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Archive for June 2007
"Ordinary" People as Theologians
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 8:49 AM by Jason Barker
Mike Aquilina has written an article about the need for modern Christians to be theologians (rather than leaving the study of theology exclusively to clergy and professional academics). As an example, he turns to St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Christians of the fourth century:
In the middle of the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nyssa gave in to a fit of complaint. Ordinary people, he said, were spending entirely too much time talking about theology. “Mere youths and tradesmen, off-hand dogmatists in theology, servants too, and slaves that have been flogged … are solemn with us and philosophical about things incomprehensible … If you ask for change someone philosophizes to you on the begotten and the unbegotten.”
And the problem followed poor Gregory all over the marketplace. If he asked the baker the price of his bread, he got Trinitarian doctrine instead. If he asked whether the bath was ready, he got still more speculation.
Gosh, times have changed. Not too long ago, a friend of mine ordered a Christmas cake to read “Happy birthday, Jesus,” and the baker asked her how that name was spelled.
Today we live with widespread doctrinal ignorance, and reading St. Gregory’s complaint can be irritating — like listening to a friend gripe about having too much money or a spouse who cooks too well.
We live in a time when theology is an esoteric academic discipline practiced by very few Christians and of little interest to the bakers and bankers.
Christians of the fourth century knew better.
Aquilina's point is not that St. Gregory was wrong to lament the prevalence of Arianism and the debate it inspired, but rather that there is a tremendous value for Christians to - in a phrase I heard (and used) many times as a Protestant - "know what you believe and why you believe it." As Aquilina says, "Theology is not just for the elites. It’s a basic life skill. St. Gregory himself knew this, and that’s why he wrote one of the Church’s first catechisms."
Aquilina is a Roman Catholic, and therefore a few of his specific references - e.g., EWTN - may be unfamiliar to Orthodox readers, but his article nonetheless makes a very good point for Orthodox Christians.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Recover Lost Word Documents
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 1:17 PM by Jason Barker
Kyle Pott of Lifehacker writes about an article explaining how to recover lost Microsoft Word documents (in Windows). Pott says:
Maker of data-recovery applications Ease Us offers several approaches to resurrecting a lost Word document. The tutorial goes from the obvious -- look in the Recycle Bin -- to more complex searches, like looking for a backup file with the WBK extension, to looking for files that start with a tilde (~), plus a few more. They sprinkle in several recommendations to use their shareware apps, but if you ignore these, there are quite a few good tips you can try next time a Word document goes MIA on your PC.
Recovering deleted files can be lifesaver. My favorite freeware file recovery program for Windows is Brian Kato's Restoration. It isn't perfect - no application is - but it is remarkably effective for a simple and free application.
Edited on: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 1:17 PMPosted in Miscellaneous
Luke on Hiatus for New Projects
Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 at 12:36 PM by Jason Barker
The Department of Youth Ministry decided this weekend to put The Journey: An Interactive Study of the Gospel According to St. Luke on hiatus until sometime next year. While progress was occurring on the project, the fact that the 2007 Bible Bowl competitions have now started means that far fewer of the teens in the Antiochian Archdiocese will be looking at the study in the near future. We therefore decided to put Luke on hiatus for the rest of the year while I work on two exciting new projects.
The first new project is another interactive Bible study application - Life Together: An Interactive Study of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. This study will launch in November, and therefore will be the first of my studies to be available for study groups to use in the winter and spring before the Bible Bowl competitions. In addition to the wide array of articles, graphics, and handouts for which my Bible studies are known, Life Together will contain new audio and video elements. Furthermore, with Life Together the Youth Department will launch a new program for Orthodox study groups: for a small (and yet to be determined) donation, I will email on a weekly schedule personalized copies of our full-color handouts to each teen in participating parishes. In addition to the personalized handouts, the weekly emails will contain a short summary of the material in that chapter of 1 Corinthians, and will encourage the teen to participate in your parish's study group and/or youth activities. This program will be available for parishes in all Orthodox jurisdictions.
