There are a lot of fears and excitement right now over the rapid development of AI technologies such as ChatGPT. I want to start by addressing the fear of the AI itself. Some are concerned about what it could develop into. We suddenly have thoughts of Hollywood depictions of AI gone wrong like in iRobot, or Terminator. As we think about AI and church, I have a question that I think puts these fears to rest.

Can life come from nothing? The answer to that is no. The fears and concerns of AI becoming sentient are overblown. These new AI models mimic intelligence, but true intelligence requires a supernatural Creator God.

Good and Evil

It is however a very powerful piece of technology a tool that can be very useful. I think there will be some that embrace it and use it to improve and speed up everyday tasks both in business and personal lives. Of course, anytime a new technology arises some may lose their jobs, or find their jobs changing, but also new jobs will be created. And, just like any tool in our toolbox AI can be used for good and evil depending on the user. The only real concern I believe with AI is if governments use these tools to suppress their citizens.

A.I. and The Church

But can AI be useful in the church? Should we use ChatGPT to write our sermons, and create songs of worship? I wouldn’t go that far with it, though I am sure you could get ChatGPT to do these tasks for you. But then how could you present a sermon or a Bible study from your heart and the heart of God when it was prepared by an AI compiled it from the data already available on the internet, and from words written by other individuals who took the time to meet with God and study his words. No, I’m afraid using AI to write a sermon, or worship song in my mind would result in something very shallow spiritually.

However, that doesn’t mean AI used correctly couldn’t be a tool in sermon preparation if you are already studying God’s Word and have in mind what you want to present. In your sermon preparation you might experience difficulty expressing a thought, and in that instance you could use AI to refine your thoughts. AI could quickly look for reference materials, give quick definitions, or even help you understand a concept better because it really can be a good research tool, however, always double-check any information you get from an AI because they do sometimes get it wrong.

I also think AI could help churches in areas they struggle with like creating content for marketing events, or for social media posts. AI photo generators like Midjourney can help church graphic design teams create sermon slide images that express concepts that are sometimes hard to find in standard stock photography.

Toolbox

I think AI is a tool that could be added to a church’s toolbox. I would only draw the line on using AI for anything that touches on the spiritual as I believe it could lead to a very shallow understanding and response to spiritual things, but there are plenty of practical uses where AI can be used to help a local church accomplish its goals in reaching the community around them.

Celebrity is ubiquitous. It is not only in culture but its impact permeates the Church world. Katelyn Beaty’s most recent book, Celebrities for Jesus—How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting The Church decodes intersection of the celebrity phenomena in Christian culture and the Church. Here’s an overdue review of the book. 

On Celebrities for Jesus

If I was asked to be succinct in my description of Celebrities for Jesus I would call it a reverent expression of love of Jesus and His Church. I might not go as far as canonising it, but, if I had to borrow a contemporary Christian commentator cliché: it is something Paul, the Apostle, would have written today. 

If you’ve explored Corinthians, Galatians, OK fine, the New Testament letters, you will see that the writers were always honest about the state of the Churches of their audiences. The concern for Christ followers, and their communities not living up to what they should have is palpable.

Beaty delves into fairly recent history, exploring the western Church, and the beginnings of celebrity. She then pulls the historical threads to weave a tapestry that not only describes the reality and malevolent impact of celebrity today, but also how celebrity is systematically nurtured and sustained. The gargantuan Christian publishing machinery gets the deserved critique in how it enables celebrity in Christendom. 

There is a delicate, nuanced exploration of the intersectionality of pop culture, media and tech with the church’s desire to advance its mission. Nuance, which is often scarified by the careless and incompetent, is pleasantly present. One of the things I appreciated in this work. 

Celebrities for Jesus offers more than a clear identification of the plague of celebrity in the Church but also offers calls to action for the present. These calls, if heeded, will help us become healthier a Church into the future. It is well-researched, well written, and pertinent work the Church must give attention.

It’s Not Just For The American Church

While this book was written with many references to North American churches, and christian leaders, the cautionary tales are just as pertinent in other parts of the world, and should be equally heeded and contextualised. Especially as the U.S. church has significant influence on the Church in other parts of the world. 

