Archive for September 23rd, 2006

Reading Comments from the Main Page

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

One more quick blog format note, and then I promise I’ll get back to the substantial topics on the table. (No, I’m not avoiding the topics, I promise! I’m just sometimes very much a geek when it comes to stuff like this, and I’ve been having fun with WordPress plugins, etc. today when I should have been posting something more meaty!)

A new feature now on the blog is that from the main page (the one that you come to when you type in http://www.theologicalmusingsblog.com), you can read comments on any of the posts without actually visiting the post page. Here’s how it works:

At the bottom of any post that actually has comments, right next to the link that tells you how many comments are on that post, you’ll see a “Show Comments” link. When you click this, it will retrieve the comments for that post and expand the length of the page to show the comments right there inline. Once the comments are displayed, the “Show Comments” link will change to say “Hide Comments” which will then collapse the comments, hiding them again.

Depending on the number of comments, it may take a few seconds (you’ll see a little animated icon that shows that it’s working on pulling the comments in for you) to load them, so be patient. It’s probably no different, however, than the amount of time it takes to load the post page itself when you click over to read comments that way.

If you want to leave a comment, you’ll still have to visit the actual post page, but for just reading the comments (all of you readers out there who don’t actually leave comments! ;) ), this should be a lot nicer for you.

Oh, and one little thing of interest when you actually do leave comments: With the preview feature, it gives the appearance that you have to enter the anti-spam word both before previewing and before posting. However, I have tested, and the only time the anti-spam word is checked is when you actually post the comment. I don’t know yet how to hide the anti-spam word from the initial form, but I can tell you that you can actually just skip it when clicking “Preview” and wait until you’re ready to click “Post” to actually fill in the name of whatever composer you got in your anti-spam word box! (And yes, Gordon, I have added Pachelbel to the list. Just for you, my brother!  Mozart was already on the list for whomever it was that requested that one.)

Until next time,

steve :)

A New Look and a Simple Church Video

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

Forgive me for changing the look of this blog so soon into my new life here on this WordPress format. I hadn’t taken a huge amount of time to look through available themes (aka templates) before launching the new home for the blog, but now I’ve found some that I really like, and this is one of them! I’m exploring the option of letting you, the reader, switch between different templates so you can view this site in whichever template pleases you the most, but for now, I’m still holding the keys to the layout and design! :)

I anticipate writing some of my own thoughts on the recent discussion about orthodoxy (aka “sound doctrine”) very shortly. Let me say that the discussion has been so wonderful, I’m almost giddy with excitement over this! It’s great to have several different viewpoints represented, and I hope that we’re all growing and thinking through this process. Thank you to all of you who have already contributed.

A tangential discussion to all of this is the concept of “simple church”. As most of you know, this blog deals with different theological discussions, but the emphasis is usually on something related to simple church. (If you’re not really familiar with some of my thoughts on simple church, read part 1 and part 2 of a short series I did called “What Is Simple Church?” in the middle of last year.)

Today, I saw a video on Jonathan Grubbs’ blog. The video is produced by House2House and Karis Publishing. The video, which is ten minutes long, is a compilation of soundbites from various church planters and simple church advocates. I would strongly encourage each of you to take ten minutes to go watch the video. Once you’ve seen it, I would like to get your thoughts on some of the things that are said in that video.

Until next time,

steve :)

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