Lost in Translation

I just ran across a good source of material for missionaries, especially if you have a Kindle (see my previous posts on the Kindle for conversion of files to a Kindle-readable format).

Missionary ETexts

They say the following on their website:

"Our emphasis is on missionaries whose spiritual lives or missionary experiences are of potential value to us today. This is motivated by Paul's teaching concerning the value of following the example of worthy lives (Phil. 3:17)."

I don't know about you, but I like their focus, and I'm sure I can find much good reading material for the future on their site.

I just presented a 50 minutes session today in two missions classes at Faith Baptist Bible College on graphic arts for missionaries. If you're interesting in the topic, you can download the two sets of notes I used:

Basic Design Concepts by Dr. Wayne Haston

Graphic Arts for Missionaries by Jonathan Boyd

I didn't want to forget where this tool is located on the web... It's fantastic for getting a color scheme that impacts. I've just been thinking about designing a church website, so I was looking at some color schemes. Oh, it's also a fun toy.

Color scheme designer

I just ran across a site that offers free-of-charge hymns that are Christ-centered. I've only sung "His Robes for Mine," but it brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful piece!

Church Works Media

We used Innovative Graphics for our first prayer card, and Nate Horton did a great job. I was thinking about using his services again, but a missionary told me about a way to do it myself. Note: I'm a second termer now, so I tend to think more about the budget (if I spend less on the cards I can spend a little more on conferences this year).

I designed our new card in Photoshop Elements. The key is to use large images and set them to a resolution of 300 DPI. We had to get a copyright release from Target to be able to use the photo for our prayer card. The only other thing that I had to learn about is that they should be formatted in CYMK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key [black]) for printing, rather than RGB (which is for graphics on your screen). Photoshop Elements can't do that, but the Copyworks in Ames has the full version of Photoshop which can easily convert the file.

Once the design was ready, I went to Overnight Prints (thanks Jim Leonard for telling me about this site!). 1,000 glossy cards only cost $115 plus shipping!

Here's the front of our new card:

I have several goals for this home assignment year that have to do with organization. So far I've been doing well at improving. I thought that I'd mention two tools that I think are helpful:

1) You Need A Budget (YNAB): I bought the Excel version of this software about two months ago. So far it's been working wonders on our budgeting. The software is simple. Each month you allocate all of your money to different categories and then track your spending. To make the budget work you need to spend last month's income, so you need to have a buffer of one month's pay. This tactic makes living off of a variable income more manageable. I've never stuck to a budget very well before, but we're doing great so far. The only problem will be dealing with two currencies in Colombia... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

2) Getting Things Done by David Allen: This book is great! It's teaching me how to organize my life into a coherent system so that I don't lose things and waste so much time. My problem before was that I had systems for some things but not for everything. This book teaches you to manage the "stuff" that comes into your life in one system.

We´ve been teaching a class on hermeneutics in church on Friday nights. It´s been a lot of fun. We just covered textual criticism and Bible versions in Spanish. José and I are hoping to upload the whole course to our church website in the future.

The course also reminded me of a professor whom I´ve never had but who has taught me a lot. Rodney Decker is a professor at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. You can access his valuable website here. I also just ran across the faculty site for Thomas Schreiner, who is a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His commentary on Romans is my favorite for that book (and Romans is my strongest suit in commentaries).

I just ran across two free resources on internet. First, the Peacemaker brochure is available as a free download on their website. If you haven´t heard of Peacemaker Ministries, you need to look at their materials because they are a real blessing for developing a culture of peace in the church. Their website is www.peacemaker.net. and you can access the brochure at Peacemaker materials in other languages

The other site is The Gospel Coalition which now has Themelios Journal online for free. I perused the issue online and read one good article on the definition of "mission," a topic that is of great importance. What is "mission"? For many it has become only the Missio Dei or the social mandate, but the author argues that "mission" should be defined by the Great Commission. Good stuff!