The second new project in which I will engage will be a new radio program for an Orthodox Christian media ministry. This program will be part of an exciting new partnership between this Orthodox ministry and the Department of Youth Ministry (I am currently not naming the ministry because a formal announcement of the partnership has not been made). In addition to partnering on Life Together and future interactive studies, I will create a radio program - to launch in September - focused on teen Bible study (this will be the first Orthodox radio program created specifically for teen listeners). As an additional resource, each episode of the radio program will also have available a handout that listeners can download to participate in the study.
This summer will therefore be spent beginning work on these two new projects. To keep up-to-date on these projects, as well as learning more about both our partnership with the Orthodox media ministry and the upcoming program for emailing personalized handouts on 1 Corinthians, you can subscribe to this blog by either bookmarking our RSS feed or signing up for the email version by entering your email address in the "Subscribe by Email" box in the right sidebar of the blog's homepage.
Posted in Bible Studies
Forbes Article About Caesarea
Posted on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at 6:24 PM by Jason Barker
Forbes recently published an article about the author's visit to Caesarea, an ancient city built by Herod the Great and dedicated to Caesar Augustus. The city is prominent in the Acts of the Apostles.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Giving Increases Happiness
Posted on Saturday, June 16, 2007 at 11:17 AM by Jason Barker
The Dallas Morning News linked to an article about a University of Oregon study in the new field of neureconomics which concluded that donating money to a charity activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure. The findings are not restricted only to financial giving, but also to virtuous living. Manya Brachear writes:
Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, told me the findings speak not only to generosity but virtue. The study supports the theory that humans who strive to be virtuous are actually honing happier lives and better relationships, he said.
Scientists are puzzled as to why humans feel the need to give to others, and why they derive pleasure from such giving:
As for why humans would develop a desire to help others, the researchers can only speculate. "One basic is that early humans lived in small groups, where survival of the group helped your own cause," Mayr said. "But that still leaves the question of why you might care why someone in Africa is starving, how this particular mechanism becomes overgeneralized."
Christians, however, recognize such a life as a divine imperative, as just a small selections of biblical passages demonstrate:
- God Himself is generous (Matthew 7:7-11).
- It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
- Generosity is rewarded by God (Proverbs 11:25; Matthew 25:34-40).
I've written before about ways in which you can donate to the Orthodox Christian Network and Ancient Faith Radio, and the Department of Youth Ministry can always use your donations of money and/or time to serve God and others.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Christian Education Beyond Sunday School
Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 at 10:52 AM by Jason Barker
Fr. Gregory Jensen links to another blog article discussing an article in a recent Christianity Today about the way in which Christian churches approach Christian education. Mark Galli (the author of the Christianity Today article) uses as the foundation for his argument yet another article from Theology Today discussing the fact that, under current educational strategies (particularly in Protestant churches), religious education is largely the attempt to transmit intellectual knowledge: "Understood this way, knowledge is perceived as a kind of repository of neutral facts, and the mastery of these facts constitutes the process and the ultimate goal of coming to know." Instead of a largely intellectual approach to Christian education, Debra Dean Murphy argues in Theology Today, churches must understand that true knowledge is to be transformed through "the praise and adoration of God within the eucharistic fellowship of the body of Christ gathered together in worship."
I mention these articles, not to imply that these articles in any way reflect upon the excellent work of the Department of Christian Education in the Antiochian Archdiocese or the pan-jurisdictional Orthodox Christian Education Commission, but instead because they bring to mind a serious danger of Bible study: the tendency to make Bible study an individual intellectual pursuit rather than a communal spiritual discipline.
Bible studies for youth - as with those for most adults - must be more than simply the transmission of data. A simple perusal of the titles given to my Bible studies - Follow Me; The Journey; See the Vision; Be Transformed - gives an indication of the intent of the studies (both individually and collectively): transformation through a worshipful relationship with God and His Church. While there are any number of intellectual components in my work - and cognitive strategies informing these components - the focus is always on growth as a Christian, rather than simply the memorization of facts. It is for this reason that my studies are not simply a collection of summaries and quizzes - although the studies contain these - but also include numerous articles on Orthodox faith and worship, and life application. Furthermore, these studies always encourage the individual to become ever more deeply involved with - and committed to - the Body of Christ.
