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Archive for August 2007
Prediction: Internet Content-on-Demand will Destroy Television
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 6:45 PM by Jason Barker
A not-particularly original prediction, but the Dallas Morning News' Tech blog links to an article in The Guardian about Vint Cerf. Cerf predicts that the ability to download programming on demand will irrevocably change the way programs are watched.
This is significant for all new media providers, including Orthodox media ministries. While basic production and bandwidth costs are still a significant issue, the Internet is rapidly doing away with the difficulties inherent in choosing (and funding) distribution channels.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Little Blogging This Week
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 10:01 AM by Jason Barker
I will do very little - if any (beyond this post) - blogging this week. I have a far-above-average workload for the week, and thus will not have time to write articles for the blog. If possible, I'll upload a link or two to articles I come across on the Web that are of interest.
If all goes well, I'll have some big things to show you next week.
Posted in Jason Barker
Evangelical Converts to Orthodoxy
Posted on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 2:15 PM by Jason Barker
The New Republic has an interesting article - one that is understandably making the rounds in Orthodox circles - about Evangelical Protestant converts to Orthodox Christianity. While the focus is primarily on Fr. Wilbur Ellsworth and Holy Transfiguration Antiochian Orthodox Church in Warrenville, IL, many of the points in the article are relevant to many converts to Orthodoxy.
Posted in Orthodox News
Mac Freeware for Seminarians
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 8:49 AM by Jason Barker
A student at an evangelical Protestant seminary created a list of freeware for OS X that he believes is indispensible for seminary students. The article is a somewhat standard list of some of the popular free applications for the Mac, with - quite naturally - a bit more emphasis on applications for writing (like Journlr, which I do not use, and Books, which I do (but in which I've so far only entered a few books)).
As regular readers of this blog know, I write somewhat frequently (see here and here) about free and open source software I use on my Mac, and strongly encourage parishes and ministries to utilize FOSS as an effective way of reducing overhead without sacrificing usefulness and productivity.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Greg Floor Quintet
Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 9:09 AM by Jason Barker
I've mentioned before that my favorite musical genres are classical and jazz. While working on program descriptions for the Orthodox Christian Network, I saw that the Featured Artist Block for The ARK next week will highlight the the Greg Floor Quintet, a jazz group.
You can purchase the Quintet's The Grand Inquisitor and Uphill...Both Ways - and hear sample tracks - from St. Romanos Records.
Posted in Miscellaneous, OCN
Teens Producing Media
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2007 at 9:57 AM by Jason Barker
CNet published an interview on Friday with Henry Jenkins about youth using the Internet. The interview covered a wide range of topics, but I was struck by a statistic regarding teens and online media creation: 57 percent of teens online have produced media, and approximately 33 percent have created media that they shared beyond their small circle of family and friends. Jenkins notes that the majority of this content consists primarily of remixes of already existing media, but the involvement level is nonetheless significant.
I wrote some time ago about the possibility - in fact, the desirability - of Orthodox youth groups creating audio and/or video content that they submit for inclusion in my Bible studies. I have long thought that this would be a good way to involve Orthodox teens in the creation of these studies, and Jenkins' statistics simply reinforce this belief. Unfortunately, at this point no youth group has engaged in such a project, but I hope that groups will participate in this work in the future (you can contact me via email or IM using the buttons on the top of the left sidebar is you are interested).
Beyond these Bible studies, the possibilities for youth-created Orthodox media content are endless. The Orthodox Christian Network has a formal partnership with leaders of Teen SOYO, and I know they have discussed teen involvement in radio programming. I've suggested in the past that youth groups could create videos that could be uploaded to YouTube (or possibly the new GodTube). Groups could create podcasts for their individual parishes, or could band together to create content for their dioceses. The possibilities are almost unlimited.
What can you and your youth group create to share Orthodox Christianity with others on the Internet?
Posted in Miscellaneous
Study Guide Available
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 at 8:30 AM by Jason Barker
The study guide I've created for the current episode of Come Receive the Light is available for download.
