Imagineering - back to the future

When I mentioned giving up blogging for Lent I was joking. However, a quick glance at the number of posts here would beg to differ. Time has simply overtaken me and I've ended up being busier than normal. Perhaps I should have taken the call slow down and focus on God a little more serious (That's rhetorical).

So, what have I been up to? Well, I've been looking at where we go with WordLive and some other digital ideas too. It is a time of strategy and planning for the future, but our story begins a long time ago in a galaxy quite close.

It is June1927 and instead of getting an email from WordLive you've just received your 'Daily Notes on the Scripture Portions'. One of the interesting things about looking to the future is taking a glance at the past.

As we've developed Wordlive we have been aware that we shouldn't simply be offering an 'online' version of our printed Bible reading guides.

These guides, as you can see, have been going for quite a few years and although varied in design and content style, the approach is pretty much the same.

Read a Bible passage and then read a short comment about it. The danger is that WordLive can become the same. We provide a Bible reading and then have some comments about the passage.

While this is all well and good, and helpful to a great many people. It doesn't work for everyone.

Our aim is to help people meet with God through the Bible and prayer. To help people do this we are offering visual approaches to the Bible passage. This allows people to think about the passage in a different way and discover more about God.

We have also used video and animations to explore topics and themes found within the passage. Through these we are able to explore more than we can with the 200 or so words that are found in our printed guides.

Audio meditations and reflections offer yet more ways to discover what the Bible passage is saying and we also use a little bit of humour now and again to prompt thought.

But what else is there that we can do to help fulfil our aim? It is this question that I've been looking at over the last few weeks. There are an almost infinite number of possibilities but our resources, both financial and physical are limited.

The growth in social media sites like facebook and twitter would appear to give us some idea of where things are heading. WordLive already has a presence on those sites and if you haven't already, it would be great to see you there.

Once again though, this future has some links to the past. If you look at the cover image from 1927 you'll see that they are headed 'The Scripture Union'. Way back then, the idea was for everyone, or most people, to be looking at the same passage. The Scripture Union was a community of people joined together for the purpose of meeting God through reading the Bible and prayer.

As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, social networks are once again allowing us to create a community of people meeting God through the Bible and prayer.

Members of these communities can, with the use of new media, interact with the Bible passage, the content we provide and with each other. People can create their own content and share their own thoughts, enriching the community environment. Social networks can allow us to become a true union, united in our desire to meet with God.

So, that's what I think. And in true social networking style, it's now over to you. What would help you meet with God?

Darren

A few tweaks here and there

We're always trying to improve Wordlive to help you meet with God. And there are a couple of small changes that we have made this week. In a vain attempt to post more regularly I thought I'd tell you about them.

Firstly, we have merged the 'Topical thought' with the 'Editorial'. The two pieces of writing were doing similar jobs so we thought it made sense to join them together. So from now on you'll see a link labelled 'welcome' in the left navigation panel and that's where the 'Topical thought' can now be found.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, we've changed the 'Pray first'. This was the first activity that you saw when you opened WordLive. The first activity will now be 'Prepare'. This is because sometimes you need to prepare yourself before you can pray. We don't want to diminish the importance of prayer, and there will still be plenty of prayer within WordLive. Sometimes the 'Prepare' may include a prayer or call to prayer, but it could be totally un-prayer related.

That's it for the moment but we're hoping to have lots more for you in the future. To help us know what you'd find helpful on the WordLive site do let us know in the comments below.

Darren

Giving up blogging for Lent

Will it be chocolate?
Should it be wine?
What about that unhealthy full-fat cola?

Actually I have half-a-mind (easy) to give up blogging for Lent. At least that would free up some spare time to focus on God. Seeing as I haven't posted here for a while you probably had already come to that conclusion (or at least hoped).

Rumour has it that the British weather may give up snowing for Lent, but so far it seems to have failed in that respect.

