Yesterday I received a new Bible I ordered in June. There were a lot of delays and it finally arrived.

The binding is the best binding I have ever seen on a book.

The printing of the text is so disappointing, I returned it.

The problem was bleed-through, and it was quite severe. I have an NIV that has thinner pages but it is highly readable. This ESV was quite hard to read, mainly in sections of the Bible laid out like poetry.

I just couldn’t afford to spend the kind of money it cost (even on my Anglican book allowance) considering how hard it was to read.

Now I’m left with an open loop. I’m after a new ESV that will really last me, and I thought I had one, but who wants a Bible that’s hard to read?

That’s what it’s for.

Cool first-person game where you shoot paintballs to navigate the environment.

Have a read of Doing Good to Your Husband, Day 1 and tell me it’s not all a bit bizarre.

Where on earth, other than from Christian wives, would you hear lines like this:

Sometimes when my hubby first gets home from work, I’ll have his favorite snack and a drink sitting by the computer w/ his favorite websites pulled up or I’ll have a bath run for him w/ soft music and a candle going to give him a little time to relax after his hard day!

Well, I have personally found doing good to my husband, is to have sex with him. That always cheers him up.

1.) speak well of him to others (both when he is present and when he is not)
2.) pack him a lunch (and include a tasty treat)
3.) tell him regularly that you are happy you married him
4.) tell his mother how wonderfully he treats you
5.) tell your mother how wonderfully he treats you
6.) forgive him in grace, even when he forgets things that are important to you
7.) regularly tell your kids the things you love about him

Maybe there are places where wives think and act like this, other than in Christian homes, but I can’t think of any.

This is deeply counter-cultural, absolutely bizarre, and brilliant.

It’s amazing. It uses multi-touch for navigation, which is as it should be.

I couldn’t work out how to tilt the view, until I accidentally tilted the iPhone and the whole image tilted. So sweet.

It’s just a shame I’m on the slowest iPhone carrier in the world.

It’s so easy to be caught up in fluff in ministry.

I have these words blu-tacced to the bottom of my monitor, from the lips of the very first Christian leaders:

ἡμεῖς δὲ τῇ προσευχῇ καὶ τῇ διακονίᾳ τοῦ λόγου προσκαρτερήσομεν.

which means,

“But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4)

(The bold is what’s emphasised in the Greek.)

I’m going to do some praying right now.

If I could make one global change to any aspect of church technology (that I’m annoyed about at this exact moment), it would be this:

I have seen approximately 450,000 videos made by churches, and most of them (read: ‘the ones from Aussie churches’) haven’t used a mic to record the voice of an interview subject.

They often have Flash animation (like at Engage), a great soundtrack (usually Christian ‘punk’. Not my favourite), impressive titles etc, but when it cuts to a person speaking, I can’t hear their voice.

And that’s a pretty mission-critical element of the video. If I can hear it, it’s hollow and quiet, and I can also hear birds, aeroplanes, the road behind the subject (please!), and all manner of other sounds that shouldn’t be represented.

Solution? Never, ever record an interview, informal or otherwise (vox pop etc) without using an external mic. The mic on the camera is not going to cut it.

Buy a shotgun mic. It sits on the top of the camera and only records sound from directly in front, where your interview subject is.

And don’t bother buying a video camera that doesn’t have a mic-in port.

re•cur•sive |riˈkərsiv|
adjective
characterized by recurrence or repetition, in particular relating to or involving the repeated application of a rule, definition, or procedure to successive results.

This is a good one because lots of the things Christians do in their thinking could be described as recursive.

For example, we read the Bible to understand God and his will, and from that we develop what we call a ’systematic theology’, a collection of beliefs on various topics. This is determined by the Bible, but it also shapes our understanding of the Bible, helping us to understand the Bible as a whole. This constant interplay is recursive.

This is how we live our lives. We act in accordance with our beliefs, but our beliefs are also modified by our experience, as we incorporate new understanding or feelings or whatever.

Can you college students (or others) think of other useful words for college?

* Warning: use these sparingly in the ‘real world’, if at all.

This is mainly a tribute to my boy Pete, an old school-friend, and an old-school friend, because he likes words. In a recent email, he used screed. Nice.

• Theodyssy - a defence of spiritual journeys.

• Pulp Faction - true journalism, but crap, to be sure. More. (Yes, it’s a phrase).
• Boganic - particularly feral, intrinsically so.

This looks very interesting. I’m not sure how it differs from flow-charting a biblical passage, but I’m definitely going to spend the time to learn how it works (~ 1.7MB vid loads automatically - not great design).

Any time spent focusing closely on the Word of God is precious and never wasted.

Via someone, via someone. Probably Craig.

They are going to sell a billion of these.

It’s no accident the screen looks like the iPhone. All hail the Halo Effect, mighty servant of capitalism.

Reckoner is amazing. (iTunes store link).

Beg/borrow/steal some good headphones, dial up the vol, and get completely lost.