Edited on: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 11:28 AMPosted in OCN
Popularity and Orthodox Media
Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 9:52 AM by Jason Barker
A blog about classical music recently looked at the long-standing claim that classical music is dying (i.e., that its listenership is disappearing, and thus the music is becoming an unsustainable artform). The writer makes a cogent point:
Basically: people who say classical music is dying are doing so, in large part, because they don’t think that classical music generates enough of a bandwagon effect...A lot of this arises from a comparison with pop, and is usually follwed by a prescription to present and market classical music more like pop culture. Pop culture dominates the market because it generates lots of bandwagon effect—it’s designed to. (Think of the way Hollywood blockbusters are marketed, and the way they open in thousands of theaters to maximize the return on their short-lived bandwagons.) Unless it can follow suit, it’s claimed, classical music will be left hopelessly in the dust.
There’s almost always an accompanying argument that classical music must be dying because it’s lost the competition for mindshare/media attention/cultural relevance. The concept is similar to another economic idea, a close relative of bandwagons. It’s called a network effect...critics will say that classical music doesn’t really matter anymore, because only a small portion of the potential audience listens to it.
He goes on to ask two questions: 1) Are there enough organizations, musicians, listeners, etc., for classical music to remain economically viable (he answers, "Yes"); and 2) Is the ultimate value of an artistic pursuit necessarily dependent on its ability to generate network effects? He answers:
The second question, in reality, isn’t economic at all. It’s philosophical. And this is why this argument has gone on, and will go on, for so, so long. There’s no way to prove that question one way or another—either you believe that art has an intrinsic value regardless of the size of its audience, or you don’t.
Rudolf Serkin, infamously, once played the entirety of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as an encore. “When I finished,” he remembered, “there were only four people left in the hall—Adolph Busch, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Einstein and myself.” Did the value of Serkin’s recital dwindle along with the number listening? Hardly. My sanguine view of the survival of classical music is reflected in that illustrious trio staying in their seats. There will always be an audience whose demand for the music will remain purely functional, immune to fads, buzz, trends, what have you. Will it be smaller than the audience for this month’s pop sensation? Probably. Does that matter? Nope.
In this post I'm not concerned with the intrinsic value of art - although I emphatically believe that there is an intrinsic value - but rather with extending the writer's point to Christian work. Many Christians erroneously believe that the value of an activity - some would even say the presence of God - can be determined by the popularity of that activity. I have written before about popularity and true success, but the article about classical music - a particular love of mine - once again reminded me of the importance of the point.
It is a simple fact that Orthodox media - be it print or electronic publishing, terrestrial or Internet radio, etc. - is never going to be as widespread as that generated by evangelical Protestants, and far less than secular media. It is a simple question of demographics: there are an estimated six million Orthodox Christians in the United States, compared to an estimated 100 million evangelical Protestants. The demographic difference is even greater when it comes to secular media, since people of most demographic groups - including Orthodox Christians - consume secular media, whereas only a percentage of committed Orthodox Christians - and a small number of non-Orthodox who are interested in Orthodoxy - consume the small amount of Orthodox media currently available.
By American cultural standards, the relatively small target audience for Orthodox media would seem to be indicative of the media's irrelevance: since there are few Orthodox consumers, the argument would assert, there is little need or support for Orthodox media. In contrast to this argument, however, I maintain something close to what the classical music writer quoted above states: "There will always be an audience whose demand for [Christian media] will remain purely functional, immune to fads, buzz, trends, what have you. Will it be smaller than the audience for this month’s pop sensation? Probably. Does that matter? Nope."
Orthodox Christians do not create Bible studies, write and perform music, create podcasts, etc. because we hope for popularity or significant financial profit; we create this media because we are called to provide these materials and resources to glorify God and serve His people. We did not choose these works to build up ourselves; we were chosen by God to build up others. THAT is the impetus for why I create my materials, why the Orthodox Christian Network and Department of Youth Ministry - as well as all the other Orthodox ministry departments and media outlets - exist, and it is where our true concern is to be found. We want to make our work available to as many people as possible, and there are times when the needs and interests of our target demographic - be it increased or decreased - can result in a shift in which specific projects receive time and money, but we will never allow the relatively small size of our audience determine whether we engage in ministry. Each Christian is inestimably valuable in him- or herself, and we are called to serve each person, and thank God for that opportunity.
