In the past, I always felt that people should be dressed very similarly to the people they’re trying to connect with and reach. So, if you’re a missionary in Papua New Guinea, you dress exactly like the locals do there. If you live in (fill in the blank) city, you should generally dress just like the people in that city. So that meant that as a pastor, I should generally be dressed down. I brought that same kind of thinking when I came here to Pioneer Memorial church. Part of my role was going to be to help with evangelism and discipleship and to connect with students. A part of me was thinking that I’d be dressing fairly casual–like the students–for the sake of the missionary imperative.

A few weeks after getting here, though, I found out that PMC has a dress code. Because it’s associated with the university, they generally want their pastors to look quite professionaly, which includes wearing a tie. When I first heard this news I was initially really disappointed. After all, how would I then be able to connect with the students? But…you do what you have to do, right? I went with it. And to be totally honest, I felt like I was compromising my missional integrity a little bit in the process.

Here’s two lessons that I’ve learned in the past six months, though:

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Today, as I went to Google, I saw something like this:

And good luck if you tried to go to Wikipedia. You probably saw something like this:

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I think we’ve all heard the phrase that “leaders are readers.” I’m convinced that one thing that sets growing leaders apart is the fact that they feed themselves and intellectually challenge themselves through interesting experiences and reading books.

That’s why my ears perked up when I heard about Get Abstract. It’s a book summary service where, for a membership fee, you can select various books that they’ve condensed into a five-page summary. Now, I read a decent amount of books per year, but I thought this would be an interesting way for me to “read” some books that I normally would not have purchased.

So before I totally spill the guts on my experience with Get Abstract, let me first share a screen shot on how it actually works.

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I’m a tech geek. It is what it is. I love technology and follow technology blogs, and this blog itself seeks to touch upon the intersection of church, leadership, and technology. But there’s one area in which I don’t allow technology to get too close: my devotional time with God. It hasn’t always been this way. In the past, I’ve experimented with following a Bible reading plan from my iPhone, or reading the Bible from my computer, and even memorizing Scripture from my iPhone, but I’ve left those behind. Why? Because I’ve noticed that the temptation is too great to do other stuff during that time.

If I pick up my iPhone to read the Bible it’s too easy to read some emails or check out some tweets. And it just takes one really-important-sounding email to derail me and get me sucked into “work mode.” So, I decided I’m not going to do it. I prepare myself a cup of soy milk with Roma (don’t knock it till you try it!), I grab my Bible with real pages, and I sit.

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I’ve been a fan of YouVersion ever since they came out.

What’s not to like? They offer online access to a huge amount of different Bible translations: 209 versions in 75 languages, to be exact. You can easily bookmark your reading and share it online via Facebook or Twitter. They have YouVersion apps for every conceivable device out there.

Here’s a nice blurb from the site in case you’re not too familiar with the background of the site and app:

YouVersion and the Bible App were created by a team at LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, Okla., to help increase access and engagement with the Bible. Featuring more than 100 versions and many languages, YouVersion was created to help people with busy, on-the-go lifestyles read the Bible at any time and in any place. Since its creation, YouVersion has remained in the top five downloaded apps in the reference category and is the No. 1 downloaded Bible on iTunes. 

Two years ago they introduced some great Bible reading plans that were received to much fanfare. And finally, very recently, they release several new features that I’d like to highlight:

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I know, a crazy title, huh?

Here’s the video below:

So what do you think about this form of outreach? Is this something Jesus would be involved with?