I read today that for this year's college freshmen, the class of 2009, Starbucks, souped-up car stereos, telephone voice-mail systems, and Bill Gates have always been a part of their lives.

The annual Mindset List compiled by Beloit College, a Wisconsin liberal arts college, also speculates that these students don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.

It's safe to say that we're all spending a good deal of time on the computer these days. And, with the latest innovations in church-related software, your church computers are now being used for much more than typing up the church bulletin each week.

Church software is a rapidly expanding technology, with a multitude of feature-rich packages available that can reduce hours of time on a task to a click of a mouse.

I hope that our software focus this month is a comprehensive and valuable resource to you as you and your staff members explore the exciting advancements in this area.

Also in this issue: We recently returned from the annual National Association of Church Business Administrators (NACBA) conference in Keystone, Colorado . It was great to meet so many of you at this year's show. Whether you stopped by our booth to grab a bottle of water (I think we all experienced some effects from the altitude!) or a copy of the magazine, it was a pleasure to get to talk to so many of you in person.

In case you didn't make it to the show, or you maybe didn't get to see everything while you were there, we've chronicled our NACBA finds in this issue, bringing you the latest and greatest products and services we found while we were at the show.

I'm always interested in hearing from you. You can reach me at jill@religiousproductnews.com .

God Bless,

Jill Pinheiro