At the same time, this calling is precisely why Orthodox ministries always strive for growth. We are called to offer our work to as many people as possible, in order to benefit as many people as possible. We believe Orthodox Christianity is a pearl of great value (Matthew 13:45-46), and we give our all in order to share it with others. The point is that we are not to become discouraged, or give up, when we see the fewer number of people who use and respond to our media compared to those who use and respond to other media. Our call is to engage in this work for the benefit of, as the Athanasian Creed says, "Whosoever will be saved," and to thank God for the privilege of serving these people.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Relevance
Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 at 9:29 AM by Jason Barker
I read an article last week about research on keeping young adults in church. The article emphasized the widely-known fact that teens will stay involved in a church that - among other things - provides teaching that they can directly apply to their lives. There are a number of assertions in the article with which Orthodox Christians would disagree, such as the assertion that worship services should be styled to fit current teen tastes and cultural trends, but we can nonetheless benefit from considering the importance of life-application in Orthodox teaching.
I have previously written about the need for relevant life-application teaching in Bible studies for teens (I've removed the parenthetical citations for this blog):
First and foremost, adolescents in the process of identity formation — i.e., of developing and asserting autonomy — require information that will constructively contribute to this process: they demand that biblical content be demonstrated as relevant to their lives by clarifying significant issues, addressing individual and social problems, and providing a reliable guide to navigation changes in both the larger culture and the constantly changing youth subcultures. Adolescents engage and interpret the Bible from within the context of events and issues in their lives; the changes they are undergoing — or, if they are experiencing foreclosure or identity diffusion, the changes they are avoiding and the defense mechanisms they are employing to avoid these changes — will influence both their interest in the Bible and the message they are currently able and willing (to use Issler and Habermas’ scheme) to comprehend. When motivated to study the Bible for guidance in their developmental issues, adolescents can conclude, in the words of one teenager, “The Bible is something I live by now. It answers every single question, and addresses every problem I've ever had. Maybe not always directly, but with God working in me, I can find the answer"...
Many Christians find the adolescent demand for relevance in biblical study to be in itself unbiblical and antithetical to Christianity; such individuals believe personal application “domesticates” the Bible and desanctifies the gospel message. In reality, however, studying the Bible to answer adolescent concerns and address identity crises is an intrinsically Orthodox activity: “prophetic” biblical interpretation addresses all contemporary situations — including personal, moral and social issues — to provide “the light of the word of God for correction and guidance.” John L. Boojamra addresses this point when he exhorts religious educators to “begin where people are and bring them to where the Church feels they should be... Any aspect of the Church’s life can be taught as typical of the whole, depending on the people with whom one is working. This, however, means selecting those aspects of the Church’s life that suit the people and, at the same time, are faithful to the given of the Church. This is not pandering to the whims of the people and betraying the Gospel; it is taking personhood, process, and community seriously."
At the same time, as I've warned before, we must be careful to avoid distorting Orthodox Christian teaching to pander to the cultural whims of modern youth (or modern adults for that matter). A website creating satirical "motivational posters" for emergent Christians has created a good graphic lampooning a skewed view of true relevance, "RELEVANCE - Tell me what I want to hear or else shut up and go away." Truly relevant teaching tells its listeners two things: truth they need to hear (which isn't, of course, necessarily what they want to hear), and ways in which to live out this truth in their lives.
Posted in Miscellaneous
CrossRoad
Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 at 11:48 AM by Jason Barker
The Office of Vocation and Ministry of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has published on their blog an article about this year's CrossRoad, an annual summer program at Hellenic College / Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology for teens either entering or leaving their senior year of high school. The program combines classes with professors at the school, ministry and outreach, and entertainment.
The Office describes the program: "Through its three stages, Wrestling with Vocation, Vocation and Christ, and Vocation and the Neighbor, CrossRoad fulfills its mission by helping the youth see for themselves that the road of the Cross only has meaning if they encounter Christ and encounter Christ in their neighbor." It is important to note that, while the program certainly encourages young men to discern whether they have a calling to the priesthood, this is far from the only focus of CrossRoad: its focus is that individuals should realize their vocation to be faithful and active Christians wherever God places them.