Should You Read Celebrities for Jesus?

I hate spoiler alerts, that’s why I haven’t described in detail the actual contents. If you haven’t figured it out by now: you shouldn’t read the book, you must read it. It should be an annual compulsory read for church leaders (pastors, staff, volunteers, elders etc.). And not only that, also in humility and honestly engaged with in community. 

Get Celebrities for Jesus on Amazon | IndieBound.

Katelyn Beaty, is editorial director for Brazos Press, and a former managing editor of Christianity Today. Find out more about her on her website.

Almost 01 January I have started a new bible in a year reading plan. And by almost every 30th of January I have stopped or fallen behind. I’m not alone. About 64% of New Year resolutions are abandoned within the first month and only 9% manage to last the whole year [International Journal of Environmental and Public Health]. So, this year I thought I’d try something different. Instead of reading the Bible in a year, I’m doing several 30 day bible reading challenges.

Why do a 30 day bible reading challenge

My reasons start with the issues of year long challenges.

A year challenge is very tough to stick too. If you miss one day, you fail and can feel like giving up. And even if you have a mindset that can get past missing one, you can quickly fall behind, which ends in demotivation too.

By contrast, a 30 day challenge is more of a sprint. It allows you to make short term dramatic changes and you can adjust your challenges as life changes:

• if one month is more tough, you can choose an easier challenge;
• if you have more time, try something more demanding.
• one month you can be more cerebral, another more artistic.

And if you do “fail”, you can always start again next month with a new challenge.

Plus, it’s a great way to do a few experiments and tests rather than commit to a long term change.

A quick example of the problems of a year goal

One year I wanted to make a sketchnote of a chapter of the Bible every day for a year.
I started well and really enjoyed the experience, but at the end of the second week I forgot my iPad on a trip and had no pens. So I missed a day.

I still continued but that same week I missed another day. A couple of weeks later and I had missed several more days as I lacked the motivation to put in the time some days. This was just after a month and the idea of continuing for the whole year suddenly felt daunting. So I stopped completely and went back to a more modest reading plan.

If this had been a 30 day challenge, maybe I would have completed more as it wouldn’t have felt such a long term commitment. And even if I hadn’t, I would have felt better about how much I did, rather than like I had abandoned after only a month and a half.

That’s why 30 day challenges are so powerful. They help us focus on our success, not our failures.

What challenges are you doing

I haven’t fully decided on my exact list of challenges for each month. In fact, I want to see what each month looks like before I commit to the next challenge. But there are some challenge I know I want to do at some point. Here’s my big list of ideas.

• read one book over and over again for a whole month
• read without a plan at all and decide on the day
• read the Bible in Greek
• listen while reading
• read with a study Bible
• read following a devotional
• read chronologically
• read the Bible in 30 days
• reading to a timer
• reading passages from both testaments in the same day
• reading every passage on a certain theme in a month
• Read about one person for a month

But the first challenge I want to do is the hardest.

I want to read the whole Bible in 7 days.

More on that soon.

Want to join in with the Bible reading challenges?

If you’re interested, you can join me with any of the challenges (including the first challenge.)

Plus I’d love to know any bible reading challenge ideas you have. Who knows, maybe I’ll adopt it!

Sunday, October 23, 2022, The well-known Minecraft SMP (Survival Multiplayer) Server Hermitcraft held its first-ever Charity live stream to raise funds for the support of Gamers Outreach. Gamers Outreach is a charity that empowers hospitalized families through play. They build GO Karts (Gamers Outreach Karts), portable video game kiosks built specifically for hospitals. The event was organized by GoodTimesWithScar an American Minecraft YouTuber known for his Minecraft building tutorials and the Hermitcraft Youtube series. As a former pediatric patient with a neuromuscular disease Scar is particularly passionate about this charity.

The event involved the entire Hermitcraft servers with many of the hermits building mini-games to be played during the Livestream. Games involving TNT, Horse racing, Dunk Tanks, and more. The creative use of in-game items and functions to create games within the game Minecraft is well known by the audience of Hermitcraft fans and viewers. The stream was also joined by Zach Wigal the founder of Gamers Outreach who gave an overview of the charity and what it does with the money raised.

