Note: this blog post by Wesley Allen originally appeared January 30, 2017, on the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey website and is reproduced here with permission. Photos were also taken by Wesley Allen.
On January 28 the ABCNJ Academy sponsored a training seminar for Accordance Bible Software at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Roughly fifty people attended the event, about half of whom were ABCNJ pastors and leaders. While Accordance provides the training for free, ABCNJ registrants received the Accordance starter bundle and Academy credit with their paid registration. It was an incredible deal, and impressed Pastor Gregory McMillan of Hamilton Square Baptist Church, “Because of the exceptional insight of [Accordance’s Rick Mansfield], I now feel better equipped to educate the church and its people. We are fortunate to have access to such a resource of information at a reasonable cost.” Associate Regional Pastor, Rev. Dr. Elmo Familiaran, was equally as impressed, “The interface between Greek, Hebrew, lexicons and Atlas with my preferred English translation is just truly amazing. Reading and studying the Bible will never be the same for me.”
Rick Mansfield leading the Accordance Training Seminar.
The training moved through Accordance’s interface, walked though setting up highlights, demonstrated the speed and power of its search capabilities, and explored user created content like user tools and user verse notes. Two features which were just released in the most recent update, Stacks and Papers, were also demonstrated. These function as a digital stack of notecards and a structured text editor for sermons or lesson plans, respectively.
While the training was rapid Rev. Martha Bevacqua, Interim Pastor at First Baptist Lambertville, believed it was helpful for getting started with the new tool, “Any resource that helps me be a better preacher is always helpful, but learning how to use new software can be time consuming as well as challenging. The training gave me sufficient knowledge and confidence to get started using Accordance.”
Accordance support professional Jay Baker helping a seminar attendee.
The session was an expression of ABCNJ’s continued committment to helping pastors use the incredible tools at their disposal, and fitting them into their workflow. Rev. Dr. Lee B. Spitzer, Executive Minister and Senior Regional Pastor of ABCNJ, was pleased with what was accomplished, “ABCNJ was proud to sponsor the Accordance training event at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. We live and serve in a computer-based era, and it is vital for our clergy to utilize the best and most cutting-edge tools to grow in ministry effectiveness and faithfulness. I have been using Accordance since 2008, but I must admit I learned a great deal from the seminar and will use this software to greater effect going forward.”
Wesley Allen is the pastor of Central Baptist Church in Palmyra, New Jersey and an Accordance user since 2008.