I hate posting about somber news, but I feel compelled to do my part to raise awareness.

This sort of persecution should be more widely documented in the West. In America many Evangelical Groups feel they themselves are being persecuted by more liberal Christians and political parties. Ironically while crying out for conservative practices in the face of persecution " in America, their Christian brothers and sisters in less fortunate lands are truly being persecuted, with violence and terror. For Christians in the West, the severity of the abuse done to the Coptic branch should be taken less lightly "as one of the first established Christian groups it is possible that without them, Christianity might not have spread as effectively in Europe in the first place.

Judyth Piazz

There was a recent drive-by shooting by three Muslim men outside St. Mary Guirguis Coptic Orthodox Church in Nagaa Hammadi, Egypt this past Coptic Christmas Eve (January 6) at 11:30pm. Six Christians were killed plus one Muslim guard and many more were injured.

Prior to the shooting, Bishop Kirollos of the Nagaa Hamadi Diocese received a threatening text on his phone; he also stated that local residents were threatened prior to the festivity. H.H. Pope Shenouda III has asked for calm in light of these attacks and prayer instead of retaliation.

Our deepest sympathies and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of those martyred and we pray that God may forgive those who commited this henious act.

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Train yourself in the practice of faith. Feed and nurture your faith by starting a one year Bible reading plan.

I've spoken about the YouVersion Bible App before and I can't recommend it enough. Now, it's easier than ever with the new update to the app available for most smartphones. Reading plans are now synced with YouVersion.com and you can pick and chose from 31 new plans.


May God bless you and yours and I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

I previously spoke about Garbage Dreams, a documentary about the Zaballeen community in the Egypt slums and am happy to report that the film has since received several awards and is now one of the 15 films shortlisted for the upcoming 2010 Academy Awards.

It's so nice to hear the film doing so well. There will be another screening in New York right around Coptic Christmas (January 7th). If you missed the showing last time, do yourself a favor and make sure you check out the film this time around. You will not be disappointed.

The film will be screened at the IFC Theater (323 Sixth Avenue at West 3rd St) from Janunary 6th-12th. If you plan on going, try to make one of the first two nights as the director, Mai Iskander, will be available for a Q&A after the film and t-shirts and Zaballeen arts and crafts will be available for purchase. A portion of the proceeds go directly to supporting the Zaballeen community.

Best of luck to Mai Iskander and God bless the positive awareness and revenue being generated to help out the Zaballeen community. And a Merry Coptic Christmas to all the Copts out there! :)

Either in an effort to thwart the dwindling charitable contributions amidst this recession or a ploy for positive PR exposure in light of recent negative news or both, Google has decided to donate $20 million amongst a handful of very deserving charities.

Regardless of motive, Merry Christmas! :)

A shot of the beautiful Sisteen Chapel, from my recent trip to Italy.

He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as craftsmen, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them master craftsmen and designers.
Exodus 35:35

Alright, so this week's post isn't exactly on topic. It's a how-to guide for migrating from one Google Account to another. This question has been asked thousands of times on the interwebz and some of the answers are a lot more helpful than others. I recently migrated my own Gmail account to a new one and wanted to write up a comprehensive guide on how to do so.

Hmm... I am offering my help. Jesus helped people, right? So, in a way, I'm following Jesus' example -- using technology. Hey, that's it! Yeap, it's not so off topic after all. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, enjoy...

I researched most of this online and also stumbled across a few tidbits here and there by experimenting myself. I've gone ahead and documented my migration all the way through, and I hope the following information will be of use to anyone who wishes to tie their online identity to a new Google Account. I'm quite happy to say that the transition is fairly seamless and easy to do if you follow the correct steps that I'll be outlining here. At the end of all this, you will have all (or most) of your Google Account associations and preferences tied to your new Google Account username. I will also show you how to consolidate all of your e-mail addresses into one Gmail Inbox, including how to forward your Yahoo! Mail for free (or how to get free POP Yahoo! Mail access) and how to send and receive your Hotmail e-mail from within Gmail as well.

The full guide is available after the jump...

It's one thing to do a Google search on a verse and hope you stumble upon a valid commentary or interpretation useful for a Sunday school lesson or Bible study group. The search results usually end up only going so deep. To get to the real meat of a Bible verse and make it applicable to yourself or the the group you're studying with takes hours of personal meditation and reflection, research from commentaries and papers and listening to sermons while taking notes.



Recently, however, Logos has released Logos 4 Bible Study software which puts countless hours of Biblical research right at your fingertips.



