20191026 church newsletter for TPCSTL

It will be the first time in my life that I hear something about the All Saints Day this coming Sunday.

It will be the first time I understand the contemporary sense of the saints.

It will be the first time we sing the old hymn about the Saints, #633. The first note of this hymn is a rest that makes it a challenge for all to sing the first sound together. The key to singing this hymn is for all to wait for the instruments, in our case a piano, to play out a loud chord which is not in the score for half-beat. The silent half-beat would provide the timing for swallow the water in the month and sing the first word.

It will be the first time that the hymn slide starts with a brief instruction on how to sing this hymn.

It is the first time that the sermon translation is done by a ministry team, rather than an individual recruited for the day, attempting to develop into a new system of ministry. For this new vision and new life of involvement the team will have the first meeting at the lunch time. Everyone is welcome to join the venture.

Here is a brief outline of the translation ministry:

1. The preacher works on writing the script verbatim and send the file to the session member leading the worship ministry and the person handling the first conversion, by the end of Tuesday.
2. The session member pass the file to the involved team, including the bulletin team, the projection team, and the translation team and post the original file to the cloud, for now a google drive.
3. One of the translation team member would convert the original file, which is for pulpit reading, including large fonts and generous white space, into a smaller file for private reading with smaller fonts and white space.
4. One of the translation team member would convert the original file into a spreadsheet with one row for each sentence with series number along with Mandarin translated by google, manually or thru a new automated application. The app is developed by Michael Shih voluntarily, might be in service starting next week.
5. One of the translation team member would post the spreadsheet to the cloud for co-writing among the team members.
6. One of the translation team member would send out a message to the teammates specifying who works on what group of sentences.
7. Each member of the team would start translating his or her share by changing the sentences translated by google and post the result to the shared file online. (Tony would work on a copy of that spreadsheet on a desktop or notebook computer and duplicate the sentences in the file on the cloud to let others know the progress.)
8. Some members of the team might write emails to the preacher to clarify some question by showing the "translation by guessing".
9. Some member of the team would work beyond his or her share of sentences to cover those not yet touched by others.
10. Some member of the team would download the completed spreadsheet and convert it into a ms-word file for proofreading at the same time adjust the format for print on paper.
11. Some member of the team might extract the quotable sentences and the ones difficult to comprehend by hearing and duplicate them in a slide set.
12. The slide set would be forwarded to the projection team for further usages.
13. Some member of the team might extract the special expressions and enter them into the spreadsheet of Christian Idioms for future references.
14. Some member of the team might extract sentences for usage in the "sermonaid" to be printed out as Church bulletin inserts to help the congregation preview, compare, or review the sermon.
15. Some member of the team might upload the finalized print copy to the cloud for future references.
16. Some member of the team might duplicate the finalized print copy on papers to be distributed to those who need them at the church.
17. The finalized print copy might be distributed in the church newsletter after the sermon is delivered.