Archive for January, 2007

Those Jire guys have published the dates for Tree63’s upcoming “Tour the Beloved Country” tour. And they are (da dum da dum)…

02 March - Pretoria (NG Gemeente Moreleta Park)
03 March - Port Elizabeth (UPE Sports Arena)
06 March - Pietermaritzburg (Golden Horse Casino)
09 March - Durban (Crusaders Sports Club)
10 March - Cape Town (His People Centre)
13 March - Potchefstroom (NW University Amphitheatre)
15 March - Bloemfontein (Kruiskerk)
16 March - Johannesburg (Sandton Convention Centre)

These will be the “1st SA shows in 2 years” so book as soon as possible - with such a massive fan base I have a sneaking suspicion that sellouts are inevitable. Tickets are available from Computicket, Gospel Direct, Shoprite/Checkers and MTN stores or from the venue.

Valentines day is coming up, and for all the single people out there (like me) it’s not usually up there with the most highly anticipated days of our lives. And no matter how much you pad up for it, this is one day that always seems to sow a seed of discontentment about your lot in life.

Last year I handled it famously by getting my wisdom teeth taken out on the day. It sounded good at the time but in retrospect wasn’t the wisest decision I’ve ever made. Now this year I have a brilliant, fantastic, pain free idea, bound to save anyone from the wellingtons day blues…

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A while ago I read and bookmarked a blog post by Joe Suh. Joe’s a co-founder of the social networking site MyChurch.org. He told the story about how he manages to religiously catch up with web feeds throughout his day, but struggles to find the same devotion to reading scripture. It struck a chord, and it’s got me thinking.

The RSS reader, that eternal fountain of information, can be a dangerous thing. Keeping track of hundreds of fascinating blogs and other content sources is made all too easy - I just have to click on the next unread post and absorb the nice fresh pile of words (while the next lot quietly downloads in the background).

So what if reading the Bible could be that easy? I mean, we’re supposed to be redeeming technology for God’s purposes, right? Here’s my new strategy:

1. Clear your head. If you’ve been sitting at the PC for a while, get up and get some blood flowing. Pray for understanding and for the Spirit to reveal something new.

2a. Go to thebiblepodcast.org and start listening to a chapter of the New English Translation streamed straight from the website. What I’ve done is subscribe to the podcast’s feed, which prompts me every day that there’s a new chapter ready to listen to. If that sounds like a reasonable idea but you’re not too sure about this whole podcast-feed-RSS-nonsense, we’ll have a nice beginner’s guide to getting into podcasts in another post soon, just for you.

2b. If you’re not tethered to the computer and one of those more out-and-about types, you could also subscribe to the Bible Podcast in iTunes, sync with your iPod and listen on the go.

3. Serving suggestion: In a new window or tab, open up www.bible.org and jump to today’s passage to read along with the audio. I find this helps me to focus and get a better understanding from the way the text is laid out.

Now I have a feeling that reading your Biblepodcast may be a bit of a cop-out, and it’s surely not for everyone. There’s a lot to be said for your real-life, leather-bound version. If I read one chapter a day this way, it isn’t even going to get me through a third of the Bible in a year. But it’s a whole lot better than no chapters a day.

Let’s hear from you. For fellow victims of information overload out there, what are some of the ways you try to make sure the Word of God doesn’t get blindsided by the thousands of other voices shouting for your attention daily?

On Saturday I spent 8 hours in the baking sun watching SA play Pakistan in Centurion. Supersport Park has mostly a grass seating area, and so we parked on camping chairs with the cooler box and lots of sunscreen and just soaked up dangerous amounts of UV rays for hours. Apart from a few patches that the sunscreen avoided I managed to come out with all my skin intact…

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It’s 2007 and no doubt by now you’ve been flooded with good wishes and blessings from around the globe. It is my hope that 2007 will be a blessed year for whoever is reading this article. The reality is though, that it’s going to be tough. Unfortunately there’s nothing magical about the flip of the calendar to 1 January, and since my informal survey of last year yielded the unanimous result that it was a tough year, 2007 will probably have more than it’s fair share of challenges.

I realised this when reading a fantastic version of the Christmas story in my favorite book in the Bible, the Revelation of John. I know people read and interpret this book in many ways, but I couldn’t help but notice that the story of the pregnant woman and child as told in Rev 12 & 13, was a Narnia-like retelling of the Christmas story, complete with ferocious dragons and other not-so-ferocious looking leopard/lion wannabes…

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