Prior to the 2006 general assembly some 10-15 PCA ministers gathered with the concern of the well-being of the PCA. Out of a concern for some missional issues observed in the PCA, a small organization was born named “Conversations about Denominational Renewal”. Their website defines the core topics as:
Renewing Ethos
Renewing Theological Practices
Renewing Worship
Renewing Ecclesiology
Renewing Mission
and to be honest, I really appreciate the way they are addressing the subject. They are very careful to assert that the changes they would like to see are not theological and consider themselves conservative doctrinally. But to say that I can see where there concerns are rooted is an understatement. Though I am not in a position where I can participate in any presbyterian assemblies, I do know (from personal observation) the concerns they are addressing. Anyway, their homepage hosts the lectures from the meeting, but my IT-OCD kicked in and had a hard time seeing everything so discombobulated. (that’s right, how often do you see that word floating around.. heh heh )
The Together For the Gospel conference was just held this year in Louisville. If you have any interest in teaching, the gospel, or Jesus, you should really listen to these lectures. I’ve pulled the links for the 2006 and 2008 conference.
Session ILigon Duncan - Sound Doctrine – Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry | Download Session IIThabiti Anyabwile - Bearing the Image: Identity, the Work of Christ, and the Church | Download Session III John MacArthur - The Sinner Neither Able Nor Willing: The Doctrine of Absolute Inability | Download Session IVMark Dever - Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbiblical Theology | Download Session V RC Sproul - The Curse Motif of the Atonement | Download Session VI Albert Mohler - Why Do They Hate It So? The Doctrine of Substitution | Download Session VII John Piper - How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice | Download Session VIIICJ Mahaney - Sustaining a Pastor’s Soul | Download
2006
Session I Mark Dever - The Pastors Understandig of His Own Role | Download Session II Ligon Duncan - Preaching from the Old Testament |Download Session III Albert Mohler - Preaching with the Culture in View | Download Session IV R.C. Sproul - The Center of Christian Preaching: Justification by Faith | Download Session V John Piper - Why Expositional Preaching Is Particularly Glorifying to God | Play Now | Download Session VI C. J. Mahaney - Watch Your Life | Download Session VII John MacArthur - Forty Years of Gospel Ministry | Download
I’ve been considering setting up my old ubuntu box again, meaning, with my two office XP boxes, my Vista laptop, and my Mac Pro I’m definitely going to need some solution, here is where I’m starting my search.
Nothing sucks worse than getting to the office in the morning and realizing you left the most recent copy of an important file—whether it’s your to-do list or a PowerPoint presentation—on your home computer. No matter where you are and what computer you’re using, you always want the most updated set of documents and files you’ve got without having to carry ‘em around on a thumb drive. Luckily, several free solutions can automatically sync folders between computers—even over the internet, through office firewalls—no matter what operating system you use. Whether you want work files edited at home to magically appear on your PC at the office, or the family room Mac to have a copy of the latest batch of digital photos downloaded onto the computer in the den, three free applications can help.
Firefox 3, beta 2 was released yesterday, now is a perfect time to start playing around, testing your web sites, and getting a feel for the overall user experience of the new browser.
Here’s a couple things that you can do (specific to OSX):
Download Firefox 3.0b2 Drag it somewhere on your computer, rename it to something like “Firefox 3.0b2″, then drag it to your Applications folder so that it doesn’t overwrite your copy of Firefox 2).
So every now and again I like to go through my Firefox extensions and weed out all the “test-run” extensions I acquire through my insatiable apatite for new toys. Anyway, after my spring cleaning, I found, once again that I keep coming back to a core list of “Must Have” extensions in order to maintain my online lifestyle. So without further ado, here is my choice list of go-to extensions for every Firefox install I have.
Adblock Plus
I’ve used this extension since the beginning of last year, I put it off until then, despite it constantly being the number one most downloaded extension from Mozilla.
Diigo Bookmarks
This a recent extension for me, but I’m including it because technically I used it to replace my del.icio.us bookmarks extension, but that’s a choice I’ll leave for a different post.
Download Embedded
Wonderfully small and useful tool for grabbing those embedded media files that you can’t get with a right-click.
DownThemAll
This is one of my favorite extensions, I use it mainly for harvesting sermon mp3’s. You can create filters based on regular expressions and file extensions.
Gmail Manager
If you are a Google fan, this is a fantastic tool, it is an icon that sits in the bottom of your window, and auto-checks your email, but most conveniently, with a click it opens your gmail in a separate tab. Very customizable, and useful.
IE Tab
Renders the current page (pages based on a list) in your installed version of Internet Explorer, perfect for css and javascript tests, and those pesky IE only sites.
Nuke Anything Enhanced
Will remove any element in a page, or more importantly exclude everything but what you’ve selected. Perfect for isolating a page to a desired article, or removing images for printing.
Stumbleupon Tool Bar
Ok, so i’m kind of addicted to Stumbleupon… a whole new meaning to “Surfing the Web”.
Tab Mix Plus
This is another great tool, it does everything and more that you wish could be done with tabs in Firefox.
Tree Style Tabs
This one is not for everyone, but in a given day, I find I may have up to 50 tabs open at one time. This extension treats your tabs in a standard tree manner (so I lied about Tab Mix Plus being the be all end all). With the collapsible tabs and auto grouping, I don’t know how I lived without it.
Web Developer Tool Bar
My favorite extension, so many tools, so many features, I use this every day.
Well, that’s it, at any given time, I will have several more installed, but that’s my starter batch. If you have any that you think I’ve missed, let me know, I’m always on the look out for new tools.
