One great way to share Holy Bible: Mosaic with a friend–without springing for a copy of the entire Bible–is the Devotions for Lent booklet. This little devotional is an 80-page, pocket-sized edition of Mosaic that presents all six weekly meditations from the season of Lent together with the Scripture readings for each week gathered in the back. It is a self-contained, full color Lenten devotional, and it retails for just $2.99.

Devotions for Lent is also available in a Kindle edition, and right now we are giving it away for free in that format. You can take advantage of this even if you don’t have a Kindle, using the Kindle for iPhone or Kindle for PC applications supplied by Amazon.

Yet another way you can experience Holy Bible: Mosaic is through the Mosaic NLT application in the iTunes store for your iPhone or iPod Touch. From now until the first Sunday in Lent, we are offering this app (normally priced at $19.99) for a discounted price of $9.99. That gets you all of the Mosaic content as well as the entire NLT, all operating by the elegant, intuitive, and powerful BibleReader engine from OliveTree Bible software.

Mosaic captures the “big idea” of what this Bible is about very well. As the body of Christ, every Christian is one piece of a unified whole–just like a mosaic is a unified picture made up of myriad individual pieces. Each piece contributes to the whole, but the whole is way more important than the individual parts. And the differences in the little pieces of stone, tile and glass are important. Different shapes, sizes, and colors are all needed to make the picture complete. And Holy Bible: Mosaic does a great job of highlighting many of the different shapes, sizes and colors that make up the body of Christ by providing quotes and art from every continent and every century of Christian history.

This post also offers the answer to a great trivia question you can break out at parties: What was the original working title for Holy Bible: Mosaic? You’ll need to go to the post to find out the answer.

Also be sure to check out the Bookfoolery and Babble review of Mosaic and enter the contest to win a copy (open until 11/18).

Design was such an important part of this project, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the work Stephen and the rest of our design team did. Here is an excerpt from his post:

Conceptually, we were breaking new ground in the marketplace, and it was important to create a look for Mosaic that would allow people to quickly understand how this product was different—and why that made it effective. So all the elements, from the small graphic icons, typography, and imagery to the paper weight and color, have been carefully chosen to reinforce the “ancient-future” concept and to ensure balance between aesthetics and functional integrity. One of the most effective ways we achieved this was using white (or negative) space as a key element in the design. This is not common in a Bible because space is a premium due to the length of the scripture text itself. But I couldn’t be happier that we made it a priority to integrate open areas into the design. The white space allows for meditation and reflective writing on the pages right along-side the content. It’s a vital part of encouraging people to engage with the writings, meditations, and prayers at a deeper level.

Go on over and read the rest of Stephen’s post for a unique glimpse into the creative process behind this Bible.

Also, check out Loni’s review of Holy Bible: Mosaic (don’t skip the comments) and take a moment to enter her contest for a free copy.

4. Beyond personal study, how would you advise a pastor, Bible teacher, or small group leader to incorporate a part or all of Mosaic’s material into a Sunday school curriculum or the life of a church or small group?

This is only limited by the creativity of the leader, but I do have a few ideas for different contexts in the church. The Devotions for Advent booklet ($1.99) could be a perfect entry point for a church that is interested in using the material without wanting to commit to asking everyone to buy the full Bible. In fact, I plan to offer the Devotions for Advent booklet to every interested member of my church next month.

Small groups

Small groups could use Mosaic as the jumping off point for their corporate study of the Bible. Each member could follow the weekly material individually throughout the week and then come together to share about what God had been teaching them through the Scripture readings, artwork, quotes, etc. Or a leader can go a little bit deeper by tracking down an original source or two using the Tesserae and help the rest of the group come along as well. This could also work in a Sunday school environment.

Worship

Mosaic could be brought into the worship of the church in several different ways. Pastors could choose to use one or more of the lectionary passages from Mosaic as a primary preaching text (with or without explicitly following the church year as a church), and then use the quotes and readings either as part of the sermon or as congregational readings as part of the service. Hymns or prayers could be integrated as such.

Congregationally

Church leaders could encourage the entire church to use Mosaic to share a devotional experience together. Worship and small groups could also integrate Mosaic in some of the ways mentioned above to extend the experience and help members get the most out of their time in the Word and connecting with the global, historic Church.

Check out the entire interview over at Peter’s blog.

Today we will look back at yesterday’s stop on the tour at TC Robinson’s blog, New Leaven.

TC presented a Q & A session with me. Here is a taste:

5. What hopes do I have for Mosaic?

Three things I’m hoping to see from Mosaic, apart from the obvious hope that people will be able to connect with God through the Scriptures and have a meaningful devotional experience.

(1) I hope Mosaic will help some evangelicals who don’t know much about the church calendar to take a closer look at it and consider what it could do for their spiritual lives.

(2) I hope Mosaic will help Christians get a glimpse at how wide and how broad and how diverse the entire Church is, and remind them that our unity in Christ is far more basic than our differences in culture and theological expression.

(3) I hope Mosaic will nudge a few people to give the NLT a(nother) chance, and I doubly hope that those who think the NLT isn’t very scholarly will take a close look at the Hebrew/Greek word study system in the cross reference column.

Additionally, TC’s contest giving away a copy of Mosaic is still open, so head on over and throw your name in the hat if you haven’t already won a copy.

We have sent review copies of Holy Bible: Mosaic to each of the participants, and they will be posting reviews and interacting with various contributors to the project. We have over a dozen of the editors, writers, and even a designer that are going to be contributing guest posts and Q & A sessions throughout the 10 weeks. Also, each blogger has a copy of the Bible to give away as part of their tour stop. That’s right, you’ll have no less than fifty opportunities to win a copy of this great new Bible.

Here is a partial schedule for the blog tour (updates coming):

9/22 – The Church of Jesus Christ

9/23 – Participatory Bible Study

9/24 - This Lamp

9/25 – Steps

9/28 – Chosen For Grace

9/29 – FCC Library Blog

9/30 – Critical Thinking

10/1 – trans.form

10/2 – Taking Thoughts Captive

10/5 – katagraphais

10/6 – Paradoxum

10/7 – Count Your Blessings

10/8 – PR’s Rant

10/9 – Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

10/12 – Frugal Plus

10/13 – Life. Caffeinated.

10/14 – Internet Monk

10/15 – My book addiction and more…

10/16 – The Kitchen of Half-Baked Thoughts

10/19 – The Princess and the Monkey

10/20 – Creative Madness

10/21 – Bookfoolery and Babble

10/22 – New Leaven

10/23 – Beauty of the Bible

10/26 – Writing Canvas

10/27 – The IE Mommy

10/28 – Jeanne’s Ramblings

10/29 – Christian Stay at Home Moms

10/30 – Englewood Review of Books

11/2 – εις δοξαν

11/3 – New Epistles

11/4 – Kingdom Treasures

11/5 – In Search of a Life Less Ordinary

11/6 – Jim Kane

11/9 – Mocha with Linda

11/10 – Faith Barista

11/11 – Brad Boydston

11/12 – David LaDuke

11/13 – Praxis Habitus

11/16 – Standing in the Gap

11/17 – innerstrife

11/18 - Haack Reviews Books

11/19 – VinceTornero.com

11/20 – Beyond the Silver and the Gold

11/23 – Tales from the Crib

11/24 – Loving Hearts Designs

11/25 – lullabeat

11/26 – THANKSGIVING

11/27 – Post-Restorationist Perspectives

11/30 – beginning again