By there own words the Hermits planned and expected to only raise around $25,000 and to their surprise, that goal was met before the stream even got off the ground. The overwhelming emotion was telling when 24 minutes into the stream before the first minigame was even played they crossed $100,000 raised.

The organizer Scar was visibly emotional at the announcement of reaching that goal and the rest of the hermits also responded in awe at the outpouring of the community they have built around Hermitcraft.

By the time the stream had ended the Hermits had raised over $420,000 for this charity event which is a testament to the hard work, they have spent over the years building an audience and a community around their series through storytelling and shenanigans, and keeping us who watch the series entertained. And it is also a testament to the generosity of the viewers themselves who donated everything from a like and a share to $1 to $1000. And all this around a pixelated game made of blocks.

Sometimes we box generosity by the way we limit our creativity in serving others. What creative ways of loving our neighbours do we overlook?!

Have gamers in your church considered serving your community through participating in something like this? Perhaps even supporting Gamers Outreach?

Two years ago I finally listened to my friends advice. I bought a copy of Logos. I had played with a free version of logos for a few years but with my part time bible studies and the arrival of logos 9, I decided to commit. It was an investment that really paid off and has helped me with my studies and service in my church. So when the kind people of Faithlife reached out to me with a review copy of Logos 10 in exchange for a review, I jumped at the chance!

It’s packed full of features so I decided to focus on the 10 features that stood out to me from my time using the update.

Speed

It doesn’t take long to notice the speed boost of logos 10 compared to logos 9. I don’t know how the clever people at Faithlife pulled this off exactly but they credit optimising for Apple silicon (my computer is an M1 MacBook Air) bringing somewhere between 10-40% boost. While on Windows, the support for .net should bring a similar boost.

Moving around the app feels far more responsive and waiting times are definitely reduced.

New UI

Faithlife call this a modern UI shift and it’s the second most obvious change in Logos.

The top menu has moved to the left sidebar and can expand and collapse to reveal/hide data. This is more like most modern apps plus it helps reveal more context for each item when expanded. But, if you don’t like it, you can change back to the top nav in application preferences.

Search your physical books in Logos

The Print Library Catalog brings for Gold and higher packages brings your physical books into Logos. What this means is you can run a search and you’ll get results from your physical books too (plus even a short preview of the section). A nice touch is that you can scan in from the mobile app (or manually add in the desktop library) to speed up adding your resources.

Bye bye Community tags, hello Factbook Tags

Community tags are now Factbook tags.

When turned on, Logos will offer prompts about key information such as people and places. It’s a bit like the kindle x-ray feature but using Logos’ knowledge base.

You can turn it on and off with the click of a button in the nav.

Simpler search

Learning a strange language just to search for a question is annoying.

And while the new search improvements aren’t natural language searches yet, the new syntax is a lot simpler and quicker to type. Gone are the strange brackets, and now you can use colons to define types. You can explore all the search options by clicking the search button in the main nav.

Import Sermons to Sermon Manager

Sermon builder is a great tool, but you might have older sermons you want to import or you might prefer to write in a different app.

So now you can import a sermon (or other document like an academic paper if you want) into sermon manager by simply uploading a docx file. You may need to do some cleaning up, but you’ll get 90% done in a click.

Popular quotes

Sticking with sermons, the new popular quotes tools helps you find a pithy saying fast.

Just open the tab in sermon manager and type in your topic. Soon you’ll have a list of popular quotes that might match your theme and help focus attention.

Machine translation with Deepl

Some languages just don’t have as many resources as others. And there might be a particular resource you can’t get in your language. Now, Logos Gold and higher package owners can use inbuilt machine translation of resources.

As someone who serves in a bilingual English – Polish church this is a really exciting feature. While not perfect, it could help our translators get a document they just need to polish (pun not intended but welcome) up.

As this service does come with a running cost to Faithlife, there may be some fair use details to come later, so bear that in mind.

