Here are the links from the video.

• Order his book on Amazon
• You can find his blog here.
• Catch him on twitter at @terracecrawford

Will you be preordering the book?

Please note that none of these files are ours, they came from Creation Swap and psdGraphics.com under the Creative Common’s Non-Commercial policy. In short, you can use them for free stuff, but may not pass it off as your own work or sell the photos in any format.

Without further ado, here you go!

Wallpaper Pack (ZIPPED file, 20.3 MB)

These are free for you to use for your own Facebook page, but all rights belong to us. Do not redistribute any of these without authorized, written consent.

Let us know in the comments which ones are your favorites and if you have any suggestions on other verses you would like to see used.

These are free for you to use for your own Facebook page, but all rights belong to us. Do not redistribute any of these without authorized, written consent.

Let us know in the comments which ones are your favorites and if you have any suggestions on other verses you would like to see used.

Three Youth Ministry Priorities For Mondays
It should be a given that my soul care should be an everyday priority, but here are three practical priorities I focus on most Mondays.

A Lesson in Endurance
Sometimes in parenting the best thing you can do is endure.

More Facebook Users Are ‘Defriending’ Than Ever
Users of Facebook and other social networks are finally starting to get the message that the stuff they post on the internet can come back to haunt them.

Social Media Makes Teens Aware Of Others’ Needs, Study Says
About 55 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 said Facebook and Twitter have opened their eyes to what others are experiencing, according to an online study conducted by Harris Interactive.

The History Of Social Media
An infographic that covers nearly every major social media site that has come into existence.

Who Are the Millennials?
A video of the stories of Millennials asking the basic question, “Who are you?”

Segmentation is Key

If you try to keep things organized on your computer, more than likely you put different things in different folders. For instance maybe you have a folder in your documents that says work, one that says personal, and maybe there is a family documents folder. There are a lot of ways you can split things up on  your computer, likewise as you start using cloud services, you can use different cloud services for different kinds of documents. Here is how I am currently doing things.

Google Drive

I use it for a certain subset of my documents. Mostly it is used for Google documents on my Google work account have been shared with me by other team members in my ministry or ones that I am sharing.

Sky Drive

New Sky Drive users can sync 7 GB of space, while people who have used it before can now sync the 25 GB of space they already had if they sign in and click a link to claim that space. So for me since I have 25 GB that gives me as much space as I should ever need for my personal random documents. That all goes here

SugarSync

This is one that I loved when I first started using it. I thought it had a lot of potential, and I looked forward to it maturing into a pretty amazing product. However with time, even though they did continue to add features, they didn’t add a lot of the ones I was hoping for (like lan syncing) and some of the bugs it has just won’t go away. However, I still use it, mostly for sharing files and folders with other people. When I want to send someone a link to a document or file, I use this. It also has a plugin that allows me to easily create links to really large files in outlook. So for my SugarSync = Sharing, it is kind of like my shared folder.

Dropbox

When I first started using Dropbox years ago my wife and I used it mostly for raising support for our ministry. This is still where we keep our prayer letters, and our database file for the software we use for MPD (we use TntMPD). While there are other ways I probably could be using it, this has served me well.

As you may have noticed, I choose what services to use for what documents often based on the features of a particular service. I use Google Drive for Google Docs, Sky Drive for my many personal Microsoft Office files, and SugarSync for sharing because of its integration with Outlook. You can go further with this. If you want to further segment your online syncing you can find more lesser known cloud syncing solutions using alternativeto.com. Just tell it what program you are using and it will show you other similar programs, many of which have smaller free accounts like Dropbox and Google Drive.

What I like about all of this is because I use different services for different things I have most of my life synced online for free. I don’t always have the syncing services for all of these running all the time. I typically only start up some services like SugarSync or Sky Drive or others when I am going to be using some of those files. Do you use more than one cloud syncing service? How do cloud services fit into your life? Do you try to segment your life in the Cloud? Let us know in the comments.

Do you have any funny videos, photos, or creative things you want us to feature next week? Share in the comments below.

One change that happened recently was Google Drive. I like Google Drive, while I am a little disappointment that it isn’t more, and it is in many ways very similar to Dropbox I think it has potential. Another service which has gone through recent changes and that I am extensively using is the Sky Drive client which is made my Microsoft and available for Mac and Windows. It has some things in common with this iteration of Google Drive. For a while Microsoft has had web based versions of Word and other basic office programs that you could use to edit documents you were storing in Sky Drive. It isn’t the same as Google Doc’s but it is fully compatible with MS Office Documents which is nice. It is how I open and edit documents on my net book.

