Our Holy Bible: Mosaic blog tour review is taking us to the stop from 10/21 at Bookfoolery and Babble, a nice eclectic book review blog. The tour stop there was a guest post from me, and I took the opportunity to discuss how we came to the title for this project:

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).

Today’s stop on the Holy Bible: Mosaic blog tour is at Writing Canvas. Loni is featuring a guest post from Stephen Vosloo, one of Tyndale’s very talented designers who served as senior designer for Holy Bible: Mosaic.

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.

Today’s stop on the Holy Bible: Mosaic blog tour brings us to Peter Lopez’s blog, Beauty of the Bible. In addition to his excellent review, Peter offers an interview with me. He asked some great questions, including:

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.

I haven’t been using this blog very well (i.e., at all), but starting today I will use it to provide links to the stops on the Holy Bible: Mosaic blog tour. The tour has been going strong for a few weeks now, so I’m not going to give you links to every post all at once. But each weekday I plan to point you to that day’s tour stop along with a review post pointing to one of the previous stops on the tour.

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.