Everything from the lineage of David to the exegetical studies and maps relevant to the timeline of passages. I can't even begin to explain the wealth of knowledge available in this software suite, it's best to discover it for yourself and a good place to start would be the video tour.




Of course this doesn't replace the time that it takes to get to the heart of a verse or passage, but it certainly helps!

Oh, and yea, there's an app for that.

When we think of charitable donations, what immediately comes to mind? Donating money to the church? To the poor? Maybe donating some clothing to a shelter? Or maybe even donating our time to help with various services around our church and community.

What most of those have in common, however, is that they all directly relate to helping the poor or the needy, one way or another; basically those "less fortunate". Yet, there is another sort of charitable donation that doesn't always come immediately to mind. It still involves donating money, but what it's put towards isn't exactly what you usually think of when you think of donating money to charity.

Several months ago I was introduced to the FM radio station Star 99.1, a non-profit (501(c)(3)) organization that is really a breath of fresh air in the FM airwaves. I was so pleased to hear the positive and uplifting words in the morning, the Bible-or-Not trivia, the contemporary Christian music played throughout the day and the sermons late at night.

After listening to Star 99.1 for a while, you begin to realize how truly filthy the other stations have become. Morning talk shows are rarely about anything other than sex, the lyrics for many of the songs are questionable at best and none of them provide any sort of positive words to start your day. Put aside any biases you might have against contemporary Christian music and give Star 99.1 a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised how enjoyable you'll find it.

Unfortunately, the audience for such a station is minuscule compared to the behemoths that are Z100 and other Top40 pop stations. Put that together with the fact that Star 99.1 is a non-profit organization and you have a huge lack of resources for them to stay on the air. They need their own charitable donations and right now they're holding a shareathon to gather donations.

Consider making that donation to help keep the Word on the air. There are countless stories of people who have come across Star 99.1 by chance on their radios and have taken what they heard to heart. Stories of people who have completely changed their lives. If not to shield your own ears from the filth of the alternative, then consider doing it for the spiritually poor who thirst for such a Word.

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
       Because He has anointed Me
      To preach the gospel to the poor;
      He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
      To proclaim liberty to the captives
      And recovery of sight to the blind,
      To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
       19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.
Luke 4:18-19

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I loved this video and just had to share it with you guys. Enjoy!

I just got invited to preview Google Wave, the new beast of a web-app from Google said to replace/integrate e-mails/IMs/Tweets/Online Collaborative Environments/Chat Rooms and all other sorts of internet communication. Whether it actually will or not is a topic deserving of another post entirely, but for now, I'll be glad to hand out a few invites so you can judge for yourself.

I'm not going to give these out randomly, I want some creativity on your part! So, how do you get one of my invites/nominations? Simple, comment on this post with how you will use Google Wave in a Christ-centric fashion. The more creative (yet practical/useful), the better your chances of getting added to the invitation list.

Maybe you're a priest that sees real value in the collaborative features of Google Wave and can explain how it will help your church. Or, maybe you're a software developer who can think of a really neat Google Wave Extension to develop that integrates into Christianity somehow.

Whatever your idea may be, just post it in the comments below along with the e-mail address of where to send your Google Wave invite to (be sure to use scr.im to avoid spam-bots) and I'll pick 7 of you to nominate. Deadline is about a week or two, depending on number of submissions.

Good luck!

UPDATE: Be sure to provide some sort of credentials. Eg: If it's for a ministry, link to it. If you're a software developer, show some stuff you've made, etc. Be creative!

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:14

All kidding aside, Faith Comes By Hearing is an awesome service set up to spread the Word of God to every single country in every single language. They have free audio Bibles available in virtually any language you can think of so that no corner of the globe is left uncovered. Head on over to their beautifully designed website to learn more about this great service and to see how you can help as well.


Free Streaming Audio Bibles

You can go on their website right now to stream the New Testament in any language in both drama and non-drama formats. Personally, I prefer the drama style since it helps keep your focus, especially when commuting to and from work/school every day. Although the non-drama versions are just as good, spoken with changing pitch and emphasis so as not to be too dry; excellent for studying and/or preaching.

Download Free Audio Bibles

If you'd rather download the MP3 versions for burning to a CD or loading up onto your iPod or Zune player, they offer this for free as well. There is a slight catch, though, you will have to download their Audio Bible Ambassadors software. Don't worry, no spyware or malware here (I've been running it myself and all looks good). So why the required software download? Well, they want you to be an ambassador, helping spread the Word to as many people as possible.

