips and a few that might take users over to the power user side.
1. Use the Help MenuThis seems like a no-brainer to some, but the
Help menu in Bibleworks 9 offers more than most software help menus. Bibleworks understands that their software comes with a steep learning curve, so they offer a lot of assistance for users to take them from neophyte to power user without paying big bucks to a trainer.
A “Getting Started” box pops up by default when a user first installs and runs the program. It offers some great basic help information and video tutorials. If a users dismissed this permanently, they can still access it from the Help menu.
Bibleworks veterans will remember that the company used to ship a detailed help manual that probably cost them more to print and ship than the actual installation discs. Now, that content shows up
in the Bibleworks Help Content menu item under the Help menu.
For students, get the Bibliography information from the Help Menu to include in research papers. A few other items include:
Hints• – turn on the hints that give tips on us-age while using itShortcuts• – turn on keyboard shortcuts and command line shortcutsBibleworks on the Internet• – this fly out menu offers useful help links including online support from the company or from their great Forum
2. Use the Main Status BarAlong the bottom of the main Bibleworks 9 win-
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 21
dow users will find a status bar with tiny boxes with faint text. This status bar offers incredible tools for working with Bibleworks 9. Users can do the follow-ing in order from left to right:
Change the search Bible translation• Limit search• – for example search only the book of PsalmsTurn • Strong’s numbers display on/off in versions with Strongs numbers like the NASBToggle the • Browse mode from verse per line to paragraph modeToggle the • Analysis window, which sits along the right side filled with useful context sensitive info about the current verseThe next two buttons change the way notes • get added to Bible text either by verse or by chapter. When verse gets clicked the program adds notes in the Notes editor window to the current verse. When “C” for Chapter gets clicked they’re added to the chapter instead of a single verse. I prefer verse notes so that the notes window doesn’t get cluttered with con-tent from other verses, but sometimes I want to add notes to entire chapter, like outlines or contextual information. When the C is grayed out, the notes editor is in verse mode.Accents, Vowes, Qere, Kethib are all for • Greek and Hebrew texts and they turn these visual cues on or offLast is the • keyboard language so users can quickly pick the original language keyboard for typing search terms
3. Customize the Toolbar
People often forget that they can customize the user interface of their Bible software. I recommend doing this regardless of which package you use. The first step is to make the Toolbar look the way you want. There’s a button on the toolbar for doing this. Click the button second from the left.
Read through the list of available buttons to see which you use and which you don’t use. Remove the ones you don’t use and add the ones you do.
Users can also reposition the buttons by drag-ging them up and down the list on the right. I use the diagramming window a lot, so I put it further to the right.
4. Connect Bibleworks with Other SoftwareERMIE isn’t a Muppets character, but an awe-
some tool in Bibleworks that lets users connect their software to external resources (the E and R in ERMIE). The tool can link to websites, other Bible software so long as it accepts outside links or to other tools.
To open ERMIE click on the Resources menu and click on the ERMIE item. A window opens that looks like a file manager window with folders of the kinds of resources one might wish to link to. Find the kind of link you want to make, like a link to an external commentary. Click it and add the link from the Add button at the bottom left.
Please see the help tools in Bibleworks to learn how to do this. We don’t have space to explain it here.
Notice the collection of external resources al-ready linked. One Bible software tool that allows for this is Logos. Users can find Logos URL’s in the program and enter them here. Go to http://www.bible-works.com to learn more about this.
Bibleworks and WORD-search partnered together to connect their programs. Bibleworks can access a collection of WORDsearch books. Find out more at https://www.wordsearchbible.com/bible_works/
5. Compile a Bible Transla-tion or Book
The only way to win credibility as a real Bible-works geek is to compile your own version using the
22September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Version Database Compiler. This tool (from the Tools, Importing/Exporting Information menus) lets users create their own Bible translation. This helps people who want to add a translation that doesn’t exist, like a missionary working in trans-lating the Bible to an indigenous population that doesn’t currently have a Bible version available.
Learn more about this in the Help contents, which give detail info. Simply, a person creates a file with a verse per line and then, so long as it is for-matted properly, they use the compiler to import the version into Bibleworks.
Others have used this to create commentaries that show up as if they were translations, a useful took when turning on the parallel ver-sion feature.
6. View Multiple Translations at OnceBibleworks makes it really easy to switch
between a parallel mode that shows the pres-ent version in multiple translations at once or shows the verse in browse mode. Toggle between these two modes using the toggle button seen in the graphic here.
