God’s Glory Declared Daily in Spain

The following video is an amazing time-lapse of the skies over El Teide, the tallest mountain in Spain. I’m reminded of Psalm 19:1, which reads: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

How great is our God!
Dan & Anna J.

NoteSlate

There’s no good reason to want this as much as I do…

via NoteSlate /// intuitively simple monochrome paper alike tablet device.

The End Has Arrived

The first video on this page starts slowly, but if this is any indication of where we’ll be in about 5 years (technologically speaking), we’re all doomed.

“I’m on vacation,” will no longer be a sufficient excuse for the overworked employee; “I can only be one place at a time,” will lose its reliable final-appeal status; “I’m not a robot,” will be a plea of the past.

Or–and this is the optimist in me hoping against hope–those who are permanently homebound will now have a way to get “out and about,” and no one anywhere will turn this into a productivity-increasing, humanity-reducing machine.

Anyblog – Home

February’s Free Audiobook @ ChristianAudio

Adopted for Life

They do this every month, but I thought I’d post the link to this month’s selection: Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore. Anna and I have quite a few friends who have pursued adoption (and we’ve batted the idea around ourselves), and I thought this book looked like a helpful overview of the issues for Christians considering the same.

Check out a video interview with the author here.

Check out a helpful review here.

Download the audiobook for free from here.  (I’ll have a post in the near future regarding how to go about adding these books to a Kindle in such a way that the device recognizes chapter breaks, tags, etc.)

New Study @ MCC

Surprised by Hope

Every now and then we start a study at MCC that seems to be much more helpful than the average study.  This month, we started one of those studies.

N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope is one of those books that everyone kept recommending, and which I have sitting on my shelf, but which I haven’t quite got around to cracking open just yet.  I wish I had read it sooner.  The DVD study is wonderful, and I highly recommend it if you’re leading a small group or Bible study.  It’s available at a few places, but Amazon and CBD: Reformed seem to have the best prices on the resources.  (And I think only CBD carries the DVD.)

The study centers on the questions, (1) What is our hope? and (2) What are we doing about it in the meantime?  Wright has done a great job so far, and I’ll probably post a follow-up after we’re done with this study.  In any case, the study has already opened up some good discussion at our church about bringing hope (specifically, bringing the hope found only in Jesus Christ) to the children in our drug-riddled, abuse-filled area.

I’ll post in a video below the break in which N.T. Wright does a good job of laying some groundwork for the content of the rest of the study. Read more >>

Blank Bible Project (Updated)

One Thinline became five thick volumes.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have had a small project in the works.  I thought I’d post some photos and a brief explanation of the project today.  I’ve been working on a “blank Bible”–so named not because the Bible had all it’s words removed, but because it has many additional blank pages inserted for note-taking and outlining.  The idea is an old one, and there are plenty of Bibles available that do a better job of providing a quality-bound, wide-margin, note-taker’s Bible, but I thought it would still be a good use of an ESV I’ve had sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.  This particular ESV is the Thinline, and I picked it up at Costco for about $10 on a whim (which is a good deal considering its current price on Amazon).

If you want, you can click past the break for the pictures & project description.

Update: I added an electronic copy of the cover I created in Word.  The link is at the bottom of the article.

Read more >>

Hmmm…

So, this is teaser post Tuesday or something.  Keep an eye on the site as I’ll be putting up a posting detailing a recent project of mine: a blank Bible!  I saw a similar project over at Tony Reinke’s blog and decided it would be a good way to put a no-longer-used ESV to better use.

In the meantime, wonder with me at the reality of this Masonic Bible, discovered during a recent visit to Half-Price Books.

This really exists. I'm not sure how or why.

At least it had some excellent drawings of Solomon’s Temple.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

Sherlock Fans, Rejoice

When I interviewed for the position of pastor at MCC, I was asked what books I had been reading lately.  My first response was “Agatha Christie.”  They looked surprised, but I had to be honest, and usually you’ll find a good mystery in my reading pile.  Right now (between responsibilities) I’m sipping my way through P.D. James’ Cover Her Face, which is a pleasant tale of gruesome death.

I’d love to offer some grand theological support for my love of mystery.  I have always loved the mysteries of the faith, for instance.  I have found deep intellectual comfort in the mysterious Triune nature of God, or in the mystery of God’s providence working through our willing choices, or even the deep mystery of regeneration.  These please some part of me in a way that, say, questions of historical record do not.  In any case, I love mystery, and so I think you should too.  What’s that?  You don’t?  Well, then you’re just nutty. Read more >>

The Longest Birthday in the World

So, it’s taken some time to finish the floors and baseboard molding (moulding?) and painting, but it’s finally all done.  I thought I’d snap a few pictures of it before we move the furniture in, so you could see all of our (Anna’s?) hard work.  Actually, it was pretty joint-effort, which was nice.  I did most of the flooring and installing the baseboards, and Anna did all of the painting (because I’m very good at painting outside of the lines.  It’s not a marketable job-skill, but it gets me out of painting.)  We still need to install the transition pieces and make sure the doors are trimmed to fit over the freshly-raised floors, but that’s for another week.  Tonight, Anna’s helping me fill this room with desks and books–lots of books, carefully organized by LOC call numbers, because I am crazy.

Maybe I’ll do a post on how I’ve got my office set up once it’s ready to go, and then I’ll add a bunch of words like “GTD” and “productivity” and “maximum efficiency” and “lifehack” in order to get all of the “I need to be productive, so I’ll read the tubes all day to learn about productivity rather than actually working” traffic.  If what I just said makes no sense to you, then be thankful.  You probably get stuff done.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

Happy Birthday to Me

Peanut Says Hi

So tomorrow (10/5, if you’re keeping track) is my 30th birthday, and Anna got me a pretty special present–a new office with new flooring.  Actually, it’s her old office, but it’s larger than the one I’ve been using and it has some nice natural light.  I’ve basically been working in a small cave for the last four years.  Anna spent last week repainting the entire room in a nice shade of blue.  (I think it’s called “Misty Surf.”)  We spent today trying to put in new flooring.  Click through the break for pictures. Read more >>