Several years ago one of the teens in my Church school class attended CrossRoad, and I can affirm that her commitment to God and His Church was deepened by the experience. Youth workers should encourage their older high school students to consider applying next year for the program.
Posted in Orthodox News
On Staff with the OCN
Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 10:10 PM by Jason Barker
I'm privileged to announce that - in addition to my work with the Department of Youth Ministry - I am now on the staff of the Orthodox Christian Network. I will be creating study guides to accompany episodes of Come Receive the Light.
I will continue, of course, to engage in the work in which the Youth Department and OCN are partnering: my online Bible studies and upcoming radio program.
I thank both Fr. Christopher Metropulos and Fr. Joseph Purpura for the opportunity to participate in their ministries.
Posted in Jason Barker, OCN, Youth Department
More FOSS for OS X I Use
Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 10:14 AM by Jason Barker
In an earlier post I listed the free and open source software (FOSS) I use on my Mac. While I still use most of these programs, I've both changed and added a few since I created that list. Therefore, in keeping with my practice of recommending FOSS for parishes and ministries, I thought I'd list the new FOSS I've adopted:
Word Processor - I still recommend NeoOffice, and use it when I need to create documents incorporating things like headers and endnotes, but NeoOffice also presents a significant problem for me: because it loads the entire suite in order to launch any one application, NeoOffice uses 94 MB of RAM at launch, and then uses continually more RAM as I work on a document. Because at least 95 percent of my writing goes into an electronic publication, and I therefore do all my layout in another application, I seldom use anything more in my word processor than font style and size and paragraph alignment. Since I often have desktop publishing (like InDesign) or multimedia publishing (like Director or Flash) applications open at the same time as my word processor, I often find NeoOffice uses far more resources than my needs warrant.
I've therefore switched to Bean as my primary word processor - it performs the tasks I commonly use, and only uses 10 MB of RAM at launch. While there are a few features I miss, and prefer toolbar commands to the floating menus incorporated by Bean, the application is generally a good solution for my usually pretty basic word processing needs. If in the future, however, I find that I need to regularly engage in more complicated word processing than simply changing font attributes and paragraph alignment (particularly if future writing requires heavy collaboration on documents), I will either go back to NeoOffice or will need to grudgingly pay for Microsoft Office.
Web Browser - I've switched to Camino. I love the extensions (now called "add ons") I can use with Firefox, but became dissatisfied with how often Firefox on the Mac would choke on Flash-based websites. While it was a nuisance to re-enter my common passwords into Keychain, I've been pleased with the speed and stability of Camino. I still use Firefox for viewing Shockwave applications (Shockwave is the format in which my online Bible studies are published), because the Shockwave plugin for OS X requires running the browser in Rosetta (which, since the emulator causes apps to run more slowly, I prefer not to do with my primary browser).
IM - As I wrote earlier, I use Adium.
Twitter - I use Twitterific to publish my tweets.
Graphics - As I've written before, when I want to do something simple like resize and web-optimize a graphic, and do not want to open Windows in Parallels so that I can use the version of Photoshop I currently own, I use the GIMP-based Seashore.
Task Managment - While I am not a devotee of Getting Things Done - I haven't even read the book - I have found very useful the principle of breaking down larger tasks into their smaller consecutive tasks, and then methodically following each of these tasks without allowing myself to be distracted by the innumerable external things that clamor for my attention. To help me keep a schedule of these tasks, I have become increasingly reliant upon iGTD, a free application that largely follows the GTD process, and that I've adapted to my own workstyle.
Podcast Receiver: I now use Playpod which, while no longer under development (as is the case for most OS X podcast receivers, including my previous choice of Juice, since iTunes has taken over podcast handling for most Mac users), allows me to select downloading preferences for individual podcasts, to read the description of the episode before downloading, and to group podcasts by category.
App Launching - I have several applications I open many times each day - Camino, Thunderbird, Bean, etc. - that I keep in my Dock. There are many other applications that I use regularly, but not daily, and therefore do not want to keep in my Dock. I've tried a number of methods and applications to access these, and currently use Namely, which enables me to launch applications by name without scrolling through the Finder.