To add more translations type the translation’s three letter code, like NIV for New International Ver-sion.
7. Learn to Use the Command LineThe Bibleworks Command Line has two purpos-
es – to give users incredible power and control over the program by entering search strings OR to humble smart people who would otherwise know how to find Bible verses in Bible software.
That’s a joke because the first is the intended pur-pose, but the second is the resulting purpose to lazy Bible software users who don’t want to learn the
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 23
codes and strings that give users powerful searching tools.
Learn the command line tools from the Help menu. This will make Bibleworks 9 a powerful tool. Otherwise it’s not as useful to owners.
8. Diagramming ModuleIn a recent post at the WORD-
search blog, I wrote about doing sentence diagramming to help users discover how the various words and phrases of a passage relate to one another. This helps students and teacher understand the structure of a text. http://blog.wordsearchbible.com/2013/09/09/quick-tip-sentence-diagramming/
Bibleworks offers a power-ful diagramming tool available at Tools, Language Tools. We don’t have space to explain all the ideas of how to diagram or how to use Bibleworks’ diagramming tool. Check out the above link for tips for diagraming.
9. Make Use of Resource Win-dow
The Resource Window sits right of the Bible text in Bible-works 9’s default layout. Users will see a bunch of tabs, one of which says Resources. Click on it and a summary of resources will show up related to that verse.
Next to the Summary tab we see other tabs. Each of those lets the user customize which resourc-es will show up in the summary window.
The resources here will give users information about the text. We see lexicon entries for words from the current verse. We also see translation notes as well as grammatical resource information.
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24September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
This summer, Google completed the acquisition of Waze, an Israeli mobile navigation software startup, for over a billion dollars. As Apple learned the hard way, Google Maps has established itself as
a remarkably accurate and usable mobile navigation app, so there must be something special about the Waze app. Could ministries benefit from it, or are there hidden dangers we need to be wary of?
Waze
By Russ McGuire - [email protected]
the power and the danger
What is Waze?As implied above, Waze is both a company and
a mobile app. Or at least, Waze was a company, until Google
acquired them. (By the way, the company’s 100 employees received an average of $1.2M from the deal, which could be another column on the power and danger of instant riches.) The company was founded in 2008 in Israel and was acquired in June by Google.
The Waze app runs on iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Symbian devices. It provides mapping and navigation functions similar to Google Maps and other navigation apps. How-ever, Waze took a different approach to mapping
and navigation than other mapping companies, and that’s what makes it special. Waze leverages mobile, social, big data, and gamification elements to make mapping better.
Actually, the Waze approach resulted in a mapping app that initially was worse than existing products, but in a way that Clayton Christensen would describe as “disruptive innovation.” A key principal established at Waze’s founding was that they wouldn’t pay to license map data, so the app started with very basic map data available for free – such as the Tiger data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Waze currently only has complete maps for 13 countries, unlike leading mapping and naviga-
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 25
tion apps which cover most of the world.
But, as more people use Waze, the software gets better. The software is constantly collecting anonymous information, such as location and speed. That helps Waze get better at routing people to the fastest way to their destina-tion. Users can also manually improve the maps, naming streets, fixing house numbers, marking one way restrictions and turn restric-tions, indicating whether two roads cross as a junction or an overpass, etc. Drivers can also use the app to provide real time information about traffic jams, construction, accidents, police speed traps, and gas prices.
What is good about Waze?Apparently, Google believed
that Waze’s approach would cre-ate a better navigation app than Google’s own approach. Waze has many loyal fans who already believe it is the best.
From a ministry perspective, we can certainly appreciate an app that improves the driving expe-rience. Avoiding construction, accidents, and traffic jams eases stress and frustration, enabling us to more easily display a Christ-like demeanor. And given our limited budgets, finding the cheapest gas nearby is always a good thing. As a socially-connected navigation app, Waze also makes it easy to create a “group” – for example all the cars in a caravan headed to youth camp. All the members of the group can see where everyone else is, and you can easily push updates to other members of the group (e.g. “We’re stopping at the QT in Harrisonville for gas and a quick break.”).
Waze is also free (although it requires a smartphone and a cellu-
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26September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
lar data plan – neither of which is free). In classic “disruptive innovation” fashion, Waze’s capabili-ties have blown past products from a few years ago costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The interesting twist to the “disruptive innova-tion” theme is the marriage of Google and Waze. Google already has a very popular and capable mapping application. Imagine Waze’s disruptive improvement trajectory with the starting point of Google’s already amazing map data. Imagine how quickly Waze’s value will build when all Google Maps users are feeding the Waze data engine? Navigation could become amazingly effective!