At the same time, while avoiding "over-intellectualizing" Bible study, we must avoid "under-intellectualizing" it. There are any number of modern "Bible studies" that, instead of studying the Bible, simply use the biblical text as a launching point for the delicate art of navel gazing, endlessly discussing one's feelings rather than the text itself. Bible-related activity that effectively promotes biblical ignorance is arguably even more damaging than biblical study that focuses exclusively on data transmission: a person might still be reached by a cold recitation of facts, whereas a person is very unlikely to grow in his or her relationship with God when the focus is away from Him and the Scripture He gave.
In another writing I stated the ideal for which I aim when creating Bible studies (I've removed the paranthetical citations):
A full reading of the biblical text, with its incorporation of scholarship and academic methodologies, should not be contrasted with - or opposed to - reading for life application or devotional reading. As this general approach demonstrates, both are vital to comprehension of the text: reading devotionally without understanding the background or context of the text results in the individual constructing “a new sacred calf” that is molded by a hunger for comfort or desire for the control of familiarity. Conversely, an academic reading without devotion to the God revealed in the text results in God being diminished into a mere concept over which the reader has control. The function of the instructor is to “urge [learners] to creatively and actively perform the reading role in such a way that personal and social life (theirs, ours, our neighbors, even our enemies) is informed and (by grace) transformed into an encounter with God” through the text.
Edited on: Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:40 PMPosted in Miscellaneous
Unicode on Windows XP
Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 10:16 AM by Jason Barker
From Biblical Software Review, I learned about a post on SansBlogue discussing using Unicode on Windows XP. This is important if you use biblical languages in your writing.
I previously mentioned an article from Tyndale Tech about using biblical language fonts and Unicode, and also have written about InsertBible, a free tool for incorporating Unicode fonts when using biblical langauges in Word 2003 for Windows.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Online Strategies for Parents
Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 10:14 AM by Jason Barker
CNet has a special article listing strategies parents can employ for, as the article is entitled, "Developing safe and smart Internet citizens." The strategies are developed according to age group. For example, concerning teens ages 13-15, the article states:
At this age, parents should assume their kids are interacting online--using IM, e-mail, text messaging--on a PC at home, at school, or at a friend's house. This is the age when online and, possibly, offline encounters with strangers are the biggest problem; kids in this age group admit to meeting strangers offline and typically don't consider such behavior a risk. Cyberbullying also changes to sexual harassment at this age, according to Aftab.
She advises that parents work on developing their child's "filter between the ears."
The article then goes on to give specific guidelines for handling Internet activity for members of this age group. The same is done for other age groups through age 16 and above.
Posted in Online Resources
Ancient Faith Radio Offer for New Supporters
Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 2:55 PM by Jason Barker
Ancient Faith Radio is currently offering a special gift to new supporters who give any amount: a free copy of the Wisdom of the Saints: Humility CD from The Orthodox Project. Click here to make a donation to Ancient Faith Radio.
Speaking of The Orthodox Project, I just became aware that they offer a podcast featuring teaching from Dn. Michael Hyatt (who in addition to being a deacon at St. Ignatius Orthodox Church in Franklin, TN is also CEO of Thomas Nelson).
Posted in Orthodox News
Rome Reborn
Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 12:25 PM by Jason Barker
From Mike
Aqulina's blog I learned about an
article published yesterday by Reuters about Rome
Reborn, a virtual model of Rome at its peak of one million people
under St. Constantine the Great. The notional date of the model is June
21, 320 A.D. The article says,
Brainchild of the University of Virginia's Bernard Frischer, Rome Reborn (www.romereborn.virginia.edu) will eventually show its evolution from Bronze Age hut settlements to the Sack of Rome in the 5th century AD and the devastating Gothic Wars.
The simulation will be opened in a theater near the Colosseum, but information and some images are available at the website linked above.
Posted in Online Resources
Three Strengths of Orthodoxy for Teens
Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 10:59 AM by Jason Barker
In the current episode of Come Receive the Light, Chuck Powell lists three strengths of Orthodox Christianity for teens. To summarize:
- The Orthodox View of God - God is an all-loving and personal God.
