iPreach, iServe

The iPad. Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, no doubt you’ve heard of it.

Apple’s long anticipated touch screen tablet has hit the ground running, with mixed reviews. I have no desire to blog from a gadget reveiwer’s standpoint – plenty of that has been done already. I simply want to put out my opinion on the table.

“Big whoop – a bigger iPod touch with a retooled OS, more apps, and a slightly faster processor. $500 for a bulky iPod?!? Heck no!”

That sums up my first initial thoughts. Then , through a conversation with pastor & mentor Daniel Norris (I’ll reference some of his thoughts later), my imagination came out to play for a bit. I invite you: let yours do the same for a moment.

(if you could care less about the iPad, this post isn’t for you. I’m not trying go all fanboy on you, I promise. Feel free to leave now.)

Okay, is your imagination out and ready? Let’s put our thinking caps on, boys and girls!

I believe that the iPad can bring healthy change to two  sectors of society, if we’ll let it.
And I’m not talking as an eBook reader or bigger portable media player. Allow me to get specific for a moment.

Sector One: Ministry / Preaching.

Right off the bat, this thing replaces my yellow notepad for taking to meetings. Yes, there is power in handwritten scrawl – but the digitization for sharing and backup trumps that. Having to carry a stack of stuff to meetings is no more! Or, at least greatly reduced. Looking over budgets, purchase orders, service plans, etc becomes really easy with iDisk – everyone in the office has online access to it. Got a thought for a sermon to develop later? Type it in. You can fully develop it on iPad later, or export to your home computer. Really no need to do that though – you could do all your online studying and referencing straight on the pad. I’m sure Christian publishers will put out a plethora of studies and resources to make this thing a Word powerhouse. Keep in mind, I really like typing on an actual keyboard, and for long, in depth prep, you wouldn’t be able to tolerate holding the device in one hand and trying to type with the other.

Let’s move on to the actual preaching part. Here’s where it gets good. Laptop? Too cumbersome to preach from. Obvious. Whenever I see someone open up their laptop and begin preaching from it, my mind instantly wanders:
“Oooh, sweet.I wonder if he’s tweeting right now. What would his twitter be? Maybe I can find him really quick… Hm,  I bet Jesus would’ve owned a Mac. Yeah, definetly. Oooooh, look! A pretty glowy apple! Prreeeetttyyyyy…”
… or something like that. I’ve found it distracting. An iPad is the perfect size to be useful for the preacher (phone is too small) and subtle enough to avoid being a distraction. Like I said, it replaces the notebook. The preacher could prepare his notes on the mac, then upload it to iDisk and access from the iPad. Revolutionary? Maybe not. Easy and polished? Yes.

If you’re one of those guys that has a power point every time you preach, that’s a no-brainer. The iPad will allow you to access the file and  sync it with the computer in the soundbooth so that what you’re seeing on the iPad is what they’re seeing on the screens. It’s a presentation dream come true! Just add your notes to your sermon slides, and your entire sermon could be based on the keynote. Daniel had some other thoughts he posted on my facebook in this area :

Perhaps you’d like to keep an entire library of books in one location easy to read and access

subscribe to newspapers and magazines that update automatically and can always be searched for info

have access to every sermon you’ve ever written, and use the device to deliver it… think of the cool points as you earn

To all the haters, you can use your notes and control a keynote presentation at the same time (no more asking the unattentive graphics guy to skip to the next slide)

Watch movies on a screen larger than 2.5 inches. Yes you can use a laptop on a plane… but it just doesn’t fit on that little tray

Instant Portfolio 🙂

Great pad for taking notes on and working with Documents (it’s the 21st Century Yellow note pad)

Did we even mention that iwork works on the device???

I’m just getting started

For churches … it’s a 10inch multi touch screen

Kiosks just went obsolete

Discipleship, Follow Up, Sign Ups, Guest services just moved to where ever the individual is

No better way to browse the web when sitting on the couch

Games… Games… Games… not so much for me, but for those who like to waste time (hummm)

100,000 apps … there’s an app for that, and not there is a screen large enough to actually do some pretty cool things with them.

Well said, Daniel. Kiosks just went obsolete – Instead of having greeters with just cute little church logos on, give them an iPad! Now every visitor to the church is recorded on the spot, and synced with a database. Is your imagination following? This is cool. Children’s check in, youth follow up, altar call respondants: all can be done in the hand. I likey.

I don’t think I need to expand any more here – I could go on and on, but I don’t want to sound like I’m working on commission for Apple or something. Just play with the implications of this thing in your head – especially if you’re involved in ministry or at a church somewhere.

Okay, when you and your mind are done playing with that idea, let me hit one more topic:
Sector Two : Foodservice.

Okay, I’m a server also. Did you not think I was going to talk about this? My mind goes wild at the idea!
Every restaurant I’ve worked at uses a computerized ticketed ordering system called “micros”.
You’ve been here: Server comes to table, takes order on notepad, goes to the back and punches some buttons on the “micros” computer. Boom, 20 minutes later, your food arrives. Pretty good system…but…

How much more could this be improved with an iPad?!
Every server gets one. The restaurant has had a personalized micros app developed, and it is wirelessly synced with the kitchen’s printers. The server comes to your table, and whips out the iPad. He shows you pictures of the specials of the day, that aren’t in your menus. He takes your entire order and punches it in right at the table – no more notebook-to-computer translation (an area where I have certainly messed up an order or two).

Another thought is to have an iPad at every table – nearly eliminates server interaction. The menu is all digital, just drag and drop your selections in to course categories, make any modifications you have (no mushrooms, extra waffle, etc) and your meal comes out timed perfectly. In this case, the introduction of the iPad to the food industry would hurt it: suddenly the demand for servers is replaced by a tablet (similar to what automated checkout lines did to cashier jobs).

Again, I could go in to more detail here – I’ll spare you.

Those are just some ideas. Criticize if you want – we each have our own opinions. Is the iPad necessary to incorporate in to both of these fields? Oh, no way. But it can make it a heck of a lot cooler – we’ll have to see how this pans out.

How could it affect your line of work or life?

It’ll be interesting to see if this is the “magical” “revolutionary” device Apple is hoping for or just another Newton.  I tend to lean far towards the former.