Great App: Bible Audio Pronunciations
I was waiting to board a flight out of DFW recently when I (as I entertained myself with my iPad) found an app that instantly caught my eye. “Wow.” I thought. Why didn’t I think of that?
The app is called Bible Audio Pronunciations by a company of the same name. The purpose is to help those of us who are not necessarily Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic scholars accurately pronounce difficult biblical names and terms. I quickly reached out to the apps creators and asked to feature them on this site. Here is their story:
My wife and I are the parents of 5 wonderful children. I am a professional musician – a saxophonist in the U.S. Army Band in Washington D.C. My wife, also a musician, is a stay at home mom. We are active in our church and in our community.For many years, we have talked about making an iPhone app – one that could be helpful to others, if even in a small way.In 2011, we determined to make it happen. Neither of us know anything about writing code; however, we found that it was possible to outsource the project via elance.com. We simply had to come up with the concept of the app and flesh it out on paper.After several brainstorming sessions, we came up with many “brilliant” ideas, only to find that these ideas were already converted into apps. Except for one.I said to my wife, “What if there was an app that pronounced all of those challenging words in the Bible? Surely we are not the only ones that struggle with this.”We did a search on the iTunes store for “Bible Pronunciation” in all its various forms, and each search came back with 0 results!Immediately, we purchased as many Bible Pronunciation Guides as we could find and began doing our homework. We settled on a list of 1000 Bible names and began recording them. For better or for worse, it is my voice on the app. 🙂Our target audience for this app was the lay member – families reading the Bible together, members of Bible study groups, and so forth. However, our most enthusiastic customers have been theological students and pastors! (It never occurred to my wife and I that THEY struggled with these words as well. I guess we thought it was covered in seminary!)After version 1.0 was released, we immediately recognized that the app would have to be expanded to include every proper noun in the Bible. There are now over 4100 words included in the app – and counting.We have also had many requests to expand the app to the Android platform. We anticipate that it will be released by the fall of 2012.What challenges have we faced in creating the app?1. The incredible amount of time and energy that goes into recording and editing all of the names. I recorded each word 4-10 times. We would then go back and choose the best one. This has taken thousands of hours! It’s a slow process with a two person team doing this on the side.2. The inherent challenges of compiling a Bible pronunciation guide. As noted in the preface of the HarperCollins Bible Pronunciation Guide, many of the biblical terms that appear in English “are the results of passage through several languages [e.g., Greek and Latin] with their own distinctive patterns of pronunciation. Thus it is impossible to say what is ‘correct’ pronunciation of many biblical terms, especially of names from the Old Testament.”Our goal in creating this app is to provide quick, easy, and accurate access to correct pronunciations of challenging Biblical terms. However, in doing so, I offer the same disclaimer found in the HarperCollins preface: “The editors would not claim that the pronunciations given are, in every case, the only or even necessarily the best pronunciations; they do believe, however, that each pronunciation given is an acceptable and defensible one.”3. Getting the word out! As mentioned before, there is no other app in the Appstore that provides this particular service. This is both good news and bad news. The good news- there is no competition. The bad news- Most people aren’t looking for it because they don’t know it exists.The feedback we have received has been extremely positive. We have been featured on a dozen Christian Radio shows, a TV segment, and numerous newspaper and online articles and blogs. We have been ranked as high as #6 in the Reference Category of the iTunes store in the U.S. We also using Twitter and Facebook, and are still looking for other ways to get the word out.
Website: http://www.biblepronunciations.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/BibleSpeakiTunes link, both the Lite (free) version and full ($2.99): http://itunes.com/apps/pronunciationappsReviews:
Keeping track of our student ministry
FOR MY FIRST FEW YEARS IN STUDENT MINISTRY I admittedly struggled with keeping up with student data. How long has it been since we’ve seen so and so? Do we have a current address on this kid? Did anyone get a head-count at tonight’s service? I brainstormed this strategy and that, but nothing ever worked really well…
PLEASE WELCOME TO THE STAGE YOUTHTRACKER.NET. This is a completely web-based service which allows tracking of student data in ways that I could never accomplish on my own. Because it is web-based, there is no software to install, and your data can be accessed via any computer with an internet connection. I have even taken attendance with my iPhone at remote events!
youthtracker.net
For years I have toggled between contact information on hand-written “hard copies” of student info cards and data entered in address book on my Mac. It’s amazing how many times someone’s handwriting has rendered an address illegible. “Is that a seven?” “What is that street name?” No more! With YOUTHTRACKER.NET students simply type in their information, and there it is. No more deciphering. Also great is the fact that all my student data is virtually always at my fingertips. Let’s be honest, there is no such thing as 9 to 5 ministry, and every pastor I know finds himself working here and there in what was intended to be “off time.” No more late night trips to the office to grab addresses for mailers that must go out tomorrow. Granted, many people are successfully using Outlook or Address Book or some other resource, but in YOUTHTRACKER.NET everything is contained in one page for each student: family names, emergency contacts, dad’s cell number, t-shirt size, facebook, email, event attendance, recent spiritual decisions, event account balances. This service will even allow students to make payments for event registrations online!
youthtracker.net sign in screen
Perhaps one of my favorite features of YOUTHTRACKER.NET is the student sign-in feature. We have a “check-in” table as students enter our youth room, complete with a computer logged into YOUTHTRACKER.NET. Kids just type their name, and they are signed into the event, or if they are a new student, they are prompted to enter their info to create a new account. We have another computer in our sound booth that we use to send YOUTHTRACKER.NET to the screen onstage, and we use another cool feature which will randomly select a student who is signed in to the current event. Game contestants made simple! This also has an ulterior motivation to encourage kids to sign in. They always sign in because they want to play the game!
What about cost? When I was shopping around for a software resource to help me on the administrative end of youth ministry, I saw several price tags in the few hundred dollars neighborhood. YOUTHTRACKER.NET is a subscription, and we are currently paying just $19.99 a month. I know, in a year or so the pay-once software is eventually cheaper, but for me, $19.99 a month is a much easier sell than a $400.00 upfront cost. Plus I love the flexibility of knowing I can change services if this no longer suits our needs, although I really expect to be using YOUTHTRACKER.NET for years to come.
delighted to share. 