St John Lutheran Library

Recent Library Additions for July, 2008

St John Librarian — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:43:42 +0000

The following images show covers of 41 new titles that were added to the church library collection during July, 2008.

Click here for a more detailed listing of these titles

Or click here to browse and search the entire church library collection

These books were donated to the church library by generous members from our congregation. Thanks to all who donated.

The following book is classified as Biography (B) and is located on the library bookshelves to your lower left as you enter the library. Within the B section, books are sorted by the subject’s last name.

The following books are classified as Adult Non-Fiction Bible Study (NF BI) and are located on the library bookshelves to the left of the computer. Within the NF BI section, books are sorted by the author’s last name.

The following book is classified as Reference (REF) and is located on the library bookshelves immediately to your right as you enter the library. Within the REF section, books are generally sorted by the subject.

Lutheran Book of Prayer

The following books are classified as Adult Non-Fiction (NF) and are located on the library bookshelves to the right of the computer. Within the NF section, books are sorted by the author’s last name.

New Books for June, 2008

St John Librarian — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:47:25 +0000

The following images show covers of 60 new Adult Non-Fiction (NF library classification) titles that were added to the church library collection during June, 2008. If you see a title of interest, all of the books classified NF are located on the library bookshelves to the right of the computer. Within the NF section, books are sorted by the author’s last name.

Click here for a more detailed listing of these titles

Or click here to browse and search the entire church library collection

These books were donated to the church library by generous members from our congregation. Thanks to all who donated.

WOW, What a road trip

St John Librarian — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:36:34 +0000

As stated previously, the mission of our church library is to provide Christian-based media to help enrich the faith life of Jesus Christ’s followers, no matter where they are in their faith journey, even if it has yet to begin. We have been blessed to receive the donations and funds enabling us to build a collection of books, magazines, along with audio and video media for our patrons to borrow. In addition to the media contained by the physical walls of our library, we also think it is important to promote Christian-based Internet resources as yet another source of information to help draw us closer to Jesus during our daily walk.

I was recently faced with the need to take a 15-hour road trip by myself. In preparing for this trip I was wondering what I would be listening to during my time in the car. I wasn’t in the mood for music CDs or radio, so I thought an audio book or two, or perhaps an audio bible would be in order. Then I remembered an Internet resource from which I could make my own audio CD containing church sermons. That seemed like great way to spend my listening time during the next couple of days in the car.

Our church provides a ministry called WOW. WOW stands for Worship Outreach to the World. This ministry provides MP3 audio files of the readings and sermon for each worship service over the last several years. Additionally there are MP3 files of special lectures and classes that have been held at the church. By browsing to the WOW web site, one can find hyperlinks for directly listening to the MP3 files, or by right-clicking on the link, downloading the MP3 to one’s local computer. Once downloaded, the MP3 files can be burned to CD for listening with an MP3-compatible CD player.

Fortunately my vehicle is equipped with an MP3-compatible CD player so I created a folder on my computer into which I downloaded all of the recorded services for 2007 and 2008. Each MP3 file contains the lectionary readings and the sermon for a specific worship service. At St. John, we have four services each Sunday, two are held using a traditional Lutheran worship service format, and the other two using a contemporary format. So for each Sunday listing on the WOW web site, there is one MP3 for the traditional service, and one for the contemporary service since the two traditional services on a given Sunday will possess the same content, they are just held at different times of the day to provide folks with attendence options. The same holds true for the contemporary service.

An individual worship service MP3 contains approximately 20 to 25 minutes for the readings and the sermon and is about 5 megabytes (MB) in size. On a regular audio CD, 20 to 25 minutes of audio would consume about 250 MB of disk space, but MP3 is an audio format that allows varying degrees of compressibility to standard audio files. Wikipedia provides a detailed description of MP3 technology if you would like to read more about it. Because the worship service content is spoken word, the WOW MP3 files are created using a bit rate that provides a highly compressed audio file with adequate sound quality. Considering that a standard CD can hold 700 MB of data, we could theoretically fit 140 worship services on one CD. At an average of 20 minutes per service, that would be three services per hour. That equates to a little over 46 hours of worship services on one CD. So far in 2008, there had been 41 worship services posted to the WOW web site, so those alone would be about right to cover my upcoming trip.

Because we have two worship formats each Sunday, I will generally miss the sermon from the worship service format that I do not attend. That is unfortunate because our church is blessed to have pastors that provide thought-provoking, faith-enriching sermons each and every service. But thanks to the WOW ministry, it is now possible to listen to the sermons from the worship services that we are unable to attend.