What is dangerous about Waze?Regular readers of my column can probably
already guess most of what I will warn about when it comes to Waze. Waze is collecting your data all the time. I tend to believe they are only using it as an anonymous data store, but the fact that they do know each user means that someone else, with less honorable intentions, could potentially hack into their systems and use my data for other pur-poses. (I’m not going to get into NSA practices in this column, but it’s not hard to imagine less well-intentioned organizations using Waze data for less honorable purposes.)
The easiest way to start using Waze is to con-nect it to your Facebook account. When you do that, Waze defaults to letting your (Facebook) friends and their (Facebook) friends know when you’re driving nearby. You can change this setting (and I strongly recommend you do). In general, I think it’s a really bad idea to give a real time up-date to strangers saying that you aren’t home.
The biggest danger with Waze, however, is distracted driving. One of the “cool” features in Waze is the integration of “gamification.” You get points for doing things – like reporting traffic jams and gas prices. You graduate to new levels, and if you’re really active, you show up on the leader-board. But all of those points-earning actions are distractions from what you really need to be doing – driving!
The Waze app also provides a lot more infor-mation than other navigation apps. As you drive, the screen becomes filled with icons, most of which are clickable for more information. You can also see icons of other Waze drivers around you (which means strangers are seeing your icon) and you can even click on the icon to send a private message
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September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 27
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to that other driver. Please don’t be clicking and messaging people while driving down the highway – especially if it’s a highway I’m driving on!
Bottom line – better navigation is a great thing, but don’t be drawn into dangerous driving habits by the promise of better navigation. Arriving alive a few minutes later than optimal is better than not ar-riving at all. To the extent that our driving is done with young drivers and future drivers in our vehicle, we must be especially careful to demonstrate safe driving habits.
Finally, we must remember that, ultimately we must trust the Lord to guide our steps. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understand-ing. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
It is my hope and prayer that these articles on the power and dan-ger of technology will encourage you in your daily walk with Christ. Whether it is navigation apps, the printing press, radio, television, personal computers, the Internet, the Cloud, smartphones, or aug-mented reality, new technologies continue to advance our ability to know God and to serve Him, wher-ever we go.
Russ McGuire is an executive for a Fortune 100 company and the founder/co-founder of three tech-nology start-ups. His latest entre-preneurial venture is CXfriends (http://cxfriends.com), a social network for Christian families which is being built and run by four homeschooled students under Russ’ direction.
28September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Is your technology
Yvon Prehn - [email protected]
We engage with technology in our churches to improve ministry—to en-able online donations, to handle scheduling and volunteer activities. We do this to make work in the church office easier and more efficient and
it usually does that. However, a problem arises when the congregation needs to be actively involved for the system to work. Below are some of the challenges that arise when the congregation does not embrace and may even resist the technology you want them to use. After the challenges are suggestions to increase acceptance of the technology and keep peace in the Body of Christ.
Challenge #1: The congregation doesn’t have the same problems you do.
The system they have used for years to sign up for volunteer work, turn in their weekly tithe, stay updated on the news of the church is working just fine for them. When you introduce a new technology that will change their routine, they are not happy with it. As one church secretary said to me after an almost complete failure of the congregation to adopt a new membership system that the biggest complain they had was: “Why should the congregation do the work the church secretary was hired to do?”
Solution suggestions: Before you launch a new sys-tem, spend some time communicating to the congrega-
tion why it is needed. Prior to informing the church “here is the new system—now use it,” conduct a campaign to help them get ready for it. Help everyone to see the needs for all church that the software will solve.
For example:
Remind the congregation that the growth of the •congregation is more than the one person in the church office can keep track of and you don’t want new people ignored or people who need care to fall through the cracks.Help them see how technology can make the pas-•toral staff more effective shepherds by making up-to-date information always available.
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September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 29
Calculate how the technology will save so much •time that additional staff will not have to be hired and the cost-savings to the church because of it.
To make your campaign to help your congregation accept new technology effective requires more than one or two announcements from the platform. Explanations on your website, emails, social media, PowerPoint—re-peated messages through all channels of communications are essential. It won’t seem like you have time to this, but if you don’t take the time ahead of launching a new system, you’ll be forced to take the time afterwards when people have questions, objections, and outright anger at unexplained changes.
