Square

This may seem like a no brainer, but if you're not setup to use Square in your youth ministry, do it now!   Square is a simple way to take credit cards for youth trips, candy from your snack shack, and everything in between.  It's also a great way to send parents a receipt for cash or checks they may give you for their teens.  Think about adding credit card payments to your next car wash!  This concept is huge.

Edit Office Docs On Your iPad For Free

Check out this new app in the AppStore called CloudOn.  It is a free app and links into your DropBox account, which is also free, and let's you edit any of your Microsoft Office documents.  It also has an autosave feature so you don't have to worry about saving.  One more nice feature is a connection status to verify that you are connected online and your doc is saving correctly.

Worship Band with GarageBand

Let's face it, music instrument apps are cool as is.  Students love to play them and bands that have them are that much cooler.  But is there a better reason to add some iPads on your worship team besides the coolness?  YES!

One obvious reason is you may be cramped on space.  Maybe your stage is tiny or it's big but loaded with tons of stuff.  Either way, having an entire drum kit fit on your lap is a huge space saver!

An even better reason than space is smart instruments.  With the new GarageBand app for the iPad comes a new feature called smart instruments.  It makes playing the guitar, base, keyboard, and drums as simple as pressing one button for every chord change.  It makes music accessible to people who aren't musical!  There are a couple downsides to the app.  The smart drums may be too difficult to control for a live band unless you start out the song with them and then let them run.  You also may have to be creative with the chords as there is a limited number of them.

Bottom-line, this app is definitely worth the $5 they charge and can really help a small youth group worship band add key players without finding musical geniuses!

Olive Tree Sale

We have mentioned Olive Tree's Bible app for your iPhone and iPad before. It's among the best you can buy and it's on sale this weekend. In fact, everything is on sale for 20% off this weekend. Go to www.olivetree.com!

Olive Tree BibleReader Update

Didn't know if everyone knew this, but OliveTree put out a fairly significant update (upgrade) to its BibleReader app for the iOS platform. They released Version 5 for your iOS devices just before the new year.  It has several changes such as the look and feel and how you navigate around.

For me the biggest and best part of the update is that it enabled syncing of your notes, highlights, and bookmarks between all your iOS devices.  Something that I've been desiring ever since I got my iPad.

Check it out and let us know your thoughts & opinions.