Resources

Phone conference systems for services and meetings

Posted October 24, 2013 by Jason Marsh

by Jason Marsh, Jon Mattson, and Grace Burke

In response to several inquiries, I thought it would be good to post what Auburn church uses for our phone conferencing system.

You can get a good Polycom speakerphone that is usually used by corporate conference rooms for about $150-$200, but it may only pick up voices from about 10 feet away. We have a Polycom 2EX with satellite wired microphones that we pass around. This Polycom is closer to $400. Voice quality is excellent, but it doesn’t pick up music very well, but music over the phone always sound poor anyway. You can also get wireless satellite mics. A good source is Polycom FactoryOutletStores.com.

This system works well for the size of our congregation, but wouldn’t work in a large church building unless everyone sits close together (which has other benefits!). Larger rooms will need to feed the audio from the microphone system into the phone line. We tried to set this up and found that for our size of space, it wasn’t necessary and was fairly difficult.

We keep the base station near the first reader. The two satellite microphones are wired directly into the base station, and works in our auditorium which has only about 4 rows of chairs.

We use a paid conference calling system, so that no one has to incur long distance charges, but there are a variety of free conference calling companies where there is no charges to the church. I would Google “free conference calling” or the name of the paid service we use is PGI – ReadyConference Plus (it comes out to about $3 per hour per caller).

Hope that helps!

Feel free to comment below with further questions.

The Ten Commandments in Contemporary Language

Posted September 8, 2013 by Jason Marsh

A few years ago my Sunday School class and I brainstormed how we could make the Ten Commandments ‘relevant’ to our daily experience. We didn’t feel like we had vital ways to apply the commandments. For example, we felt we could check-off the box for “not stealing” and “not killing”, so were those still something we should keep active in our daily decisions? So, we re-framed them, and came up with this list.

As a resource, I’m providing them in three ways: within the text of this post, as a PDF document, and as a Word document (so you can refine them further for your own Sunday School class).

Enjoy these, please share, but always please include the original source, in this case Jason Marsh.

Ten Commandments in contemporary language

By Jason Marsh, October, 2011

1) Accept no “other” outside the Infinite – only God

2) Have no “image” (thought) but perfection – for self and others

3) Expect good, expect healing, don’t use God’s name if you don’t mean it – why pray if you don’t expect results?

4) Live in the Now – on the Sabbath and every day, hour, and minute

5) Love without prejudice (to age or bodily description, including parents )

6) Encourage others and yourself by not killing ideas -> bring positive energy into all your interactions/activities

7) Respect the sanctity of identity & body – for yourself and others (no body manipulation)

8) Acknowledge abundance for yourself

9) Be honest to yourself, and therefore others

10) Acknowledge abundance for others, humbly see that their good is included in your good

Note: first 3 relate to your relationship to God, 4^th is a transition (both), and last 6 relate to your relationship with others.

Eddy letters shared by Michael Davis

Posted July 29, 2013 by Jason Marsh

At the Summit, Mike Davis shared some wonderfully moving letters written by Mary Baker Eddy from the MBE Library. There have been some requests for information about how to obtain the letters.

You can obtain these by calling the MBE Library at (617) 450-7000, and you want the ‘research’ department. When I requested it, the charge was $6.50 for copying and handling fees.

The ID numbers for the sympathy letters are:

L10887 (To Mrs. Grace E Foster: “I have waited for the first sad hours to pass before writing to you….”)

L05613 (To Mittie Whitcomb: “My beloved ones, my soul pleads for your consolations and even peace, pleads that now, in this deep affliction you “acquaint thyself with God and be at peace”….)

The number for the one about readmitting the Nickersons into membership is:

L00075 (“…now, as of old, divine compassion reiterates the tender rebuke: ‘Go, and sin no more.”)

Seeing God’s Image and Likeness Instead of People – Presentation Slides

Posted June 20, 2013 by Gabriel Serafini

Presentation given by Jorge Perez of Second Church of Christ, Scientist, San Francisco about reaching out to a diverse audience using radio, television and by seeing everyone as God’s children.