Challenge #2: The congregation may not have the required technology.
“Everybody is mobile” is the headline of an adver-tisement for church management software. That sounds good if you are selling a product that can be managed with a smart phone, but the problem is that when soft-ware developers think “mobile” in reality, they usually mean smart phone which greatly narrows the available audience. The following link is an excellent info graphic ( http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/smartphone/ ) on the use of smart phones today. It is instructive that even though the age group with the largest usage (25-34) has a 62% usage, it means 38% don’t have one. The same chart shows that one of the most available groups for volunteers, 65+ is exactly reversed, 38% have one, and 62% do not. To adopt a system that will automatically leave out 38% to 62% of your congregation may not be a wise choice.
Suggested solution: Before you adopt any new system, do a survey of your church to see how many have the required technology to take advantage of your system. It may still make sense to adopt something that only part of your church can use, but do so with a plan to communicate the same information or services of the church to the people who don’t have the required tech-nology.
Challenge #3: Even if they have the needed technol-ogy, they may not know how to use it.
Imagine this scenario: a church does all the schedul-ing of volunteer work at the church through an online scheduling system. Potential volunteers are told they must use this system—no exceptions. Volunteers will be informed of their volunteer schedule through email—again, no exceptions. The church does not provide train-ing on how to use the system, volunteers are told to look
30September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
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at the company website (that is complex and confusing) to learn how to use the software. The church is constant-ly frustrated because they don’t have enough volunteers for the positions needed with their growing church.
Suggested solution: the most important solution here is for the church staff to realize that not everyone today is comfortable with the computer, even if they have a computer. That may be hard for young, tech-savvy natives in the church office to understand, but that’s reality. Many of the Baby Boomer generation may have a computer in the house, but in many instances they will use it for one or two reasons, such as checking out pictures of the grandkids on Face-book or looking at sports scores, but they aren’t comfortable with using it to accomplish tasks. They also don’t use it every day and though they may have an email account, they may not look at it regularly.
Once this realization is made, the staff needs to obey our Lord’s com-mands to be a servant to all, to be all things to all people, to care for the “least of these” in the area of tech-nology. It will take extra time and effort to teach people how to use the new technology you have, but much more than church efficiency is at stake here—it is a very practical way to show the world we care for each other and are more obedient to our Lord than the demands of efficiency.
On a practical note, one way that may help tremendously is for the church to demonstrate how to use the system by using Camtasia, a soft-ware that allows you to demonstrate how to use software by enabling you to create a video of you using it. If you create a video in your voice, us-ing your church as the real example, you can then load it up to YouTube and make it available to your con-gregation. Because I want to practice what I preach, on my website: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com, I’ll create a demo of what I mean. Just look up “Camtasia” in the search box if it isn’t available on the home page when you go to the site.
In conclusion, technology can
provide our churches and ministries with great options for outreach and efficiency, but at the same time, we need to keep in mind the needs and responses of our people. As long as we make loving people our primary motivation, we’ll figure out ways to make our technology a servant for all of us.
For more on effective church communications, go to: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com
September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 31
BYOD— Bring Your Own Device— is an IT wave that is sweep-ing corporations. IT Directors are understandably uncomfort-able about this. Adopting enforceable policies will make the
difference, however, in BYOD’s success in any organization.
Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]
Reasonable & Essential BYOD Policies
nick at church
What Is BYOD, Exactly?There is a growing number of requests from
computer users to use whatever device they own and prefer when at work. In our network consult-ing we have been seeing it for a few years in the form of employees asking us if they can use their personal computer instead of the one provided to them. Thus, Bring Your Own Device.
Sometimes it is because the employee is used to working on a more powerful system than the one being provided by their employer. Other times it’s because the employee prefers a different operating system than the one running on the computer being provided to them.
The lines are getting blurry between operating system platforms like Windows and Mac OSX, in part because of some of the advances operating systems, computer hardware, and Cloud Computing have brought about (Microsoft Office for Mac, au-tomatically synchronizing files, virtualization, etc). Some are thus celebrating the fact that now people can use Windows, Mac, or anything else they feel most comfortable with when at work.
Management is wondering about the costs and savings this trend will bring. Up for discussion are employee productivity, compromised data and net-works, and workstation purchase savings.
