How To Take Notes In Church Using Your Android Phone

As you all know, I now have my very own shiny new Android phone and every day brings new ideas of how to put it to good use (like playing Angry Birds for an hour straight).  I now do the majority of my email checking, website analytics spying, web browsing, Facebooking and Twittering from the comfort of my own phone (and couch).  Who couldn’t love Android?

I don’t remember where I heard it but somewhere I got the idea to start taking sermon notes in church on my Android via the Evernote app.  If you are wondering what Evernote is all about, it’s really meant as a note-taking application that helps you to capture your thoughts before they flee from your mind.  You can capture websites, pictures, sounds or just text and have it for later reference.

Well, the Android app works great for sermon note taking.

To be perfectly honest, the greatness may depend on your typing abilities when it comes to a touch screen (unless your phone sports a qwerty keypad).  For me, it was more of a challenge that I had to conquer.  Don’t ask why, it’s just the way it is.  Actually I used it as kind of training to speed up my touch-typing.  After a few weeks of it, I can pretty much keep up the the preacher.  Praise the Lord!

Let me share with you how I take notes in church using the Evernote Android app.

First things first, I set up one of my homescreens for church use. On it I have icons and widgets quickly connecting me to battery settings, sound setting, Bible programs and of course Evernote.

The sound widget came with an app I found for free called AudioManager and the battery-affecting settings widget came with a free app called Power Control.  This homescreen setup works great for me because everything is right there waiting for my sermon note taking to start.

Use the text note option in the Evernote app.

This will bring you to where you want to be when you want to take notes during the message.

There are a couple of things I like to make sure I do in order to be able to easily find the sermon notes later.  First, I indicate whether it was a morning or evening service and the date within the title.  If there’s a title given to the sermon by the preacher, I usually put that in the note content.  I then make sure that every sermon has the tag “sermon notes.” Really, all of this is up to you.  My advice is only that you have a system so you can find it later.

Finally, make sure you save often.  You would hate to get to the end of the outline and realize that you clicked away by accident and noting was saved.

So there you have it.  You are now ready for all of those crazy stares from people thinking you’re texting in church.  Oh, any of you who go to church with me and have thought that about me, really… I AM taking notes and NOT texting!  I thought you knew me better than that!