Using Technology to Deepen My Sunday Experience

Each of the last two weeks at FSBC, we have tested out the YouVersion app as a compliment to the worship on Sunday morning. If you haven't heard of this app, it is available on any smart phone or iPad as a free download. It's a new experience for me as I stated, so I thought I could take this opportunity to layout how I intend to make use of our live events, should we continue to provide them. The above pic is from my laptop, but the examples listed below will demonstrate the iPad since that's what I'm using as I follow the sermon. 

Before the pastor begins His sermon, I open the app and search for a live event. Since I have my app set to recognize my location it finds that live events closest to me. There's only one and, of course, it's our live event; FSBC Lawrence. So, I select it and it opens in the drop down bar you see below, on the left.  Each of the scripture texts the pastor is using are in the sidebar but beneath them is a link to turn to that page in my digital YouVersion Bible.  Selecting that link will take me to the corresponding verse in the specific translation being used. 

This shows the drop down with scriptures and outline.

I can close the sidebar and
view the scripture separately.

 You may noticed in the above right picture that there is line in the drop down, highlighted in blue.  It says "Add your notes."  Selecting this takes me to another drop down box where I can add my own notes and thoughts to the Pastor's.  I tend to write tips to myself for later application.  It looks something like this;

I add my own notes to the drop down window.

At the top of the "added notes" box is a place for my email.  I won't enter that until later.  As of right now, our live event is kept open until Saturday.  So I can go back and add more notes later, before sending a completed copy to myself.

Once I vote in the poll I can see the results.

The poll included this week allows me to consider the main reason behind what keeps me from showing more love to those around me.  I pray for Jesus to help me conquer this in my life, so that I  can get down to the business of "Loving Deeper."

After the service, at home, I open the live event again, add a couple more thoughts to the "Add your notes" option and then I email it to myself.  I chose to email it straight to my Evernote account.

I email the notes to my Evernote account

The email includes everything that was in the drop down bar; all scriptures, the outline plus my added notes.  I don't make any changes before I send it.  I can do all that easier once I open it in Evernote.

Here it is. (pulls out the dish prepared before the program)

In Evernote, I select a folder

3 different tags means 3 ways to
find this note at a later date

Once I open it in Evernote, I create a folder called sermon notes and tag it with the themes.  This time it it tagged "love" since the title of the message is "Love Deeper."  Additionally, I tagged it with our pastors name and our series Title.  Now I know I'll have at least three ways of finding my notes later.

After I create the folder and add the tags I decide to make some adjustments for easier reading. I bold the scriptures and italicize the notes I added so the stand out from the rest of the text.  I could delete the poll since now it just appears as text.  But instead, I chose to leave it and create bullet points for the five options.  Looking at those later might remind me of what I still need to overcome.

This is still new to us at FSBC Lawrence.  I may change the way I'm using this tool later on, but for now, I expect this will deepen the impact of the message for me and allow me to think about my action response throughout the week.

Have you tried the YouVersion live event feature?  Do you find yourself coming back to it later in the day?  Do you add your own notes and email yourself?  What do you do with that email afterward?