- The Orthodox View of Creation - God's created world is a good thing.
- The Orthodox View of Salvation - Salvation consists of communion and unity with God. Christ destroyed the obstacles that prevent communion.
Click here to download the MP3 of this episode. The episode features an interview with Ninos Oshaana, the founder of The Orthodox Circle (about which I briefly wrote in another post).
Posted in Online Resources
Online Lexicons
Posted on Monday, June 11, 2007 at 11:00 AM by Jason Barker
The current edition of David Instone-Brewer's indispensible Tyndale Tech newsletter discusses online lexicons for biblical studies. Instone-Brewer particularly recommends his own Tyndale Archive of Biblical Studies, which contains public domain lexicons of Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic, biblical Hebrew, Coptic and Syriac. He also recommends 2LetterLookup, which links to his lexicons as well as a number of others (including an Akkadian lexicon).
Posted in Online Resources
St. Cyril of Alexandria
Posted on Saturday, June 09, 2007 at 9:28 AM by Jason Barker
Today is the feast day of St. Cyril of Alexandria. The Troparion and Kontakion are here.
I am incorporating St. Cyril's commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke into the study on Luke. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you can find St. Cyril's commentary in several different formats here.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Enforcing Reading
Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 at 9:50 AM by Jason Barker
Today's Frazz comic makes an important point about reading: youth are more likely to engage in the process when it is self-initiated and self-selected. This is not, of course, to disparage the importance of assigning reading: as an Orthodox writer and teacher, and the spouse of a children's literature professor, it would be foolish and hypocritical of me to disparage the role of authority in the learning process. At the same time, it is important to recognize that youth engage in learning with greater enthusiasm, and ultimately with greater efficacy, when they choose to learn.
That is a crucial reason for the emphasis I place on the design of my Bible studies. For one thing, youth are accustomed to their learning materials being packaged in increasingly more sophisticated packaging. While it would be wonderful if youth were attracted to materials only by the content to be found therein, and while it is extremely important to never let the design overwhelm (or even worse, replace) the content, we must recognize that youth are far less likely to engage with educational materials that lack an attractive design.
Another - and far more important point - is that youth are far more likely to engage in Bible study when they believe that the content will be relevant to their lives. The designs I create for my Bible studies are deliberately intended to emphasize the relevance of the biblical text to modern life. Therefore, the study on Luke uses a travel theme to emphasize the point of journeying through life with Christ, and the study on Acts uses a newspaper theme to make clear that the truths in that biblical book are not relegated to past events, but continue to impact us today. I strive to ensure that the design does not become the focus of the studies, but the designs are nonetheless quite intentional in their function.
The point of all this is to try to create Bible studies that youth want to study, and not solely materials that authority figures force them to study. This is particularly important for youth who are growing up in families and/or communities where there is little or no emphasis on Bible study. In order to demostrate to youth that Bible study is both desirable and effective, we must find ways to facilitate youth Bible study without negatively impacting the content - and therefore the impact - of the studies.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Orthodoxy Now
Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 at 1:40 PM by Jason Barker
Reading the latest issue of The Word, I learned about Orthodoxy Now, an Orthodox Christian television program in Pittsburgh. The program is hosted by Kweilin Nassar and John Righetti.
Episodes of the program are online (viewing requires the QuickTime plugin).
Posted in Online Resources
Popularity and True Success
Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 at 1:03 PM by Jason Barker
I live in largely rural southeastern Oklahoma - as of 2006 there were only 38,395 people in my county, which by way of comparison is only 5.5 percent of the population in Fort Worth (my former hometown) alone. As a result, the types of radio stations to which I prefer to listen - primarily classical and jazz - are unavailable. I therefore listen to Internet streams from KUAT and WGMC (as well, of course, as The Ark and Ancient Faith Radio).
I say all this, not to bemoan the cultural sacrifices one makes when living in a small town (although my wife would point out that I do plenty of that), but to note that classical and jazz stations are unavailable here - as they are in much of the country - because they are simply not popular enough to be financially viable. This was called to mind when I read today's post on KUAT's Cue Sheet blog on the financial and listener success of the format change of Washington, D.C.'s WETA back to its original classical format. The writer comments on this success:
This is very nice...but let’s not forget that the purpose of public radio is not to earn big ratings and make lots of money in pledge drives. It’s to serve the otherwise unserved, and, frankly, that’s not an inherently lucrative or popular mission.
