I was with a group of young people on Tuesday trying to learn a new song and no one happened to have a pitch pipe along. That steel cookie just doesn’t always make it into our pockets along side the requisite wallet, mobile phone and keys. So we stumbled along and made do without it for the duration of our song learning efforts.

Later, I got to thinking about how if we could just use our cell phone’s ability to play audio and use a pre-recorded set of auditory pitches, we wouldn’t ever have that problem again, since most people always have their cell phone with them. So I went hunting online to find something of that nature that would work for our future music endeavors. I came across the Online Pitch Pipe and figured the MP3’s found on that page would be just the ticket.  Unfortunately, they are no longer available, but thanks to our friends over at the Internet Archive and their Wayback Machine, I was able to download the files from the 2005 version of the website.  I have linked to them below in a zipped folder which you may freely download and unzip before loading them on your cellphone.  Now before anyone argues that the sound from a genuine free reed aerophone is far superior than the sound of an electronic micro-sized speaker on a cellphone, I will quickly agree.  However, having your cellphone blow the pitch is better than no pitch at all :-)   So, I wouldn’t recommend this as an alternative for any of us Mennonite, Beachy or other Acappella singer-types on Sunday morning at church, but it works for impromptu singing events when the Real McCoy isn’t available.

Enjoy!

Cellphone Pitch Pipe.zip

Here are some photos from setup last night:

A friend asked me to convert an audio tape to CD for them.  It is an old sermon recording from 1951 by George R. Brunk, the Mennonite evangelist who spoke to crowds of 15,000+ people under a massive tent back in the ’50s.   You can read more about him HERE and HERE.

Anyway, I looked online and this particular message doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else even from the famed sermonindex.net, so I figured I’d make it available for anyone to listen to right here.

Religion of the Easy Road MP3 | 24MB | 47:00

Working in IT and being in conservative Christian circles has allowed me to have some great discussions on how to implement (or not implement in some cases) the use of the internet by Christian families seeking to follow the Biblical mandate to be “in the world,  not of it”. I want to share some thoughts on this, as well as link to free resources that I have used and recommended to Christian parents who have asked for resources that work.

The internet is an interesting social phenomenon in that there is no central governing agency. Any one government can only control what “nodes” of the internet are physically located within its borders. So any person on the planet can post whatever content they choose to post and as long as that content is hosted in a geopolitical area that doesn’t restrict that particular type of content, anything goes.

As a result, it is up to individuals, familes, businesses and other organizations to “filter” what parts of the internet can be viewed by the computers under their jurisdiction. I’m going to focus on the family and a few best practices that make the use of this tool as trouble free as possible.

Best Practices for Families:

• Parents, take time to learn how the internet works and keep current with any major developments. If you aren’t very technically inclined, ask a Christian friend who is, to keep you updated.
• Parents, use some form of reporting (internet history, reporting software, Vista’s or OS X’s parental controls, etc) to keep family members accountable for where they goes on the internet and for how long.
• Use a form of internet filtering that is effective and can’t be easily circumnavigated. This is not a silver bullet. Parents, train your children in areas of moral purity and in the use or avoidance, depending on age levels and parental choice, of social web applications such as email, IM, blogging, Facebook, micro-blogging (Twitter), and other social media.
• Computer use should be in an open area where parents can easily walk past and see anything that is being displayed on the screen.
• If you can, go on an internet “fast” as a family occasionally, so you can see how the use of the internet affects your family life.
• Parents, make an Internet Use Agreement for your family and post it by the computer or in another prominent area of your home. This is something used even by non-Christian families. Microsoft has an article on this as well HERE.

Free Internet Filtering and Reporting Software for Families:

• Adblocker Plus - If you use the Firefox web browser, install this plugin to eliminate all those flash banner ads, which often promote selfish consumerism and immoral sensuality.
• Open DNS - This filtering solution is easy to implement and can be installed on either individual computers or your router.  The router option is better as it is harder to get around.
• K9 Web Filtering -   Mac/PC compatible software gets installed on a computer and provides filtering and reporting capabilities.
• File Sharing Sentinel -  Prevents peer-to-peer software such as Limewire, BitTorrent, eMule, etc from being installed (Windows only).
• McGruff SafeGuard - Excellent reporting software. Description from the website: McGruff SafeGuard is a service that intelligently monitors kids’ internet activity, including: website visits, chat and instant messaging, search engine phrases, social network profiles on MySpace, Facebook and many others. The Service alerts parents to problems such as Internet predators, dangerous behavior, underage/illicit sexual activity, suicide, drug use, credit card abuse and crime.
• XXX Church’s X3Watch - Accountability reporting software. The free version sends out biweekly reports and you can have up to 2 accountability partners.

Other Books, Articles and Resources:

• Logged On and Tuned Out: A Non-Techie’s Guide to Parenting a Tech-Savvy Generation |  Excellent book by Vicki Courtney who has done a lot of research in this area. You can read a sample chapter HERE (PDF).
• Internet Safety - Building Character and Building Walls (PDF) |  Top-notch article by Focus on the Family that focuses on the core issues.
• Making Space for Character in a Tech-overloaded World (PDF)  |  Another article from the FoF website with some wisdom and insight I found helpful.