Armed with my WOW CD, I embarked on my road trip. Listening to the worship services made the miles fly by. Services that I had attended in person were joyfully relived. Services that I had missed were listened to with fascination. Our pastors do an amazing job in their sermons of taking the lectionary readings from a given Sunday and provding many insights into the meanings of His Word and how they can apply to our lives and strengthen our walk in faith. The Holy Spirit is truly at work through the readings and the accompanying sermon in each and every one of the worship services.

I would highly recommend this Christian-based media to anyone with an MP3-compatible CD player and the time to listen. So far I have only listened to the 2008 worship services. There are still all of the services from 2006 and 2007, not to mention all of the special lectures and classes from the past couple of years to listen to. I believe that my solo road trip listening needs are well covered for some time to come.

Because of the positive experience that I had with the WOW MP3s on my recent road trip, I have found it very enjoyable and enriching to listen to the worship services even during my local drives around town. Of course this is not the only way to enjoy the content of the WOW files. The versatility of having worship services in a portable audio file allows one to listen to His Word wherever we are, both at home and on the go.

One final note: I ran into one minor techinical glitch in making the CD containing WOW MP3 files. Some MP3-compatible CD players, which happens to include mine, will not play MP3 files that use the sample rate contained by most of files produced by the WOW ministry, which is usually 16,000 Hz. So if you burn the WOW MP3 files to a CD and have difficulty with them on your CD player, please refer to this online article for an explanation of the problem and the associated fix. This article describes a fix for strange sound quality in MP3 files, but I was able to successfully apply the advice provided by this article to work around the issue of my MP3 files not playing at all.

Promise Keepers Discount

St John Librarian — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:18:08 +0000

The last post in this blog described the upcoming Promise Keepers conference to be held in Charleston, West Virginia on September 12th and 13th, 2008. From now until May 23rd, 2008, Promise Keepers is offering a registration discount that will save registrants $15 from the standard registration price. Use the following information provided by Promise Keepers to take advantage of this discount:

SAVE $15 ON ADULT REGISTRATIONS – REGISTER NOW

Promise Keepers is returning to Charleston at the Charleston Civic Center on Sept. 12-13 and we are pleased to announce a special online discount offer on all adult registrations through May 23rd!

Experience dynamic worship led by Stephen Newby; hear life-changing messages by Rick Rigsby, Dan Seaborn, Os Hillman, Mike Silva and others.

“MANHOOD ’08: Let the Truth be Told” will equip you to live for God in an often hostile culture. Join thousands of other men as we learn to engage our faith in every aspect of life – together.

IMPORTANT: To receive your $15 discount on all adult registrations through May 23rd, you must use the promo code of IA84-1F15 during the checkout process at the link below.

NOTE TO GROUP LEADERS: For single orders of 11 or more adult registrations, please call 1-866-PROMISE for assistance. For orders of 10 or less, please use the link below with the promo code.

An optional box lunch is available for $10.

Register Now:

http://www.promisekeepers.org/2008/charleston-wv
Promo Code: IA84-1F15

TELL A FRIEND! Please help us fill the arena by forwarding this to at least five other men interested in attending.

Offer good on adult registrations through May 23rd. Online offer only – discount does not apply to mail-in or phone orders. Offer cannot be combined with other discounts.

Promise Keepers Returns

St John Librarian — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:54:33 +0000

After a year’s absence from appearing in our region, Promise Keepers returns in the summer of 2008 with a conference on September 12th and 13th in Charleston, WV. A Promise Keepers conference consists of several thousand men gathered together in an arena venue to worship and praise God. The total experience draws from a variety of inspirations, including nationally prominent Christian speakers, uplifting praise band music, laughing out loud to Christian comedy, and watching thought-provoking dramatic skits. There is no hugging or hand-holding required. It was once said that a Promise Keepers conference is “How men do God.” Big screens and a big PA system are used to provide a multi-media presentation designed to enrich and strengthen a man’s faith no matter what stage of his faith journey he’s in.

The conference itself will run from 6:30 – 10:00 PM on Friday, September 12th and from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM on Saturday, September 13th. The cost of the conference is about $90 plus food and lodging. However, lack of funds will not stand in the way of anyone who is interested in attending. Scholarship funds are (discretely) available to assist those who would like to attend but might need some financial backing. Plans for a group from St John to attend this conference are presently being formulated. If you are interested in attending, please use this e-mail link. If you would like to read more about Promise Keepers and the upcoming conferences, please visit their website at http://www.promisekeepers.org.

