A Novel Noel
I figured the Christmas season might be the perfect time to put an end to my long blog posting drought this year. For my resurrection post I’ve decided to share a novel idea for Christmas that a coworker shared with me a couple of years ago and would perhaps be particularly handy during a holiday season mired in a tough global recession. This idea is from the folks at Adventist Conspiracy, and what they’re suggesting is this: instead of participating in another round of the bankrupt/break-your-bank-account consumerism X-mas tradition, why not start celebrating CHRISTmas by participating in the tradition that Christ has left for us, i.e. giving to those in need?
“Then Jesus said to His host, ‘When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’ ” (Luke 14:12-14)
Although this passage is referring to “banquets” I’m sure you, like I, can see how easily the principle Jesus is teaching here translates into the modern day Christmas gift giving ritual. Here are 3 videos from Advent Conspiracy, the first one is the video I saw for the first time 2 years ago, the second is the 2009 update, and the third provides a snapshot of how rewarding the practice of this idea can be. I’d also consider it a shame for me not to tip my hat to the clever typographic animation and design used in the promo videos; so yah here…
So why not be proactive this Christmas in participating in a cause worthy of our money, especially during a time when we don’t have a lot of it to waste?
God “[Re:]ally” Exists
The Adventist brigade is on the move again with yet another effort to counter the skeptical claims of the today’s postmodern society concerning the existence of God, and to be honest I can’t begin to tell you how well-pleased and excited I am about what I’ve seen and read so far concerning this particular production. From what I gather from the producer’s website, this trailer is promoting the first in “a series of powerful shorts called [Re:], or The Reply, breaking down the God debate”. The host in this production is David Asscherick, one of my favorite speakers among Adventists and Evangelicals alike partly because of his gift of animation and articulation, but also because of his dedication to addressing secular and postmodern minds in a few of his evangelistic efforts.
Another thing I noticed from the trailer and the website is that product features great cinematography and design. This plays a huge role in my satisfaction because I am really big on seeing Christian productions packaged in the best aesthetic form possible, and from what I see they seem to be on the right track.
My copy of the first installment of this DVD series is already on order.
Find out more about it at this website: http://theenzyme.com
You can order the DVD directly here: http://theenzyme.com/Store.aspx
Since Adam
The battle concerning our origins rages on. Skeptics and promulgators of evolution are ever lifting their forceful and uncompromising voices against intelligent design with increasing intensity. Yet with all the hoopla, many still remain unconvinced that the beauty and genius that we see all around is the result of chance. They see in nature the handy work of a designer of titanic intellect. Many of us (a few billion) who share this world view have found in the Bible a sensible and reliable account of the origins of the human race and the races’ interaction with this great Designer. But few who share this world view have any idea of what the chronological and historical landscape since Adam (the first human to live) actually looks like according to the Bible.
My buddy from college, Dustin, has created an elegantly designed Flash application that visually depicts the life spans of Old Testament characters on a virtual timeline that begins at the year zero with Adam, and ends with Jesus.
One of my favorite features of this app is the ability to copy a snippet of the timeline and embed into your website or blog like a Youtube video (as I have done above). When selecting an area that you want embed from the timeline the app lets you choose and in and out point, and when the timeline loads into your website it will animate from that start point to the out point that you have set. Another cool aspect of this application is that it is tied to a blog where select users have entered their thoughts and observations relevant to the timeline and the characters therein. When you click on name in the timeline a window appears that lets you see all of the posts relevant to that person.
Now enough of all this talk. Go see it for yourself at once: http://sinceadam.com
Holy Spirit (46 degrees) Music Video
This video was the final project for my introductory video editing class that I took during my second to last semester in college. I shot most of the footage last minute in the cold Michigan December. Ironically the song speaks of the weather being 46 degrees outside, but on the day we shot the video it was precisely 20 degrees colder than that (26 degrees)! Though the project was edited and burned onto a DVD just minutes before I had to present it in class, the teacher said for an intro class that he had no negative critique of the project save the fact that I forgot to clean off some dirt on the lens of the camera on a few shots. The project also earned a 3rd place award in my departments end of the year gallery which was supposedly judged by local professional videographers. Yet there is no doubt that the final out come of this project was a bit crude and unpolished and could have been much better if we had more time and if we weren’t all as busy as we were.
Ezra and Geoffrey (Flow Track Star), the artist featured in this video, are both good friends of mine that go way back. Geoffrey and I go back to our scrappy high school years, and Ezra and I go back to before our conception (Our mothers’ were roommates in college).
I could say a lot of other good things about these characters but you can find out more for yourselves by visiting their music pages on Myspace:
Ezra: http://www.myspace.com/ezraseven
Geoffrey: http://www.myspace.com/flowtrackstar
A Better Way to Live
A couple of months ago It Is Written launched a new web initiative called A Better Way to Live. This microsite provides a new video devotional by Shawn Boonstra each of the 5 work days every week (that equals approximately 240 morning devotionals every year). These devotions are on average only 3 minutes long, and are designed to give busy people an added “spiritual boost”.What makes this website extra special to me is that I given the task of designing and developing the custom player on the website (The overall site design and css was developed by my co-worker, while most of the back-end functionality was handled by our programmer using the Drupal content management system). While building a custom Flash video player wasn’t something new for me coming into this project, like my previous Flash project for It Is Written, the vision for A Better Way to Live demanded me to cover some uncharted territory.
The new custom player features the ability to provide users with code to embed a particular devotion into their website (as I have done above), the ability to email a devotion to a friend, and (my personal favorite) the ability to watch the devotion fullscreen (this feature is only available at the home website: www.itiswritten.com/betterway). All these features are made available within the Flash video player via the option button on the bottom left. While these features are old news in today’s web, I thought this undertaking was special since not too many Christian ministries have yet taken advantage of some these new and powerful Flash-based features.
All the same, my hope is that you (the reader of this post) do find an opportunity to take advantage of this devotional site. I myself have already found some these simple devotions to be enriching and encouraging. In the “midst of a crooked and perverse” world we can use all the help we can get to turn our minds heavenward. “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” Isaiah 6:3 nkjv.