This comment really resonated with me because Orthodox Christian ministry is "not an inherently lucrative or popular mission." Only someone unfamiliar with Orthodoxy in North America would mistake Orthodox work with a path to fame and fortune; it is instead almost a guarantee of (admittedly relative) obscurity and a lack of affluence. I - and other Orthodox layworkers and clergy - do not engage in the ministries to which we are called because we will become wealthy or famous, but because we are called to faithfully serve others. This point was particularly brought home to me during Divine Liturgy last Sunday, the Sunday of All Saints, where the Epistle reading was from Hebrews 11 (I'm quoting verses 35-40):
Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
This passage is a powerful antidote to our contemporary North American financial and popularity-oriented definition of ministerial success. First, these saints did not receive temporal acclaim and riches: they suffered greatly in their lives. At the same time, this wasn't pointless suffering: their lives were given for God, and they are now the "great cloud of witnesses" who watch and support our Christian lives (Hebrews 12:1). Furthermore, look at the writer's statement about perfection: both the earlier and later generations of God's servants are perfected together - all Christian lives, and all Christian service, is essential for the salvation of others.
When I became an Orthodox catechumen, I needed to resign my staff position with an Evangelical Protestant ministry. While I was still able to do some contract design work for the ministry, I was no longer able to write, teach, or speak at churches or with the media, and no longer was editor of the magazine (the magazine was driven into the ground by my successor). Losing that steady income was a real blow, but it was even more difficult to give up the position for which I had worked for years to attain (and if anything worked even harder while I held it).
Some of the people I know in Evangelical circles - and, even more to my regret, some Orthodox friends and acquaintances - think that it is absurd to work in Orthodox lay education, where I am paid very little and where I see far fewer measurable results (i.e., money and numbers) than I did working in Evangelical ministry. I will not pretend that it is always easy - at times, in fact, it has been a tremendous struggle, and the lack of significant income from the many hours of work (and added need for resources) is always a strain on our budget - but I nonetheless am always struck when I read Hebrews 11 both by the fact that my struggles are truly nothing compared to what so many of the saints have endured, and by the fact that even my struggles play a role in God's work for His people. Those occasions when I hear from someone about how they have used my Bible studies or other works are a tremendous blessing to me, and help me keep a proper perspective on my work and life. Furthermore, I know that other layworkers and clergy feel the same way.
Take a moment today to thank someone whose sacrifices help you with your life with God and His Church.
Posted in Jason Barker
Updated Version of the Romans Application
Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 at 1:36 PM by Jason Barker
An individual using Be Transformed: An Interactive Study of the Epistle to the Romans wrote that she was having trouble opening some of the commentaries (specifically, the commentaries did not appear at all in her browser).
I was unable to discover the cause of this specific problem, but did learn that at least one version of the Shockwave player that has been released since Be Transformed was released in early 2005 was having trouble rendering some objects on the screen (particularly labels for some headers and buttons). This might have interfered with the button scripts. I also noticed that the popup blocker in the latest version of Firefox was preventing external files from opening.
I've tweaked the button scripts, altered some of the headers to work with the new rendering format, and placed a popup notice on the application's webpage, and have uploaded the updated version of the application.
Please let me know if you experience any problems with the updated application.
Posted in Bible Studies
New Youth Worker Positions
Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 at 1:29 PM by Jason Barker
A number of youth worker positions are currently open in parishes in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. To learn more, contact:
V. Rev. Dr. Joseph F Purpura
Department of Youth Ministry
PO Box 389 Westwood MA 02090
Office: 1-781-461-1757
Cell: 1-617-803-5567
You can also send email to Fr. Joseph using the contact form on the Department of Youth Ministry's homepage.
Posted in Youth Department
Youth Director Position
Posted on Monday, June 04, 2007 at 12:20 PM by Jason Barker
St. Elijah Antiochian Orthodox Church in Oklahoma City is looking for a Youth Director.
