Logos Bible Software – I’m a Big Fan

I had the privilege of spending a week in Bellingham, WA with Logos Bible Software a few weeks ago filming a course on the Gospel of John for their new Mobile Ed. program. Before the invitation to participate in their program I had little experience or exposure to Logos. The whole thing has been something of an orientation. And I have to say, I am very impressed.

I had the opportunity to meet people from the company from the very top to the bottom. They were intentional about introducing me to the folks that are behind the biblical studies software. Take Steve Runge for example. Here’s a guy with a Ph.D. in linguistics working on software that attempts to make complex theory useful to the pastor who is working on a sermon text for Sunday. Steve has created a program called the High Definition Commentary. This program uses graphics to help illustrate the flow the an argument through discourse analysis. But it does it in a way that is accessible to the non-technical Bible reader and non-Greek reader. Or consider the CEO Bob Pritchett. Bob started the company after working at Microsoft in the late 1980’s, when Bill Gates was building Microsoft into the gold standard and before Mac became the hipster company it is today. Bob was a brilliant high school and college drop out who was hired on to write programs for Microsoft. Trust me, Bob is a force to be recommended with intellectually, not to mention we’re from the same area in New Jersey . I had dinner with him and Jim Belcher, who was also filming courses, and we had a robust conversation about the future of Liberal Arts education with Bob for a couple of hours. I can see why Logos has been so successful given its leadership. One other thing about Logos’s top brass: its all in the family. Bob ended up hiring both his father and his brother. Logos is a family owned and run business.

I have to give a final shout out to my “handlers” as Jim and I came to refer to them. Mine was Cliff Kvidahl and Chelsea. Chelsea was the videographer and Cliff made sure I said on schedule. Both became good friends during the week. Cliff and I shared some laughs, a beer, an awesome maple bacon donut as well as good conversation. Thanks Cliff!

I’ve been getting to know the Logos program over the last few weeks and I have come to appreciate its strengths. The most obvious strength is its interface  – not sure if that’s the right term. But it is so user friendly. And when reading a book it has features I have come to expect when reading my kindle. Highlighting for example is very easy. I’ve been using Logos on my iPad for my Bible reading. It is also more ascetically pleasing than Accordance. While I am so much more familiar with Accordance, there isn’t anything I can see that is lacking with Logos; and for the average Pastor, there is perhaps so much more with it. While I’ll never give up my Accordance – I love it (!), I am growing in my fandom of Logos. The program is amazing, and that is a reflection of the people behind it as I have come to know. I look forward to another opportunity to spend a week in Bellingham.