9. Advanced timeline & Church History in factbook

To help fit my features limit, I combined two related features in one.

The timeline has been refreshed with new filters and perspectives including the Church History view. This ties in to the Church History Factbook which provides a deep summary of a key event in church history. Each record includes a summary, the key people, key events, key places, key concepts and recommended reading to go deeper.

It’s a great way to get an overview of an event to start your research as well as a way to explore topics further.

10. iPad Drawing features

Maybe no one else is as excited about this, but I am.

I am a visual thinker and using the iPad to highlight pages as well as create free form notes is a big deal to me.

Well now the iPad app is gaining draw on screen and the canvas feature from the desktop app. That means you can mark up a page of the bible or resource with your highlights or marginalia (and then share or save as a note) and you can use canvas to make a free form display of information using stock made elements from Logos or adding your own drawings.

But wait, there’s more!

That’s just a taste of the new features in Logos 10.

There’s more iPad (including improved highlighting and an easier to explore UI) and desktop features as well as an updated resources that come with packages. One resource to note is that the Thompson chain reference library now come with many resource packages.

If you are looking to get your first Logos package, you can get 15% during the launch campaign.

And if you are upgrading from a previous version of Logos, you can get 30% off.

Conclusion: Is Logos 10 Worth it?

When I first tried Logos, I found it very confusing.

That’s because it’s a real power user app. There are so many features that can provide you with great insights if you know how to use them. These latest enhancements should make Logos more accessible to new users and put some real power in the hands of pro users.

The biggest barrier for most is the price, and I get it. Logos isn’t cheap.

But it is an investment and can be a highly valuable one if you learn to maximise your usage.

Here’s a final pro tip: If you are unsure about logos, try either the foundation package for free (you may have to wait for Logos 10’s) or Faithlife connect. This monthly subscription plan gives you all of Logos’ features for as little as $10 as well as access to course materials for half a year. It’s the perfect way to explore Logos.

ChurchMagPlus Version 0.1.0

Greetings Adventurers! We are very excited to launch Version 0.1.0 of our new ChurchMagPlus Minecraft Resource Pack. Using BlockBench and Visual Studio Code we have produced our very own custom models and textures for custom items in games. Mojang makes this possible through Resource Packs. These custom items do not replace any vanilla items in the game but simply add alternative models to existing items using a special identifier called Custom Model Data.

The vision for this resource pack is to add original content to our server to enhance gameplay in a very Minecraft way. It will follow the Minecraft design style when creating new items or other custom content. We also intend to add updates to this resource pack as we go along to continue to improve it into a full experience add on for the game.

New Features

CM-001 SWEET Berry Basket

Sweet Berry Baskets are an item that can be bought from one of our special Town Hall Villagers for nine Sweet Berries. You can also trade one Sweet Berry Basket back to the same Town Hall villager for nine Sweet Berries. This item looks great placed in an item frame. Especially with the item frame invisible.

CM-002 Glow Berry Basket

Glow Berry Baskets are an item that can be bought from one of our special Town Hall Villagers for nine Glow Berries. You can also trade one Glow Berry Basket back to the same Town Hall villager for nine Glow Berries. This item looks great placed in an item frame. Especially with the item frame invisible.

CM-003 Decked Out Dungeon Key

We made a custom key model for Decked Out. Keys not be obtainable but will be distributed by the Game Master.

CM-004 Miner’s Helmet

The Miner’s Helmet is a custom hat! That can be placed on your head. This is ChurchMag’s first official cosmetic and it can be acquired at the Town Hall through a villager trade.

To enjoy these fantastic custom models you will need the resource/texture pack activated in your resource pack folder while playing on ChurchMag. Download available on our ChurchMag Minecraft Discord.

When we add items we will always strive to maintain a vanilla Minecraft design style and use. We will not add anything that disrupts the vanilla Diamond Economy. And we will never add any pay-to-win or play features.

Do you Minecraft? Your thoughts on this?

I finally finished listening to Mark Sayers’s book, “A Non-Anxious Presence–How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders“. It’s worth a review. 