32September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine
Why Are IT Directors Uncomfortable?IT Directors see the risks of letting “unconfig-
ured” and “unmanaged” systems connect to the network. They are the ones responsible to ensure that essential data and systems are always avail-able so that staff can be productive. They are also the ones who see the impact of supporting multiple platforms and configurations. Their teams are the ones who get calls after hours because something is no longer working and, left unchecked ‘til morn-ing, may affect the ability of staff to get their work done.
But many believe the benefits outweigh the risks— cost reductions, program efficiency and productivity increases, changing workforce adapt-ability, and an improved user experience.
What Policies Should We Have?This is an evolving area in IT that is still
fairly new. Very few policy guidelines have been published, and they are mostly about the use of personally-owned smartphones. Policies need to be approached in a few categories: the employee’s re-sponsibilities, the employer’s responsibilities, and termination procedures.
Employee ResponsibilitiesTo be productive• - Employees who re-quest to use their personal computers and/ or devices must understand that they are responsible to be productive. Thus any such BYOD request, if granted, will require that the employee be at least as productive as they would have been using the systems normally provided by the employer. Stan-dards of productivity are the responsibility of management, and employees who are not as productive on their personally-owned com-puters and/ or devices will be required to use employer-provided systems.To be cooperative• - Personally-owned computers and/ or devices, if allowed to be used at work, must meet minimum standards. Those standards will be set and modified from time to time by the IT Department, and may address minimum processor chipsets and operating system versions, amount of RAM and storage, and the use of specific em-ployer-provided applications such as produc-tivity suites, anti-malware tools, email cli-ents, and more. Use of substitute applications
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September 2013Christian Computing® Magazine 33
accommodating if the employee can dem-onstrate that their productivity will meet or exceed the productivity standards set by the employer.To be supportive• - The employer is not responsible to support the employee’s com-puter or device. However, the employer will give help desk support at the same level as it does for employer-owned computers on the use of software provided by the employer.To explain Exempt vs Non-Exempt issues •- Some employees are subject to overtime rules based on State and/ or federal law. The employer is responsible to explain the em-ployee’s exempt or non-exempt status, and how that impacts work time recordkeeping.
Termination ProceduresIf an employee is terminated by the employer or
initiates termination of the employment relationship, the employee agrees to remove all employer-owned software and data from their personally-owned com-puter or device, or to provide it to the IT Department to allow the IT Department to remove it for them.
Signed AcknowledgementThe employee and the employee’s supervisor
will sign an agreement acknowledging the BYOD policies in place. The acknowledgement will also state that the employer may modify the BYOD policy at any time and without prior notice.
BYOD is a new area of IT policy. Like all poli-cies— especially those with potential privacy is-sues— yours should be reviewed by a competent attorney. With policies like these and more, BYOD can work to the benefit of the employer and the employee.
Nick Nicholaou is president of MBS, an IT consulting firm specializing in church and ministry computer networks, VoIP, and private cloud hosted services. You can reach Nick at [email protected], and may want to check out his firm’s website (www.mbsinc.com) and his blog at http://ministry-it.blog-spot.com.
must be approved by both the IT Department and the employee’s direct supervisor.To be responsible• - The employee agrees to maintain their personally-owned computers and/ or devices that have been approved for use at work at a level that meets or exceeds (1) productivity levels set by management and (2) the IT Department’s minimum system requirements. The employee is responsible for any costs due to failed hardware, configu-ration and/ or software issues, and theft or breakage.To protect • - The employee agrees to main-tain the security of their personally-owned computers and/ or devices to protect the data and integrity of the employer’s systems, and to let their supervisor and the IT Department know if their device has been lost or stolen, and to let the employer install software that could delete the employer’s data if the em-ployer so desires, with or without notice. The employee agrees to submit their personally-owned computers and/ or devices approved for use at work for inspection by the IT Department to confirm that the system is be-ing properly protected against malware and other threats. The employee agrees that the employer may see data and files that could otherwise be considered private, but agrees to hold the employer harmless against any claims against loss of privacy in exchange for the employer agreeing to allow the em-ployee to use his or her personally-owned computers and/ or devices for work.
Employer ResponsibilitiesTo provide a productive environment• - The employer agrees to provide a suitable work area to help the employee be productive at levels required by management. In case the employee’s personally-owned comput-ers and/ or devices are not available due to required repairs (for which the employee is responsible), the employer will provide a substitute workspace using employer-owned computers and/ or devices for a reasonable period of time.To be reasonably accommodating• - When an employee requests permission to use their personally-owned computer or device at work, the employer agrees to be reasonably