The thing about Lent, and especially the three things at the beginning of this post, is that if something is not 'good' for us, why are we doing it in the first place? And why would we only stop it for a set period of time?

I prefer to see Lent as a time to get things back on track. A time to focus once more on what my role on this little planet is. To look for God's guidance and make sure I'm not too far off course.

Milton Keynes gets some tough press, but it isn't a wilderness. I'm not able to wander out into the desert for 40 days and find myself. But I will be tempted, in that sense Lent is no different to other times of the year.

So I can look to Jesus. I can learn from how he dealt with temptation. And perhaps, at the end of 40 days, I'll be a better person.

How about you?

Darren

You wanna be startin' somethin' ?

Do you ever disagree with something you've read on WordLive?
Have you ever thought why don't they do this or that on WordLive?
Do you to want share how a Bible passage has helped you?
Have you ever wondered what exactly we are on about and wanted clarification?


If any of the above questions have ever occupied your minds, or any other questions related to WordLive, then why not ask them? WordLive has its own dedicated discussion forum where you can do just that.

Each day on WordLive you'll find a link to the forum in the navigational sidebar. A simple click through will take you to the forums and here you can praise, discuss, complain and suggest to your heart's content - within reason.

The forums are there for you to use.

If you have something that you want to say, the easiest place to say it is in the forums. You'll find people who have written the activties, the editorial team and other users of WordLive hanging around. I hope to see you all there pretty soon, and I hope and pray that the forums will be another way we can be inspired to get into the Bible and meet God.

There is also a link to the forums at the bottom of the daily email. So even if you don't normally go to the site, if there is something that you've read that you want to discuss, you'll have an easy link to do that.

And remember, you can always tell us what you'd like to see more of, less of, or what future developments you'd like to see at WordLive.

See you at the forums.

Darren

We're away, so please pray

Just a quick note to say that the WordLive team and the rest of Scripture Union are taking a day out to focus on God and the mission given to us. 2009 was a difficult year for us and so as we begin 2010 it will be good to get things in the right order.

I'm also taking an extra day out with a smaller group of creative peeps from SU to look at the future. Or more specifically what resources we should be developing for the faith community.

So, once again, we'd appreciate your prayers to help us focus on God's will.

Thanks
Darren

Happy New Year - Are you ready for 2010?

It’s that time of year again; the new year. Everyone in the WordLive team prays that God will bless you this coming year.

One theme that runs through the Bible is that of new beginnings. And a new year gives us a little impetus to turn over a new leaf and make a fresh start.

This year why not commit to reading the Bible each day using WordLive?

Or, if you want to go one step further, you’ll find from 1st January 2010 a new activity each day. The Bible in a year provides links to a couple of readings each day. And guess what? If you use this activity each day for 2010, you’ll have read the whole Bible by 31st December :)

We’re looking forward to 2010, with lots of things in the pipeline for WordLive, so let’s journey together. And do let us know in the comments what you’d like to see on WordLive in the future.

2009 – a year of highs and lows

We’re coming to the end of another year. This means that WordLive is almost two years old – Happy Birthday is the 1st January.

The year has seen us build on the success of our first year with more people than ever deepening their relationship with God through reading the Bible and praying using Wordlive.

We’ve also developed our facebook and twitter presence, and we’d love for you to join in the conversation there. Our YouTube account is also hosting all the WordLive vidoes, making it very easy for you to embed and share them with your own communities.

WordLive itself went through an upgrade (lovingly called WordLive 1.5 to the team). It now has an image each day as well as tools to share each and every activity around the net.

But the year has also been painful for the team. The current economic climate has hit us and we’ve had to look at new ways of delivering WordLive content in the future. As part of a bigger SU re-shaping our team has been affected, and we have had to say goodbye to several wonderful people.

So the year has been what most years are; times of joy and sadness, contentment and yearning. And next year will be the same, although the specifics are not yet known.

One thing we can be sure of though, is that we can have faith, and trust in God.

What are your memories of 2009?