The blog posts on this site primarily contain updates about what is going with this ministry and its community.
List of blog posts
2024
This cycle I mostly spent time finishing remaining tasks in my command line application to automate video processing. Many of these things have been long-term goals of mine for a long time now, so it is nice to see everything finally come together.
This cycle I mostly focused on completing a large chunk of the development effort to automate video content processing. With the progress I’ve now made on my Python application, I should be able to post the backlog of BB1: Theology videos I have recorded and ready (probably ~20 videos) in a much shorter timeframe than if I had to manually process them one-by-one. I also recorded a short series of videos on some matters relating to death, resuscitation, and the afterlife that I will be posting in the near future, alongside the aforementioned BB1 videos.
2023
In this release, we’ve got the first 9 lessons in a new study of BB1: Theology off Ichthys (the section of Ichthys’ systematic theology that goes over theology proper)—well, the written parts, at any rate. The videos will hopefully go up soon, once I’ve processed and polished them a bit more.
There are also lots of new pages in new verse-by-verse studies of Romans and 1 Thessalonians: Romans 1, Romans 2, 1 Thessalonians 4, and 1 Thessalonians 5. I’ve also got a bunch more discussion-based pages scaffolded out for Romans 1 through Romans 10 in a separate study of Romans. These pages are more like lists of discussion questions with my rough notes accompanying them. At least, that will be the idea, once I get around to actually filling in my notes.
Due to various circumstances, I haven’t gotten as much done (as quickly) as I might have liked in the last little bit. I’m helping a close friend get content ready for his own ministry website, which has taken up a good bit of my time. I also moved into a new role at work, which had somewhat of a learning curve, and was very busy when sent on a business trip for two weeks. There were other things too, but you get the idea.
Nonetheless, this release brings some new content for many of the lessons in the Winter series from our Sunday School class at Central Baptist, relating to discerning the voice of God.
This cycle ran long on account of me being busy getting set up and established at some local church fellowships. That said, I got 16 (!) new content pages up on the site, making this the biggest content release since the beginning of this ministry. I’ll see if I can keep up the pace as we move forward into the future. Prayers appreciated!
This cycle was very research-heavy. I worked more on the studies I’m in the process of drafting, and in the process of researching a related topic, kicked off a massive forum discussion, and an email chain with my mentor. I also researched options for local fellowships, and narrowed down the options to several that look promising.
This cycle I spent time relaxing over the holidays with family. I also made a good bit of progress on several various upcoming studies, although I didn’t finish any of these enough to publish anything. There were also several things accomplished on the practical front, like building the standing desk that will serve as a speaking podium when used out in the living room during Bible studies at the house.
2022
This cycle I started producing new written content again. This time, one study was on the office of pastor-teacher and church polity, another was on the actions of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in Genesis 16, and the final one was on college decisions and career path.
Like in past cycles, there’s a fair bit of setup stuff still going on. However, I did successfully write a bash script to automate video processing, and I’ve now also decided to formally put some of the video organization stuff I’m having a hard time motivating myself to do on the backburner, and instead turn to drafting some new written ministry content, at least for a time. So stay tuned for that!
This cycle I was mostly stuck working on personal matters that needed to get done. I did mostly get the teleprompter set up though, so hopefully I can start using that effectively in the future. And I also built a spreadsheet to automate some of the stuff I need to do to send updates about these ministry progress summaries, to speed things up more moving forward.
This cycle I worked some on organizing content pages/videos and discussion pages/videos for the first three lessons in the SR4 series. I also spent some time doing more things to improve my workflow in various ways, all with that hope that these things will set me up for success in the long term.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get through quite as much I had hoped this cycle, in terms of forward progress I think most people will actually care about. I did write up a draft for documentation on discussion pages, but wasn’t able to completely finish since I was waiting to take screenshots until I had a couple more discussion pages fleshed out, but then was blocked from actually doing that (temporarily) for various reasons. I got even more stuff done on the “workflow” side of things – continuing to set up voice recognition, handling Markdown in Microsoft Word, mics and monitors, etc. – still maintaining the hope that eventually all this upfront work will be worth it, and I can kick production into full gear.
This cycle was dominated by two primary areas: tech research and setup, and coding support for discussion pages.
On the tech side of things, I did research, bought, and started setting up several different things. A stenomask and voice recognition software to be able to dictate prose at high speeds, a separate wireless lapel mic system to use for content recordings and live presentations, and a portable monitor setup for working on-the-go, so that I can perhaps work in a local public library on the weekends, as sometimes I find that working in a public place can help me focus better.
Aside from all that, the biggest task knocked out this cycle was coding support for discussion pages in the Python preprocessor application for static sites that I’ve been developing over the last few months. This was a large coding effort, taking me many days. But I’m very glad to have it behind me now, so that it will no longer be hanging over my head.
Well, it’s now been a full month since initial launch. I might wish I had gotten more done thus far, but slow and steady wins the race. I’m still sort of in the set up phase – in more ways than one. This cycle, I did all the things for the first video of the focused BB6A playlist on the channel, so that I could set up the BB6A study page on the website. I also made 7 meta-related videos for the YouTube channel. 4 of those videos dealt with explaining playlist structure for existing conternt playlists, 2 were content introductions for both BB6A playlists (the more focused version, and the full version), and the last video was a new banner video for the channel that condensed all of the content from the initial intro video I had made… the one that ended up around ~45 minutes long. That was too long for the general banner video (in my opinion), hence the new shorter version too.
The desktop computer I’d ordered also came this cycle, so I spent a good bit of time setting it up. This entire ministry progress summary was produced on the new computer. It is many times more powerful than the old tablet it is replacing.
This first summary video here, I go over all of the things that happened in the first couple weeks since ministry launch. Even though we had a three-day weekend in here, I got really caught up in a forum conversation, and didn’t perhaps make as much forward progress as I had initially thought I might. I also spent a lot of time researching various things relating to technology to hopefully make future video content better for this ministry. But, nonetheless, I did get a number of things done, especially in terms of organizing the YouTube channel more.
In this video, I go over exactly what these ministry progress summary videos are, and also how they are different from the daily progress summary videos that I upload on a separate YouTube channel.