Posted in Miscellaneous
List of Orthodox Christian Network Posts
Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 1:55 PM by Jason Barker
I've created a new archive category entitled "OCN" for posts about the Orthodox Christian Network.
Rather than go through the very time-consuming process of re-submitting and indexing all the posts I've written about the OCN in the past, I've simply listed them below in chronological order:
- Do You Listen to Podcasts?
- Listen to Come Receive the Light
- Fr. Christopher Metropulos on Media Ministry
- Orthodox Christian Radio
- New Orthodox Podcasts
- "Study to Show Yourself Approved"
- Fr. Christopher Metropulos on Reading Scripture
- New Programs on "The Ark"
- More About Listening to "The Ark" in OS X and Linux
- "The Ark" Song Info Fixed
- Orthodox Radio News
- Giving Increases Happiness
- The Rudder
- OSB on "Come Receive the Light"
- 20 Million Podcast Listeners by 2010
- The Need for Orthodox Media
- Orthodox Concerts Online
- Our Partnership with OCN
Posted in OCN
Orthodox Conference on Missions and Evangelism
Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 8:14 AM by Jason Barker
One of the featured speakers at the 2007 Orthodox Conference on Missions and Evangelism - to be held 8/31-9/3 - will be Fr. Kevin Scherer, executive director of Orthodox Youth Outreach.
Posted in Youth Department
Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 at 1:46 PM by Jason Barker
To give more insight into the processes involved with creating Orthodox multimedia materials (believe it or not, these processes are not always riveting), and to give you the latest updates about the specific resources on which I'm working, I'm now posting Twitter tweets on this blog. I'll regularly post updates of exactly what I'm working on at that time, enabling you to stay "up-to-the-minute" on the materials I create for the Department of Youth Ministry and the Orthodox Christian Network.
You can view the archive of my tweets, as well as follow them, by going to my Twitter profile.
Posted in Online Resources
New Subscription Feed
Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 at 3:23 AM by Jason Barker
The subscription feed for this blog now goes through Feedburner; I therefore ask those of you who subscribed to the old feed of the blog to delete your current subscription and add this link to your feed reader (you can also go to the blog's homepage and click the "Subscribe" link to re-subscribe). I now send the feed through Feedburner in order to determine precisely how many people subscribe to this blog.
I have also stopped publishing feeds for the various category indices. If you currently subscribe to the feed for one of the indices (such as "Bible Studies" or "Orthodox News"), I encourage you to subscribe to the new feed for all the articles.
Posted in Miscellaneous
Our Partnership with OCN
Posted on Friday, August 03, 2007 at 6:40 PM by Jason Barker
Fr. Christopher Metropulos has announced that the Orthodox Christian Network has formed a partnership with the Department of Youth Ministry "to produce innovative programming for Orthodox youth." Now that this formal announcement has been made, I can tell you about two of the things I will be doing as part of this partnership.
First, the online Orthodox Christian Bible Studies I create will now be published as a partnership between the OCN and the Youth Department. The first study that will be created through this partnership with be "Life Together: An Interactive Study of the First Epistle to the Corinthians." This study will launch in its entirety on November 1st.
Second, I am creating a new radio program that will air on The Ark and The Rudder. This program will be a weekly Bible study with PDF handouts that can be downloaded for personal and group study.
Both the OCN and the Department of Youth Ministry invite you to join with us in this exciting new phase of our ministry to Orthodox youth!
Posted in Orthodox News, Youth Department
New Podcast Coming
Posted on Thursday, August 02, 2007 at 4:31 PM by Jason Barker
Conciliar Press and Ancient Faith Radio have announced a new montly podcast, AGAIN Audio Journal, to be launched in September. The podcast will consist of content from AGAIN Magazine.
A sample of the podcast is currently online.
Posted in Orthodox News
"Hope for the Heart" Interview
Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 8:45 AM by Jason Barker
For those who might be interested, this week Hope for the Heart is re-broadcasting an interview June Hunt recorded with me in 2002 about growing up as a Jehovah's Witness.
Posted in Jason Barker