Audio Bible Ambassadors

When you download the software, you can download up to two complete versions of the audio Bible in any language you choose. After that, you'll have to sign up for a (free) account. Once you're signed up, you can choose to be an Ambassador for the versions of the audio Bible that you like. Being an ambassador is basically being a "seeder" in a controlled BitTorrent. What this means is that while you have the ABA software running, you'll help spread the audio Bible to other users that want to download. This helps alleviate the massive bandwidth costs it would take to serve up these large files from a private server. With thousands of ambassadors (or seeders/peers) across the globe, it costs this charity organization practically nothing to spread the Word.

Other Forms of Distribution

Faith Comes by Hearing also has a few other forms of distribution available of all languages and translations. You can purchase an Mp3 Disc, BibleStick (basically an iPod Shuffle-type of device with the Audio Bible preloaded), or a Proclaimer (basically a stereo-type device set up just to play the Audio Bible.)

His name shall endure forever;
His name shall continue as long as the sun.
         And men shall be blessed in Him;
         All nations shall call Him blessed.
Psalm 72:17

I just wish they had some Old Testament audio Bibles to offer, but the amount of New Testament versions available are simply astounding! Hundreds of different languages in different translations are all there for your benefit. Truly a great service!



Visit: Faith Comes By Hearing

I just wanted to quickly mention two newspaper clippings that were of interest/relevance to this blog and my church.


Zaballeen

 The first is a New York Times article regarding the new garbage problem in Egypt as a direct result of the slaughtering of all the pigs in the land in a highly controversial effort to thwart the swine flu. The neighborhood that is suffering is of course, the Zaballeen, who would collect the garbage and then feed them to the pigs.



I have spoken previously concerning Garbage Dreams, a documentary about the Zaballeen, but there is another documentary that was produced earlier called, Mariana of the Zabbaleen (sic), a film by Engi Wassef. This film documents the life of a little girl, Mariana in the same society. Although I unfortunately missed the opportunity to view a screening myself (surprise bridge--long story), I'm interested to see it and learn from the distinct perspective of a younger aged little girl. As a matter of fact, the DVD is now available and 10% of all gross earnings are being donated by Torch Films to help the Zaballeen community.



Church Festival

The other newspaper article was one written for the Journal News by reporter Akiko Matsuda who visited the Stony Point church during the Egyptian festival last weekend. I had the pleasure of meeting with Akiko during her visit and am gracious for the exposure to the church. Hopefully she can make it out again next year and bring along some more traffic to our festival! ;)

WIRED ran an interesting article about the 7 Deadly Sins as mapped out in America from Kansas State University Geography research.

Curious where the "Se7en" Deadly Sins originated from, I did a bit a research, specifically from a Coptic Orthodox stand-point. Apparently, the 7 Deadly Sins were originally 8 in number, as established by the monk Evagrius Ponticus. He was a trusted friend of some of the most influential fathers of the Orthodox church, including St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Macarius and St. Basil. It wasn't until the 4th Century that Pope Gregory I revisted this list to create the more common 7 Deadly Sins we know today.

But this brings along the question of whether some sins are worse than others? By what standards are these sins more "deadly" than others? Are they the sole sins that lead to Hades? I would think not, as is explicitly written in James 2:10, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

To understand this we must delve into the root meaning of "sin". From Isaiah 59:2 we read,

"But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear."

And from that, we can conclude that all sins are "deadly" as they introduce a separation from God, because the lack of God is sin, and without God there is nothing. These seven are specifically deadly in name because they spark the path of sin, a slippery slope, if you will.

23 Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.

24 Put away perversity from your mouth;
keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.

26 Make level paths for your feet
and take only ways that are firm.

27 Do not swerve to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.
(Proverbs 4)

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Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of all internet web developers world wide.

And now, this is the icing on the cake...

"If you're still using Internet Explorer 6, you're stealing food from starving people."

Yea, that's right. It's true. There's people. Starving. Because you're still using IE6!

Do your part and just download Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft will donate $1.15 to Feeding America. Furthermore, if you're upgrading from IE6, their contribution doubles.

It's simple, it will take you literally 1 minute and won't cost you a dime. Not only will you help feed starving people, but you'll also be helping web developers around the globe reduce their stress level. Now, please consider being a good Samaritan and do your part, won't you?

(Via Gizmodo; Photos 1, 2)