Malaria, Mosquitoes, and Special Revelation

We needed the microscope to help us see what\u27s going on, and God, in great love, gave us the Word. Posting about how God reveals HImself from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world. http://inallthings.org/malaria-mosquitoes-and-special-revelation

How Do You Get Al Jazeera Worldwide to Purchase your Christian Film for Middle East Broadcast? (Or, Can Christians Make Films the Secular World Will Pay Attention To?)

Ask someone what comes to mind when you say, Christian film. If your experience is anything like mine, the one word you\u27ll hear more than any other is Cheezy (along with an eye roll to back it up). My film students and I prefer not to make Christian films. We prefer films that are made by Christians. We are Christians. We are film makers. We make films that draw from our perspective and world view and those views strongly shape subject matter and treatment, but we also understand that we are making films, not writing and preaching sermons. So often, Christian film fails to see the distinction between preaching and storytelling through the medium of film. When one medium of communication is forced into the other, the result is … cheezy. Dordt College is a Christian, mid-sized, four-year college in Iowa. Dordt\u27s college-based production company, Prairie Grass Productions, had the cheezy issue in mind when we began production on a feature-length documentary film about slums and the more-than one billion people who inhabit them. Our film, The Fourth World, goes past statistics like one in six of us lives in a slum, and most live on $2 a day or less and allows an audience to actually meet some of these statistics in a very personal way. In the process, the audience quickly realizes that these people have names, jobs, a place to live, and hope for a brighter future. The vision for this film was born from our faith, from Scripture\u27s commands to help the poor, and from a very deep-seated outrage over the way things are. Our good God never intended for mankind—the crowing jewel of His creation—to live in deplorable squalor, disease and hunger. The corrupting influence of sin and all that goes with it, means generations of people spend their entire lives in survival mode, never able to explore their God-given gifts and contribute to Kingdom growth. Our goal was to tell an entertaining story about this topic in a way that Christians and non-Christians could enjoy and benefit from. If we told it correctly, we could start a global dialogue about this. If we didn\u27t tell it correctly, the film would gather dust and the discussion we longed for would never happen. We knew from day one that if we made a Christian film, our audience would be severely limited and our financial return would be almost nil. We set a goal to produce a film made by Christians and see how much of the world we could get to see it. The Fourth World has screened at film festivals around the world and taken many top prizes. El Jazeera Worldwide purchased the rights to it for broadcast across the Middle East. As of this writing, we are in negotiations with Discovery Channel Worldwide. The film is regularly downloaded from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Hulu and YouTube. In my presentation, I\u27ll discuss the Christian Film/Film by a Christian difference and why it is important. Using The Fourth World as our example, we\u27ll discuss what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we\u27ll do differently next time. One absolute non-negotiable for Christians who want their work seen outside the Christian bubble is extensive pre-marketing before the film ever gets into production. Consciously determining audience, message and treatment in advance can create opportunities for penetration into the secular marketplace. Networking and cross-marketing with organizations—both secular and Christian—can be huge advantages to the savvy marketer that wants his story not just told, but seen and heard. Three key marketing strategies—International distribution, digital aggregation and the festival circuit—will also be considered. With the right planning, subject matter and treatment, Christian filmmakers can avoid the deadly stigma of having a cheezy film, and broadcast their film made by a Christian in one of the most Muslim parts of the world

Part of a Balanced Breakfast: Three Steps to Restore Balance in our Digital World

New research, articles, and books seem to come out weekly showing strong links between skyrocketing depression levels and screen time. Posting about moderation in our use of digital technology from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation. https://inallthings.org/part-of-a-balanced-breakfast-three-steps-to-restore-balance-in-our-digital-world

Putting a Face on the Facts

Dordt College film professor and students work on a documentary on people living in poverty. It\u27s called The Fourth World

Faith Shapes My Design

Make art that\u27s so good, the world can\u27t ignore you. Posting about true Christian art from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world. http://inallthings.org/faith-shapes-my-design

Learning to Speak the Language of Influence

There’s nothing wrong with media that entertains and delights. We need that. But prophetic media takes it a step further and dares ask an audience hard questions and helps us wonder about the state of things on earth today. Posting about the new literacy of image from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world. http://inallthings.org/learning-to-speak-the-language-of-influence

The usefulness of offering 24/7 online support within a wider mix of professional services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living independently : a qualitative, multiple case study

Service organizations for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) increasingly use telecare applications to improve their services. This study explored the usefulness of offering the 24/7 online support service DigiContact within a broader mix of professional services for people with IDD living independently. We employed a qualitative multiple case study, in which the cases of nine online support users were reconstructed through semistructured interviews with both support users and their case workers. Thematic analysis showed that online support was used as an addition to regular onsite support to enable a more tailor-made delivery of professional supports. Online support can be valuable for its users by increasing the accessibility of professional support and creating opportunities for more self-direction in support

A Second Look at String-Inspired Models for Proton-Proton Scattering via Pomeron Exchange

We re-examine a string dual model for elastic proton-proton scattering via Pomeron exchange. We argue that the method of "Reggeizing" a propagator to take into account an entire trajectory of exchanged particles can be generalized, in particular by modifying the value of the mass-shell parameter in the model. We then fit the generalized model to scattering data at large s and small t. The fitting results are inconclusive, but suggest that a better fit might be obtained by allowing the mass-shell to vary. The model fits the data equally well (roughly) for a wide range of values of the mass-shell parameter, but the other fitting parameters (the slope and intercept of the Regge trajectory, and the coupling constant and dipole mass from the proton-proton-glueball coupling) are then inconsistent with what we expect. On the other hand, using the traditional method of Reggeization generates a weaker fit, but the other parameters obtain more physically reasonable values. In analyzing the fitting results, we also found that our model is more consistent with the sqrt(s) = 1800 GeV coming from the E710 experiment than that coming from the CDF experiment, and that our model has the greatest discrepancy with the data in the range 0.5 GeV^2 < |t| < 0.6 GeV^2, suggesting that the transition from soft Pomeron to hard Pomeron may occur closer to t = -0.5 GeV^2 rather than t = -0.6 GeV^2 as previously thought.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 2 table