YOUTH PASTOR RELEASES IPHONE APP MIXING MOVIE CLIPS AND BIBLE STUDY

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Youth Pastor RJ Grunewald announced today the release of Clips, an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Clips presents users with a library of popular movies; each movie gives users suggested topics, discussion questions, and start and end times to easily find a movie scene and lead a Bible study based on it.

“I created the app that I wanted on my phone.  I always wanted this resource and wanted to be able to share it with my small group leaders,” said Grunewald.  “Certain resources actually make more sense in the mobile format than the traditional format.  Clips is one of those resources; it just feels like it was meant to be used on the iPhone.”

Clips is a resource for pastors, youth workers, small group leaders, parents, or students that lead Bible studies.  Clips gives users tools to teach the Bible from popular movie scenes.  Users can find Clips at the App Store for $2.99.

About RJ Grunewald and GrunewaldDev

Grunewald works full time as the Middle School Minister at Faith Lutheran in Troy, Michigan, where he has served since 2010.  He began developing software in 2008 as a hobby.  His first release, Whoopie Cushion, was downloaded over 1.2 million times in the first year and became one of the top 10 free apps.  In 2009 he co-developed MyGuitar with Youth Specialties, which was downloaded 2.1 million times in its first 18 months.  Clips has allowed him to combine his coding experience and passion for youth ministry into a ministry resource.

“I have always loved using movie clips in my teachings; it seems like a lot of times a great scene from a movie that the kids like can say something much better than I could ever say it,” he said.  “I knew my app was where it needed to be when I started using my own app with my own ideas as a resource to help me when I was working on my weekend messages.”

Pricing & Availability

Clips runs on the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and iPhone 4 and iPod touch (2nd, 3rd & 4th generation).  Clips is available worldwide from the App Store for $2.99 (US).

GrunewaldDev is a iOS software development company, founded in 2008 by Youth Pastor RJ Grunewald.  GrunewaldDev develops both independent and contracted applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad platforms.

Media:

Clips Press Kit: http://www.grunewalddev.com/presskit.zip

Clips Website: http://www.clips-app.com

Clips Promo Video: http://vimeo.com/rjgrune/clipsapp

iTunes URL: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clips-teach-bible-use-scenes/id449470554?ls=1&mt=8

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Gandhi

A simple statement that rings true in so many arenas of life. Do you want to see things different? Be that change. Don’t rely on persuasive speeches, the right amount of funding, or the right people to get things moving in the right direction.

If you want things to be different, make them different.

Apple has had a vision for the way that computers should be. In 1984 Apple forever changed the way we compute, by being the change they wanted to see. When Apple introduced the first generation iPhone, they forever changed what we think of when we think of a mobile phone. And on Saturday we got to witness the release of the iPad.

Apple has had a history of introducing products that are game-changers. And why, because Apple decides this is the way things should be and you can follow or be left behind.

It was only until a few months ago that I finally rid myself of hand-written to-do lists in favor of the popular Things App for Mac and iPhone. If we have some of the most advanced technology in the world, why would someone prefer grabbing a nice pen and a moleskine over jotting notes in Pages?

The Benefits of Paper
- familiarity (the user experience is learned from a very young age)
- easily accessible
- quick…jotting a note is much faster then launching an app and then proceeding to type
- it feels better…can technology provide the same feeling that beautifully sketching out ideas in a moleskin can?

The Benefits of Technology
- virtually limitless paper
- sharing, printing, saving is much better than stacks/folders/books of notes
- attachments…it’s much easier to attach photos, web-clips, link to something else
- easily adaptable… most word processing apps are filled with templates for a variety of possible needs you might have.

If somehow we can find a way to utilize technology to create an experience that takes the best of both worlds…we may be able to make an experience that is better then writing in a moleskine.

10. Find me a youth group that doesn’t think the Whoopie Cushion app is funny.

9. When I’m texting in church, I can just say, “Ummm…I was using the Bible App.”

8. Thanks to Youth Specialties (and myself), I can now lead worship.

7. I’m a Social-Networking nut, so I can easily be connected to twitter, myspace, youtube, facebook, etc.

6. My calendar is always with me.

5. T-Pain can give our announcements.

4. When I get lost driving to our retreat destination, I always have Google Maps.

3. The Voice Memos app actually does a good job recording sermons when I’m out at a retreat and don’t have the tech set up to do it any other way.

2. Thanks to the 3GS i can record video of the spectacular life-changing moments we have at youth group.

1. Did I mention that Whoopie Cushion 2.0 let’s you fart other devices anywhere in the world?

Whenever an app that I have the chance to work on does well, it is super exciting.  When I started working on MyGuitar, I knew it was going to be a fun application, but I had no idea how it would continually increase in popularity.  MyGuitar, released by Youth Specialties, has been out for several months now and it has slowly climbed the charts and remains in the Top 25 Free Music Applications consistently.  If you haven’t had a chance to download this application yet, make sure you do so.  It’s free and simple and has an incredible UI.

We’ve re-built the GrunewaldDev website.  Our old page was getting old and difficult to maintain, so we’ve rebuilt it now using wordpress, which will allow us to keep things up to date and maintain a blog to keep you aware of what we’re working on.

In a couple of months the brand new Apple iPad will be released opening up even more doors as we expand the devices we work on and explore the possibilities of what apps we can create for this revolutionary device.