Training

Psalms that Sing

by EMDC Online
June 8, 2022October 28, 2022

A group of Old Testament consultants are developing a series of aids to help translators prepare oral/performance and written translations of psalms that incorporate characteristics of local poetry and which will result in several products – both an exegetically-accurate written translation as well as a number of oral performances of the psalm or portions thereof.

For each psalm, there are four stages to the process, which moves from oral to written to performance. The hope is to capture the creativity of the translators through first preparing an oral translation and performance-excerpts, and then for this translation to be honed (to bring it closer to the Hebrew in terms of accuracy) after a careful study of the exegesis of the text.

Scripture Engagement Research Initiative

by Forum of Bible Agencies
April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Here are the latest resources on the Scripture Engagement website:
Scripture Engagement Research Initiative< Mar 03, 2022 10:53 am

A multiagency research program of Dallas International University

Dallas International University (DIU), in collaboration with SIL’s Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship, has launched the Scripture Engagement Research Initiative (SERI). The SERI program hosts a series of large grant-funded Scripture Engagement research projects. Research topics are proposed both by participants and by the SERI leadership. Participants can serve for short periods of time or as part of a longer-term assignment.

Innovation Does Not Equal Technology

by Jon Hirst
February 23, 2022February 25, 2022

Illustration from 10 Types of Innovation: The Art of Discovering a Breakthrough Product

Imagine that someone was to say to you, “I’m involved in an innovative project.” What assumptions would you make about the project? Take a moment to be in that conversation and truly consider my question.

The word “innovative” will tip you off that they are working on something new. You may also assume that there is a degree of risk or uncertainty in the project’s outcome because it is new. It is also likely that you assume that the project involves some new technology, or an existing technology applied to a new domain.

It’s that last assumption that I would like to focus on for a few minutes. Why is it that we tend to associate innovation with technology? My guess is that we are simply used to seeing the two go hand in hand in our 21st Century world. There have been so many astounding advances in technology in the past 20 years that our brains are almost conditioned to join the two concepts together.

AniMissions Seminar Update

by David H
November 10, 2021November 9, 2021

Create Taiwan

AniMissions Seminar Update

As of today, the 2021 AniMissions Seminar has been underway already for one week. Fourteen students from seven countries have jumped into this adventure in learning animation for the purpose of frontier missions. This is our first ever online school, so you can imagine a lot of issues had to worked out during the first week. Thanks to Keegan, the designer of the Campfire site, things are running relatively smoothly.

A Nudge

One of our hopes in transitioning to an online program was to expand our training to reach those who are working on the field and would not have the ability to travel to Taiwan. We are delighted to see this hope being fulfilled already as two teams working in the 10/40 window are participating, along with other individuals from the Global South.

In fact, all fourteen students are either involved or are preparing to be involved in missions, so we are already more effectively reaching our target audience. The recent pandemic and especially the closing of the Taiwan border gave us the push we needed to move quickly into this online learning venture, and we are grateful to God for this.

A Foundation

Last week, the students learned about culture and contextualization, story structure, scriptwriting and storyboarding. These are all foundational teachings on which we build the main 3D graphics and animation section of the course. They were also introduced to our main software tool, Blender, and ended the week with a tutorial on how to build and animate a simple rocket. This week, they will dive fully into learning the Blender modeling process, so things will get a bit more complicated.

“The recent pandemic and especially the closing of the Taiwan border gave us the push we needed to move quickly into this online learning venture, and we are grateful to God for this.”

We are already talking about our next seminar, which we plan to run in Spring 2022 from April to the end of May. Several students that couldn’t get into this seminar will be doing the seminar at that time. If you have an interest in learning to create animated short films to bring the gospel to the world’s unreached people groups, consider joining us in 2022!

– Dave H.