What's a "Cadenza?"

What's a "Cadenza"?

I've heard this question more than a few times about the name of this weekly column. (I've also heard, "What's a 'credenza'?" from a handful of people.) Perhaps it would be good to explain the term and the idea behind it.

First of all, a "credenza" is a piece of furniture, and is a more familiar term to us than "cadenza." It would make for a very odd column title indeed - what's a piece of furniture have to do with this column in a church newsletter? However, the term we're using here is a less familiar term "cadenza."

A "cadenza" is a musical term. Perhaps you've noticed a consistent theme in Grace Notes using musical terminology. "Grace Notes" itself is a musical term (a notation in printed music to describe "ornamented" notes). "New Notes" is the section for all the latest-breaking news. "Your Cue" lists opportunities for ministry and service. "Parent Beat" is the column for parenting issues. "A Tempo" (which means "back to the regular speed") is for listing events coming up. "Reprise" (which means to do something again) lists those items that have been in previous issues of Grace Notes.

So, the reason for using the word "cadenza" is thematic. And now to the meaning...

The word "cadenza" refers to a part of a song that is a solo, and usually a solo with a tempo set by the musician rather than a regular beat. So, you could call this column "off-beat stuff where the pastor is way out there by himself"!

I use the Cadenza column as a platform to play around with some ideas out loud. Sometimes it's a reflection on Scripture or a theological topic. Sometimes it's just having some fun. And still other times I want to draw attention to happenings within the church (locally and globally).

There have been a few times where someone expressed some disagreement with what I wrote, and that's perfectly fine with me. A musician doesn't always perform every "solo" well, and I know in advance that I will make a few mistakes (and I try to correct the more serious ones). Or, perhaps we just have a difference of opinion, which is going to happen in a healthy church. But you have always been full of grace, which I appreciate and want to extend back to you in return.

Thanks for your feedback - I welcome it! I pray that at least some of the articles are helpful and interesting to you. Thanks to Christina (and Ashley during the summer) for putting Grace Notes together every week. It's not always an easy task, and I truly appreciate the effort. I hope you do, too.

One final note (to stick with the musical theme), I want to publicly thank Damon Jasperson for the fantastic series of "Parent Beat" articles recenly. Every one of them has been thought-provoking (and I am jealous of his writing style). We weren't sure we'd continue the quality of articles that Susan Harrison had been submitting, but Damon has allayed those concerns. Thanks, Damon. We'll take as many as you've got within you!

The Tech of Worship

Over the last several weeks, the Worship Teams has been investigating the use of a couple of different software packages for displaying the lyrics, announcements, and sermon notes. No software package is the best at everything, but one that suits many of our team's needs well is Proclaim, published by the people at Logos (http://proclaimonline.com and http://logos.com). In a lot of ways, this won't make much difference to the congregation - all proclaims display nicely. Most of the difference is in the ease of putting the presentations together in a team environment. However, there are a few features for the congregation that some may want to take advantage of.



First, you'll need a mobile device, such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android tablet. If you don't, then  you should be able to worship and takes notes as before. If you do, then go to the Logos website or the app store and download the Logos app for your device. This is a great app for Bible reading and a whole host of Bible study tools and Christian books. Many Bibles and books are free, but you can also purchase an amazing array of others. You will need to create a user ID and password for your Logos account. (Note, the support for Android phones is coming - the Logos app is there, but the Proclaim support is not yet functional.)

Then, when the worship service begins and the presentation software goes "on air," your app can detect that there is a presentation being shown. You can use the menu to hunt for a presentation, or you will soon get a pop up asking if you want to follow our presentation.

Then, whenever there is a slide on the screen with the following symbol in the lower righthand corner,



that means that there is a "signal" available. A signal can be a scripture reference, for example. Your app will ask you if you want to jump to that passage of the Bible. If you choose to, then your app will jump straight to the passage in the translation of your choice.

A signal can be a calendar event. For example, when the slide is being displayed for the ladies' tea, your app will pop up a notice that allows you to automatically add that event to your device's calendar. Just click, and it's on your calendar, with the right date and location.

A signal could be a website - click and your device will navigate to that website. There are a few other signals possible, but we likely won't be using them.

Logos is more than a mobile device app. There is a full program for both Windows and Mac with an extremely rich set of Bible study features. This program can also be downloaded from http://logos.com. This is the Bible software I use far more than any other, and I continue to build my digital library with commentaries, theology books, pastoral books, and so on.

You can also access your Logos library through a web browser at http://biblia.com. It's not as feature-rich as the full program, but it's great to be able to get to your books even if you're away from your computer.

The program, the app, and the website all stay in sync - leave off reading in John 3 in the program, and then later go to the website, and after you log in, you'll go straight to John 3. Plus, your entire library is available on all three platforms (for the most part - some book licenses are only valid in the program version).

Many of you use YouVersion (http://youversion.com) on your mobile device. That's good software, too. But we can't sync it with the presentation on the screen. Currently, we are using YouVersion to allow you to follow the sermon and take notes. We are still testing that - some of you like it, some of you don't. We're trying to find a more usable system for notetaking on your devices in a way that connects directly to our sermons somehow.

If you have any questions on getting set up with this, please just let us know!

A Little Nerd Fun ... and Perhaps a Good Tool

As you noticed in last week's bulletin, we have added a couple of "QR codes." QR codes are simply textual information encoded in a graphic form that certain devices, like smartphones, can use to decode back into the original textual information. For example, the following code can be read by smartphones to navigate the phone's browser to our church website:

We added two codes last week. The first is the one above, pointing to the church website. This is on the back of the bulletin and is mainly intended for visitors to be able to quickly get to our website to find out more about us.

The second code we added was to an online version of the sermon notes. That makes it possible to follow along with the sermon points and passages on your mobile phone, if you so choose. This will not become our only way of having notes - we will always have the insert for handwritten notes.

With the growing popularity of tablet computers, these notes could become even more useful than on smartphones.

These notes can also be used to follow along if listening to the sermon online sometime after the sermon was originally given. That helps those who couldn't attend a particular Sunday, people who live away from the area, or those who want to go over the sermon a second time.

We are still experimenting with the format of these notes, and we could use your feedback. Please let me know how the notes could be formatted better to assist (rather than distract from) the teaching.

At present, we don't have any way to take personal notes along with the given notes. We could get there technologically, but they would be quite difficult to manage with the small keyboards on smartphones. Tablets, however, might make it worth the effort. Again, we need your feedback on how to make these notes the most useful.

OK, so it's a little bit of geek fun, but there is real potential to use the technology in a positive way to enhance how we learn and apply God's Word.