Posted in Orthodox News
"Why Free is the Best Online Policy"
Posted on Monday, June 04, 2007 at 11:19 AM by Jason Barker
AppScout, part of the PC Magazine network of sites, posted a short article late last week about Chris Anderson's (editor of Wired Magazine) argument that the best business model for online content is to give it away for free. The article summarizes Anderson's position:
"When you lower the barrier of entry to almost nothing, you hugely increase the number of people who will participate," Anderson said. He went on to note that because the cost of distributing information on the Web is almost free (copying it, reproducing it, and sending it out), online business are able to build successful revenue models by advertising on their sites instead of charging users a fee.
While my work with these Orthodox Christian Bible Studies is a non-profit ministry rather than a for-profit business, Anderson's statement is nonetheless quite applicable to this website. The Department of Youth Ministry very deliberately does not charge anything to use these studies so that almost everyone in our target demographic (i.e., teens) has access to this material without finances being an obstacle. Most teens in North America have access to the Internet: According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, in 2005 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 were online (that number has almost certainly gone up in the last 1.5 years). Because our Bible studies are available for free, most youth have access to the material in their home and/or school or public library without being restricted from the content by an inability to pay.
A key difference between our non-profit model and the for-profit model described by Anderson is that we are not attempting to make a profit on our material (trust me, anyone who thinks I make money from the almost full-time I put into this work is very, Very, VERY mistaken), and thus do not feature paid advertising on our site. We do not want any conflation by users between our study of Holy Scripture and products or services that are for sale. We take very seriously Christ's admonition in Matthew 10:8, "Freely you have received, freely give."
As important as this principle is to us, this does not mean that it is possible for every feature and service we will offer in the future to always be completely free. For example, in our upcoming study on 1 Corinthians, we are going to make available to parishes a special feature: we will create personalized group study handouts for each teen in your youth group or Bible study, and email one handout to each teen per week, with a summary in the email of the content and an encouragement to that teen to participate in your youth group or Bible study. We will need to ask for a small donation (at this time undetermined) from participating parishes to pay for the software and services we will need - and do not currently have - to make this feature possible.
At the same time, this is the only feature in the study for which we will ask any money: the multimedia application, including the quizzes and non-personalized group study handouts (like those we have now) will remain freely available. If you want personalized material for your youth, you can give a very small amount for that material, or you can use the standard material for no cost.
Of course, the fact that this material is free for you to use does not mean that it costs nothing for us to produce. There are such unavoidable expenses for the Department of Youth Ministry as hosting and bandwidth charges, as well as the cost of occasionally upgrading the software needed to produce this material. Please click here if you would like to donate to support this ministry.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Metropolitan SABA Visits Houston
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007 at 1:05 PM by Jason Barker
The Houston Chronicle has an article about the visit of Metropolitan SABA, Archbishop of Hauran, to St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston. The article also discusses the Orthodox Church in Syria.
Some readers might recognize St. George as the parish at which Fr. Joseph Honeycutt, host of the Orthodixie blog and podcast, is a priest.
Posted in Orthodox News
Orthodox Radio News
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 at 5:04 PM by Jason Barker
I am reposting this information because the original post seems to have disappeared from the blog database.
First, the Orthodox Christian Network has announced that a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous is offering to match all donations through the summer. This is an excellent opportunity to increase the effectiveness of your support for the OCN (creators of Come Receive the Light and The Ark, and soon The Rudder), particularly during the summer, when donations to most non-profit organizations drop significantly. Click here to donate to the OCN.
Second, Ancient Faith Radio has uploaded an MP3 interview by Fr. Tom Soroka (host of The Path podcast) with station founder and director John Maddex. Of particular interest is the future goal of offering two channels for Ancient Faith Radio: one playing liturgical music, and one playing Orthodox talk.
Posted in Orthodox News
Youth Worker Application Now Available
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 at 4:45 PM by Jason Barker
The application for youth workers on which I spent this winter and spring, YouthWorker V3, has now been released.
If you are an Orthodox youth worker, you can contact Fr. Joseph Purpura in the Department of Youth Ministry for more information.
Posted in Youth Department