Who Its For, and What It Is About

If you’ve read any of Mark Sayers‘s books or listened to any of his podcasts, A Non-Anxious Presence, is the kind of work you can reasonably come to expect from Mark. While I think A Non-Anxious Presence is primarily aimed at church and or Christian leaders, anyone can and, spoiler alert: should read it. 

Mark surveys cultural, media and technological shifts, including “The Pandemic” aka COVID-19, and its implications for Christians and the church at large. A proficient student of history and culture, Mark shares a framework for understanding and navigating the present reality and challenges. He shows how times of change, flux and uncertainty can be an opportunity to build resilience and foundation for revival. 

Some of My Favourite Quotes

The structures of the modern world implicitly promise that we can operate as leaders, even as Christian leaders, without thought or need for God. Instead of our foundation being in Christ and His kingdom’s way of influence, we rest on the cultural foundation set by the modern world of what it is to lead. 

We measure leadership with earthly definitions of success and power. A secular autopilot version of Christian leadership takes hold, where we lead like practical atheists, with God as an afterthought. 

In the networked world, even the most committed believer will consume only a fraction of the information and input from their church compared to what they consume via podcasts, YouTube, and Netflix. The digital network is now our primary formational environment. 

It shapes our opinions, values, and worldview. Today, the average churchgoer will Google a problem before they approach their pastor. The digital network is the primary shaper of their theological, political, and cultural worldview.

What I Did Not Like About The Book

I did not like that I was told what we were going to explore in the chapter we were already in, instead of just being told. This is just a personal peeve. I think authors should just say what they want to and not tell us first what they are about to tells us.

I felt that the last two chapters were not a strong as preceding ones. I don’t know what I was expecting or hoping they would be. Then again, they might not be for me right now. 

What I Loved About A Non-Anxious Presence

The book is well researched and written. Mark communicated some of the complicated themes and points in a way that is easy to understand and follow. Its insights are invaluable and is a great resource for Christians and church leaders as they look to lead themselves and others.

As I’ve already mentioned, read this book. 

Thanks Mark .

Sharing sermon audio isn’t just for big name preachers like Tim Keller, John Piper and Tony Evans.

But editing sermon audio can take a long time and if you don’t have a permanent member of staff or experienced volunteer then it can be a real time sink.

Luckily there’s a new native Mac and IOS app that can help you edit your sermons faster, generate a transcript almost instantly and can create sharable video clips too. It’s called Pompom.

What is Pompom?

Pompom is a native Mac and iOS podcast editing app that makes it easier and faster to record, edit and share podcasts. Pompom achieves this goal by generating near-instant audio transcriptions of recordings and using AI and audio editing smarts to help you complete quick edits and then share your recordings.

And unlike most modern apps which run in a web browser, Pompom runs on device and so you never need to worry about losing work from a doggy connection or end up waiting for a simple page view to load.

Edit podcasts and transcripts in Pompom

While you can edit your podcast via a traditional sound waveform, Pompom can produce a transcript so you can zip around to find the key moments you need to edit. This is extremely powerful for podcasts where you want to find an edit point, but it is also relevant for sermon recordings too.

If you record more than just the sermon, you can jump to the point where the sermon starts and cut everything prior to that.

And now you also have a transcript that you can add to the sermon page which can help with SEO or for those who are hard of hearing.

The transcripts aren’t perfect as they are using machine learning tools, but there’s no way I would have the time to create a transcript of our church’s sermons without them.

And best of all, unlike some services they are free.

Generate sharable video clips in a flash

Pompom can also help you share your sermons thanks to its video clips. All you do is copy some text or part of the podcast and then select to share. You’ll be in a simple video editor that lets you customise the clip. When you’re ready, save and export.

If you can find a couple of short clips to share, you’ve got some great social media content for this week and you can reuse them weeks later.

Free but with in app purchase

Like most apps these days, Pompom is freemium with an inapp subscription. What is unusual is how much you get for free in Pompom.

• two track editing
• free transcription
• video clip sharing (with a watermark)
• automatic audio enhancements

All included. The subscription features are for more pro editors and some timesaving enhancements.