Those are the thoughts and resources that come to mind at the moment. Feel free to share your own experiences, insights and other resources in the comments and I will add them to this post for the benefit of others.

Time Lapse Round One from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Related Links:
The Mission’s website
Article in Christian Action Magazine

]]> http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2009/03/17/when-god-came-down-erlo-stegen-and-the-kwasizabantu-mission/feed/ http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2009/03/08/spring/ http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2009/03/08/spring/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:05:22 +0000 Josh Champagne http://joshchampagne.com/blog/?p=400

Spring is here in PA at least for now.  Yesterday it was 70 degrees and sunny.  This morning I woke to the sound of birds outside my window.  Here’s a short audio clip: Birds Singing in the Morning

What a contrast to last week’s snowstorm!

I recently made the discovery of a fairly new website dedicated to Christian music, Hymnary.org. Built with Drupal, an open-source content management system, this website is a beautiful example of excellent information architecture. Letting it it speak for itself…

The Hymnary is a new kind of hymn Web site. It combines the best features of popular sites like the Cyber Hymnal and academic projects like The Hymn Tune Index and rolls them all into one robust database.

Another great music website I’ve discovered is GladSongs.com.  It is basically iTunes for conservative Christian music where you can purchase and download albums or individual songs. Albums vary in price and individual songs are priced fairly reasonably at 0.99¢/ea. These folks have really embraced social media with a Youtube channel, RSS feed (for new releases), and even a Facebook page.

Today I joined the crowd of 3 billion +  other fellow humans who have watched the Jesus film, the most watched film in history.  The film will turn 30 years old this October and I was amazed at how timeless it is as is the message it carries to viewers.

Anytime I watch a film, I look for a back story and this one did not disappoint.  Here it is from Wikipedia:

History

The film’s origins date back to 1945 when a young businessman named Bill Bright wanted to privately finance a film about the life of Jesus Christ^[1] that was entertaining, biblically accurate, and which could be translated into non-English languages. Rather than making a film at that time, Bright went on to found a Christian ministry to reach college students called Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951.

In 1976, with Campus Crusade’s influence spreading beyond college campuses to sports, the marketplace and other aspects of society, Bright turned his attention once again to filmmaking. Hollywood producer John Heyman approached Bright to fund a project to put the entire Bible on film. The project would eventually be scaled back to just one book of the Bible, the Gospel of Luke, and be financed primarily by Campus Crusade supporters Bunker and Caroline Hunt^[2] for a sum of $6 million.

A team of 500 scholars and leaders from secular and Christian organizations began to research historical elements for a film about Jesus. Filming took place over the course of several months throughout the Middle East.

Jesus was produced by John Heyman, a German-born Jew. British Shakespearean actor Brian Deacon was hired to play the critical role of Jesus himself. The part of MaryRivka Neumann, and the part of Joseph was played by Yosef Shiloach. Former Jesus Film Project director Paul Eshleman, who was on location during much of the principal photography and even had a small non-speaking role as a Roman soldier on horseback, revealed in the DVD’s audio commentary^[3] that Deacon (the son of a Catholic mother and a Protestant father), was so committed to the film and its message that he read several Bible translations a day in order to make certain that he properly presented Christ’s teachings. Because Deacon developed pneumonia during principal photography, doubles were used in certain scenes. Eshleman also claimed that Niko Nitai, who played Peter, became a believer during filming and that the man hired to play Jesus’ corpse later entered a seminary. was played by

Some locations mentioned in the Bible, such as the Jordan River and what is believed to have been the home of Simon the Tanner, were used in the film.

After each day’s filming was completed, the footage was sent to a panel of biblical scholars for review.

Instead of creating a parallel story for the film or embellishing the biblical account, as is the case with other religious films such as The Ten Commandments or The Greatest Story Ever Told, the filmmakers chose to adhere as closely as possible to the Gospel of Luke. Most of the film’s dialogue comes from Luke, which was chosen after John Heyman sought advice from clergy and scholars. Many responded that the screenplay should be based on just one Gospel, and that Luke should be used because of its completeness.

Scenes for The Story of Jesus for Children, which removed much of Jesus’ more violent scenes and added more appropriate ones for younger viewers, were filmed concurrently with those of Jesus.

Jesus was released by Warner Bros. in the United States. It was not a money-maker, losing approximately $2 million. While praising its “meticulous attention to authenticity”, critics panned Jesus for being “painfully monotonous.”^[4]

In 1981, Bill Bright created the Jesus Film Project organization with the goal of accurately translating Jesus into other languages and showing them around the world. The first translation was done for the Tagalog-speaking people of the Philippines. The organization works with thousands of missionaries around the world to show the film, sometimes to audiences who have never seen a motion picture. Distribution in the United States has included direct mail campaigns sponsored by churches to deliver a copy of the film to every address in select zip codes across the country. In 2004, the organization made the film available for viewing on its website in over 300 languages. Both Jesus and The Story of Jesus for Children are available in DVD and VHS formats. Audio dramatizations in a number of languages are also available.