Web technology is great not because it’s fun to use and extremely helpful in managing things in the online world but also because it can be extremely environmentally friendly.
I’ve been reading a number of articles within the last 18 months that have shown a definite increase and rise in being “green.”
A recent business week article on how Kaiser Permanente went paperless continues to show the trend (and value) that going paperless provides.
It made me wonder how many ministries out there have gone “paperless” or who are moving toward that direction? I wonder how many more ministries haven’t even considered that this might be something looking into?
I think the Church should be an example of how to best preserve and protect the planet. I’m not sure that I can say that now, but perhaps by the time my kids grow up that’ll have changed.
Here’s hoping.
[Picture from JDBlundel]
I just uploaded Evernote to 4 different laptops to get more offline production. we were printing a lot of stuff and putting it in files.
thats a good idea
we are using pdf and evernote
So what would people recommend for a good PDF scanner? I actually need one that would work well portable, light, not too flimsy. Any ideas?
there's a bunch of HP ones that are light. i have a travel scanner that i take to conferences that will fit in with my laptop and micro printer
anyone wanna answer Tim's Q? I'm not sure actually.
I think one of the best ways to do this is through canceling bulletin printing!! I think we could use the web to communicate what is needed for the church. We still do paper bulletins but would love to not
not to mention the clutter in bibles,cars,houses. NOT to mention that bulletins are a distraction to some during worship
are you guys moving that direction? how has it been?
we got rid of bulletins in the LA campus when it planted and our WA body never had it to start, the church i'm at uses it for now. eventually in 3yrs we'll be paperless
We are moving this direction too…but will take awhile to convince!
of course… it always does, doesn't it?
that's awesome.
my wife writes cookbooks and does a ton of research online, this way, she has a copy on evernote
I use a fijitsu S300. It is pretty small and pretty fast. Not as small as the neat receipt scanner but much faster and it works on a 64bit machine.
I am nearly paperless because I living in GA and work mostly with churches in Chicago. I also run my non-profit out of my living room and don't have space for a lot of files.
Most important is VPN, dropbox and a fax number that sends a PDF to email.
VPN. yummy.
Our church has begun the move towards being more green. In July of last year we "killed" our weekly program. Each week we were printing (and throwing away) thousands of printed programs that were honestly not really doing much but giving people something to read or doodle on during our services.
While not eliminating a printed piece altogether, we moved to doing a monthly program that includes all of the vital information for the entire month.
We're printing and spending 75% less than we were printing weekly. We've also scaled back significantly on what we print and try to drive as much content and information to the web and social media.
In presenting it to our church, we said we were being both wise stewards of our financial resources and to the environment. Their response was enthusiastic and it has definitely been a great shift for our church.
tim, this is great to hear, thanks for this! very encouraging.
We are in discussions this week about cutting our bulletin back. It is referred to by many as our "Reader's Digest." It vary from 12-20 pages. It is 5.5 x 8.5 printed front and back. We are classic information overload with our bulletin.
I wish we would cut back, but the environment will have nothing to do with. Our leaders have not stepped into this area of stewardship yet.
We are pushing more people to the web site though and our social sites are getting more traffic every week.
our church is far from paperless… but we're in the process of installing software that is slowly ushering us in that direction. Cheers to that!
do it graham!