• more than two tracks
• removing the video clip watermark
• automatic silence removal using AI.

Why you might not want Pompom

Pompom is not without limitations. It’s a native Mac and iOS app so android, windows and linux owners need to look elsewhere.

Download Pompom today

If you are interested in trying pompom, then download it and you can start transcribing and editing your sermon audio fast.

• Download pompom today.

On average, social media posts with graphics get at least 2.3X more engagement than those without according to a Buzzsumo report. It’s no wonder that so many churches create and share so many every day. But if you want to share a graphic with each post, that required an regular investment of time and skill to complete.

Smaller churches often lack enough volunteers and they can’t afford to, or have other prioritizes than hiring a designer. Meanwhile larger churches can end up sinking large amounts of time in quick graphic design tasks that prevent them from investing that time on larger project.

While there have been a host of collaborative graphic design tools that have helped address this problem, one new tool from past ChurchMag contributor Dustin Stout offers a whole new approach. In fact, it is the fastest way to create great looking social media graphics.

Introducing SoVisual

SoVisual provides good looking templates that you just type some text in, add an image and you have instantly good looking graphics in formats for instagram, Facebook and stories.

Here’s how quick it is.

How SoVisual works

When you start using SoVisual, you enter your brand details like account name, web address, logo and brand colours. These are then instantly available when you make a new graphic but can be customised as you need.

Now, search for and pick a template such as mimicking a tweet, an event invite, or a quote graphic. Once you’ve selected, you can adjust the colours, images and text with a few fields and then press create.
In a matter of seconds you’ll have a selection of graphics in the top social media formats ready for you to share. If you notice an issue, you just adjust and press create again.

No fiddling with text placement or size. Just pick a template and go.

What about for churches?

Have a look for yourself at this special page Dustin created for churches.

If you have a verse of the day, you can turn that into a graphic in under a minute. Perhaps you have some quotes or questions from the sermon, just collect them together, grab a template and go.
Or create graphics to promote and follow up from events with a couple of clicks.

Because it’s so quick, you can easily create a weeks content for social media in the time it would normally take someone to create one graphic.

Best of all, you can start for free and access a limited set of templates so you don’t even have to pay to get the benefits (but seriously, you totally should pay. You’ll get more template, team collaboration and help support a great guy).

So head over to SoVisual to find out more.

I can still remember waking up early one morning, stumbling down stairs and finding my dad on the sofa reading his Bible and praying. He told me it was his “quiet time” and part of his way of connecting with God before the day started. That memory has stayed with me since and now I wake every morning for my own quiet time.

Like most people, I have better and worse seasons and there have been times when I felt like it was more a mindless routine than others. So when I heard that Brian Heasley from 24/7 prayer had published Be Still: A Simple Guide To Quiet Times, I decided to pick up a copy.

I’m glad I did.

What is inside Be Still: a Simple Guide to Quiet Times

Be Still has both practical and theoretical points on different activities you can use during your quiet times (as well as an overview of what a quiet time is). These include:

• Bible reading
• Prayer
• Memorizing scripture
• Journaling
• Using your imagination
• Basking in wonder
• Living simply
• Being generous
• Mission
• and more.

While some of these topics might not sound like they are traditional “quiet time” activities, Brian shows how they can come out of quiet times as well as feedback into your quiet times.

Who should read it?

Obviously, this is a great book for a new Christian who is looking to get started in Christian formation and spiritual disciplines. But it is also useful for people who have been christians for a long time, and feel their times with God have become routine, or neglected and they want to get out of that rut.

There are video sessions too!

If you want a taste of the book, a bonus accompaniment or some prompts to spark discussions around the book in small groups, then 24/7 Prayer have put out a video series to compliment the book.
It’s only five videos long but it’s a useful resource none the less.

Wrapping up

I found Be Still to be an edifying read and it inspired me to change my quiet time practices. While some parts felt very familiar to those found in books such as celebration of discipline, Brian Heasley adds his own points and experiences that add a real modern take. I am glad I read it.

You can get a copy of Be Still: A Simple Guide To Quiet Times on Amazon | IndieBound