On the Cutting Edge of the Early 1990’s

There were some really good developments at the Southern Baptist Convention last week (here is a quick summary). I wanted to listen to a couple of speeches in particular, so I took to the Web, confident that the largest Protestant denomination in the world would have the audio up a few days later.

Imagine my delight to discover SBCTapes.com, which is apparently My Source for S.B.C. & SBC Pastors’ Conference Presentations. Yes indeedy, to get a recording of Danny Akin’s and Al Mohler’s speeches, I just have to download and print out the PDF of the order form. Then I can use a fax machine (which apparently people still have) to send in the order form, or I can mail it to them. They will then send me a CD in the mail.

The best part is that each CD is only $9.00! (Plus $2 shipping & handling for the first CD and $1 for each subsequent one.) So for a mere $21, I can have both the messages I wanted within about 6 weeks.

In the meantime, I guess I can keep busy with thousands of hours of free downloadable audio from Desiring God. Or Mars Hill Church. Or Monergism. Or Sovereign Grace. Or the Gospel Coalition. Or any of the many, many churches and organizations who’ve figured out it’s not very hard to put audio online.

(I should also point out that my own denomination, the PCA, is apparently behind even our Baptist brothers, as there doesn’t seem to be any way to get ahold of MP3’s from our General Assembly.)

Adventures in Bad Admin

Disclaimer: I am not great at administration, but I really appreciate good administration, so I’m trying to get better at it. As part of that, I like to look at things that work and things that don’t.

At about 2:25 PM yesterday, I registered online for a training program we have to attend before leaving for Prague. In the ensuing hours I received no less than seven emails from the training organization.

• Mon 2:30 PM: Receipt and purchase confirmation.
• Mon 2:30 PM: Thank you for submitting an order.
• Mon 2:34 PM: Thank you note for purchase from bookstore.
• Mon 2:34 PM: Thank you for registering to attend program.
• Mon 4:13 PM: Thank you again for your purchase, please save receipt.
• Tues 12:25 PM: Invoice for remainder of bill, request to let them know if missions organization will be paying (even though I gave that info when I registered).
• Tues 1:15 PM: Travel details, and reminder that my confirmation packet will arrive in the mail soon!

Surely they could have combined all these into one email, even if I had to wait a couple of hours!