Sacramental Living

St John Librarian — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:34:36 +0000

The mission of our church library is to promote and provide titles that will enrich one’s faith in Jesus Christ no matter where they are in their faith journey. Our hard copy collection of Christian-based media includes approximately 4,000 books, several hundred video and audio titles, and several periodical subscriptions. However in this day and age of the Internet, we should also consider promoting online sources that we feel are consistent with our mission statement.

Yesterday I was introduced to one such source. It is a blog entitled Sacramental Living maintained by two of our sisters in Christ who attend church here at St John. At this blog you will find entries that bring faith-based current events to our attention, as well as those containing thought provoking spiritual examination. Like this church library blog that you are presently reading, Sacramental Living is a fairly new blog, so go check it out if you have a chance and provide the authors with some feedback on their writings if you feel so inclined.

The URL for the Sacramental Living blog is http://sacramentalliving.blogspot.com. A link to the Sacramental Living blog will be available from the main page of this blog you are presently reading. By subscribing to their blog, you will be assured of receiving the authors updated writings as they are posted, just like you can with this blog. You are subscribed to this blog, aren’t you? If not, use the orange button with the white stripes just below to start subscribing!

New Look in the Library

St John Librarian — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:07:58 +0000

If you have been looking for the familiar blue crate in which to return your borrowed library materials, it has been retired after many years of faithful service. Taking its place is a new cloth-lined basket located straight ahead as you walk into the library.

On the shelf right above the returned materials basket is another smaller basket containing blank comment forms. If you would like to provide some commentary about your experience with church library books or videos to share with other church library users, we would love to hear your feedback. Reviews can be anonymous and will be posted in our online library catalog. There is a return basket for completed forms right next to the basket containing the blank forms.

The library computer is sporting a spiffy new flat panel monitor. Shortcuts on the library computer desktop can be used to navigate directly to the church library online catalog. The library pages on the church web site continue to evolve with more information about the library collection and how to more effectively find what you are looking for in the collection. The URL for the church library web pages is http://www.stjohnlutheran.org/lib.htm. There is even a link to this church library blog that you are presently reading.

All of these changes, both in the library and online, are being made in an attempt to make the contents of the library more accessible to the members of our congregation. Please stop by if you have a chance, either in person or online, to browse the collection of faith-enriching materials. If you have any questions about finding materials in the library or using the library web pages, please contact the church librarian using this e-mail link.

Deaccession – Deaccess Report for 2/17/2008

St John Librarian — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:30:30 +0000

When a book is removed from library circulation, it is said to be deaccessed. If a book is damaged, or if we receive a duplicate copy of book in better shape than an existing copy, then we might remove the old copy. If we discover books with a questionable theological content, such that someone reading the book may think it supports our church doctrine, but in fact it does not, then we will remove the book from circulation. As groups of books are deaccessed, our library database software provides a mechanism for generating a report of deaccessed books. These reports will be posted to this blog and will reside on the church website at http://www.stjohnlutheran.org/lib.htm > Volunteers > Deaccession Reports. Agreements or disagreements to deaccessing decisions would be great reasons to provide comments back to this blog. Also, if you encounter titles in the library that you feel might have questionable content, or are found in a damaged condition, then please post comments to this blog, or for a more discrete communication, e-mail the church librarian using the link on the church website.

Deaccession Report 2/17/2008

Accession Number	Location	Author Title Reason
96-1711	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold S. How good do we have to be? : a new understanding of guilt and forgiveness Theological Dispute
96-1560	NF Sie	Siegel, Bernie S. Love, medicine, & miracles : lessons learned about self-healing from a surgeon’s experience with exceptional patients Theological Dispute
97-1789	NF Kus	Kushner When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough Theological Dispute
97-1801	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold S. When all you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough Theological Dispute
95-474	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold S. When Bad Things Happen to Good People Theological Dispute
06-130	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold S. When Bad Things Happen to Good People Theological Dispute
02-151	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold Who Needs God Theological Dispute
97-1799	NF Kus	Kushner, Harold S. Who needs God Theological Dispute

Hello world!

St John Librarian — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:38:31 +0000

Welcome to the blog for the St John Evangelical Church Library listed at WordPress.com. We are located in Roanoke, VA, USA. Our church library recently went online with our library collection so that people could browse and search our Christian-based media from the convenience of their web browser. Of course what would an online presence be in this day and age without our very own blog!

It is our hope that this blog will primarily provide a mechanism through which folks can receive updates about the library. At this time it is envisioned that when books and other media are added or removed from the collection, a posting will be made here containing information about changes to the collection. If someone regularly reviews this blog, or better yet, subscribes to this blog’s feeds, then they will know about those changes.