Monthly Archives: September 2011

And we’re off! The year is in full swing for college students everywhere, and that means only one thing: everybody is stressed. Being a student at a Christian college, a lot of my classes start off with “prayer request time,” where the almost constant request being shared is “stress from schoolwork.”  Professors assign work. Students procrastinate. Students pull all-nighters. Students say prayers about being stressed.

It seems to me that there has got to be a way around this. Somewhere, somehow, there has got to be a student that is organized enough to not be stressed.

While I make no claims of being an un-stressed student (they’re about as rare as unicorns), I have become significantly more productive by using a handful of programs to keep organized. While they’re not clinically proven to prevent all-nighters, they certainly help! Here’s tools 1-3. Look for parts 4-6 in the next few days!

• Evernote: Without a shadow of a doubt, Evernote is a productivity powerhouse. Every thought I have gets put into this program. I use it for taking notes in class, planning events, personal notes, and even writing blog posts. The best part is, there are Evernote apps for Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, and even Blackberry, and your notebooks stay synced between all of them. So when you add a picture from your Android phone (a Motorola Atrix 4G for me), it automatically is synced to my Mac app. Any text in said picture becomes immediately searchable. In class, for instance, I can take a picture of the whiteboard and save it into Evernote.  Months later, when I’m studying for the final, I can search any word that was written on the whiteboard, and it will automatically pop-up. If there is anything from this list you try to implement, make it Evernote. Available at http://www.evernote.com. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s FREE.

• Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome: I’m an avid Evernote user. I’m also an avid Chrome user. Combine the two together, and you get the Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome. My most common use for it comes from the fact that I read a lot of online articles. Often, I will see a link on twitter to an article that looks interesting to me, but I don’t have time to read it at that moment. So, I click the link, then use the Evernote Web Clipper, and in two easy clicks, the article is saved in Evernote for easy access later. I’ve also found this extremely helpful as I’m doing research for a paper. Often times, I will find a website with a lot of good info on it that I’ll want to cite. Instead of bookmarking the website to find later, I simply clip the article into my Evernote notebook for that class, and boom! it’s there whenever I need it. Available here for FREE.

• Google Documents: A lot of students don’t realize the amount of power that exists behind Google Docs. Here’s a few of my favorite features:
• Besides being the best FREE word processor available, it’s also the only one available no matter what computer you’re on. Laptop run out of batteries? Borrow a friend’s and log into your Google account. Whatever you were just working on loads as fast as any web page and you’re back to work in an instant.
• It automatically saves as you type. We all fear that one moment when Microsoft Word “unexpectedly quits” and you lose everything you were just working on. With Google Docs, have no fear- it’s already saved for you.
• Google Docs makes group projects a breeze. When you’re working in a document, simply click the “Share” button in the upper right corner, enter the email addresses of everybody else in your group, and suddenly, you’re all looking at the exact same document… live! Every letter you type shows up real time in your group member’s browser. There’s also a handy little chat bar on the right so if you’re not in the same place, you can easily communicate while working on the document.

[I know I haven't blogged in about two months, but last night I witnessed something that truly upset me, and absolutely merits a strong response.]

At the beginning of each semester at Indiana Wesleyan, we have a week devoted to spiritual emphasis called “Summit.”  Typically, we will invite a speaker to come in and share their message with the student body with the intent of devoting our semester to God, not just academics.

Last night, I was closing the Game Room early so that our workers would have a chance to go to Summit.  As I was doing so, I overheard one of the most aggravating conversations I’ve ever heard on this campus.  A young freshman boy was telling his friends why he wasn’t going to Summit that evening.  I was expecting the typical excuse that most students use: “I have too much homework.”  Instead, he started telling them, “I’m not going to Summit because the guest speaker is a woman.  Women aren’t biblically allowed to speak in church.  I can show you the exact spot in the Bible where Paul says women shouldn’t be allowed to talk in church.  Having her speak for Summit is unbiblical, so I’m not going.”

Yes, Bowman boy, 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 does clearly state that “women should keep silent in churches.”  Exegetically speaking, that passage 100% backs up your point.  However, in the words of pastor theologian Dr. Chris Bounds, “Something can be exegetically correct, but theologically wrong.”  My friend, this is one of those cases.

Let me ask you this, do you believe slavery is OK?  At this moment, there are hundreds of thousands of children being trafficked from country to country so they can be raped repeatedly for somebody else’s profit.  Is that a just cause?  Absolutely not!  And yet, in Colossians 3:22, Paul says, “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.”  Exegetically, this passage says those children should allow themselves to be sex slaves.  I hope your theology says something quite to the contrary.

I think you can make the connection between Colossians and 1 Corinthians here.  Just because your verse says “don’t let women speak in church,” doesn’t mean your theology should say the same.

If you were at Summit on Monday, you heard the pastor speak.  You heard every word that came out of her mouth.  And for you to stand there and say “God doesn’t speak through women” would be to deny the very presence of the Holy Spirit who very clearly spoke through her this week.

I hope you will take some time to prayerfully consider your stance on this subject.  Don’t simply allow your upbringing to decide your beliefs for you.  Take these next four years to hear from as many different sides of Christianity as you can.  I pray that God would illuminate something new for you during your time at Indiana Wesleyan.

Sincerely,
A concerned upper-classman.