Life Discipler – Product Review

Recently I was given this “Life Discipler” (follow link for site) to review, along with a letter from its’ creator, Tony Guard.  I was kind of excited at first, to actually receive a small electronic trendy looking device for free, simply for promising to write a review online. 

Then I opened it.  I took their advice and used it for at least 5 days. I even gave it extra time…a whole week. 

I agree that some of the goals are being met here:  It’s cheap, retailing at $29.99.  But it should be, for basically being a calculator that displays Bible verses and has an alarm.  The simplicity of design is nice, with just one central button, and one outer button for navigation.  But the amounts of clicking down and up make me really wish the outside button would spin for a scrolling feature.  I found myself thinking “it’d be nice to read a verse on another topic, but I really don’t want to do all that clicking.”  Yup…I’m thumb lazy.

Being someone that is fond of lamps in my office, the first thing I noticed was the display is very dimly lit.  You need a bright sun, or a very well lit room to use it.  But it is small, and has a ring to be clipped to a keyring or something.  So the presentation is nice.  But with so many teens having iPods and similar gadgets these days, this product seems to be superfluous and uses outdated technology.  Perhaps make them more rugged, and ship them to 3rd world countries?  Although his letter states an elderly woman “over 80” was able to use it…so maybe give some to the local nursing homes too.

Let me quickly go through of the “Important Details” they gave us:
1. Never before seen tool for Christians. (Okay, ice cream cones with Bible verses would be too.  Doesn’t make them necessary, even though they’d obviously be cooler.)

2. You can get God’s guidance immediately, like never before.  (Never before?  I found it much easier to pray, or even open a Bible, than take the time to click through this to find a single scripture out of context.)

3. No searching/No remembering, it feeds you verses using an audible alarm.  (Really?  An alarm to remind you not to memorize scripture?)

4. Keeps you focused on God instead of your problem or the world.  (I could write a lot about this one.  But I will simply say – no it doesn’t.)

In closing, if you’re looking for a gift for your Jesus loving teenager/young adult, or one that you want to encourage in their pursuit of Jesus….this doesn’t seem like the gift.

But if you read this, and still really wanna buy one for that special person in your life…I’ve been authorized to give you a code “GROW20” that will get you 20% off.  Which is really nothing special, since the website has a similar discount offered to anyone.  I will say, Tony’s letter sounds like he cares a lot about “getting Christians into the Word more”. I just don’t see how this product will encourage that, beyond encouraging an “a la cart” approach to scripture and frustrating those of us with dim rooms and lazy thumbs.