Then there are some of the old standards, like Dropbox and SugarSync. I still use their free versions for everything else. In the past I have recommended enough people to SugarSync that I currently have over 11 GB there. You start off with 5 GB but whenever you refer someone both you and the person you are referring get an additional 500 MB. If you want to check it out and get an additional 500 MB through my link you can look at it here. And with Dropbox that is where most of my Ministry Partner Development files live because when I first got Dropbox years ago that was the key way that my wife Karen and I used it.

Of course there are other companies out there that offer free online syncing services, but these are some of the more well-known ones, and they are the ones that I am using. So how about you, do you use more than one cloud service, and if so, how do you use them? Stay tuned, more on how we can make this practically work soon.

Of course, with something this amazing, we cannot just open the doors and let everyone come in. You are going to have to put your best foot forward and follow some rules. Here is what we are expecting for each post submitted:

• We will be paying $5 per article, so put the time and effort into it. You must have a valid and working Paypal Account to receive payment.
• When you have received payment for the article, we will own the full rights to the content, all media supplied, and it may not be republished or reproduced anywhere else.
• All posts submitted that are not used or paid for do not belong to seventy8 Productions and will never be posted on this site until payment is received.
• This is NOT a first come, first served process nor is there any end date to it. We may not pick yours right away nor pay for it yet (we do have a small budget peeps!), but quality work will always win out so do not rush it!
• Follow our posting guidelines to the T.
• We are only interested in technology, web, or social media type articles with a ministry emphasis. Do not review the latest gadgets because it has no ministry application and a focus on Christianity solely is better suited for other sites.
• Only original stuff will work. If you write about how to upload a YouTube video, we won’t pick it. Present an idea that has never been heard before, something that could improve ministry as we know it, or social media tips that are not on five other websites.
• We are looking for quality work that is as good or better than our own. Check for spelling and flow.
• If we say no, we may not give you a reason or tell you.
• These posts are for a later date. They may not go live for upwards of a year, but you will be notified ahead of time when they are live.
• Put the time into it. We average between 30 minutes and 2 hours for a solid post.

What will you write about?

I will note before diving in that I do not have all of the answers and will speak about this in the different points were I am still wrestling with this definition. Yet, I am confident in what I have put up here so far.

• You Get Some Amount Of Income For Blogging.
  This may be the most heavily contested part of defining what a professional blogger is. Several people who blog full-time would state that you are not a professional blogger unless your sole or primary income is from your blogging, either directly from advertisements and guest posts or indirectly from book sales or other income that results from the traffic that comes through your site. I have never been in that situation, but would contest that the definition should be instead an income from the blog that is large enough that you must declare it on your taxes. This makes it quantifiable and yet not exclusive solely to the big leagues.
• You Have A Community Around Your Blog.
  We constantly push that you need to be networking through social media, writing around a focused purpose, and engaging with your viewers and that is how I would define a community around your blog. This requires that you have been blogging for more than two months too. Do you have the regulars that are commenting on articles, tweets, Facebook updates, and everywhere else? Do you have advocates for your blog? Does your relationships go beyond avatars to actual faces and sideline conversations? Three yes’s means you have a community.
• This Is For A Purpose.
  To differentiate ourselves from the therapeutic blogger, our content, strategy, and drive is for something other than to get feelings and words off our chest. Something is driving us, be it sales or empowering others. To this point, that drive has been defined, clarified, and now what guides your writing. When people talk about your blog, they know exactly how to describe it, even if it is not fully complete. In essence, you have fully built a brand around your blog that is intentional and necessary.
• You Are A Content Expert In What You Write About.
  The Internet is full of posers and wannabe’s. We do not need any more bloggers out there pretending to be experts in what they are talking about. Do you do what you write about? Are you drawing from experience and education (no matter how formal or informal)? Would viewers count you as credible? That is what defines a professional blogger and anything else truly is an amateur.
• Found Your Writing Style.
  Every writer has their own style and every blogger should as well. The best part about blogging is that many people find a better fit to do video blog entries, graphic design posts, or the simple five-point articles that have become their norm. Amateur bloggers do not have their style down yet and therapeutic bloggers could care less, but the professional blogger rests comfortably (and is probably driven by it) in their style of blog articles.

Where do you stand as a blogger: amateur, professional, or therapeutic? Where do you want to end up?