Homiletics Book

Someone asked me whether I could recommend a book on preaching (homiletics). Yes, I can. Pastoral Preaching (2017), by Conrad Mbewe. It is a good one, although it is not as rigorous as some. Interestingly, it is one of very few such books which comes out of Africa.

Accounts 10+ Years Old

One often has to do with simple ... absurdity in government organisations. I approached the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) -- because it looked as though a medical scheme had taken money off my bank account without my permission. They said send us all your bank records (accounts) 10+ years old, or we shall cancel your complaint. One could say various things here, but this is what AI comments: "It is physically impossible for anyone to produce a decade-old bank record." OBSERVATION: This is what one might call a "pretext for war". I am treating it as discrimination, because it is a demand that lies beyond the normal treatment of the citizen.

Bullet-Proof (Not)

The situation surrounding the Iran war seems reminiscent of what can happen in the Church. We have a Constitution. That Constitution is a covenant with God. It is perfectly clear. It covers everything. But wait a moment. What is the definition of a war? And the definition of a ceasefire? And peace? And how long is a war? Are we at war or at peace? What is a Constitution? And so on. The most iron-clad Church Constitutions can run into trouble. OBSERVATION: But they shouldn't.

Homiletics Seminar

Two days ago, I attended a seminar on homiletics (preaching) by Dr. Rondey Ragwan. I felt that it was of a high quality. He engaged a lot with the audience, too (or tried to). He focused on the interpreter (Theology of Self), the text (Theology of Scripture), and lived realities (Theology of the World). OBSERVATION: I asked the final question of the seminar, to which Dr. Ragwan reponded, "Is my transport ready?" There was laughter all round. My question was: what is and is not indispensable in the Church. The consensus was: preaching, certainly.

POSTSCRIPT: Here's a photo that someone else took of the event. It is interesting to me because it demonstrates what a difference dynamic range makes to a photo. Many cameras -- including mine -- permit one to set this. With higher dynamic range, the difference between light and dark is not so stark. No camera has a dynamic range as good as the human eye.

Seminary Classroom

Feel like donating a seminary classroom? Now is your chance! Tangintebu Theological College on Tarawa -- perhaps the most remote theological college on earth -- want to add a classroom. The cost will just top US$100,000. This is me (left) in front of the seminary chapel about 1967, where my father was chaplain. You may contact the principal, Rev. Dr. Tioti Timon, at <tiotit@tangintebu.edu.ki>

Multi-Tasking

This one's just a pretty picture, that I took today at a homiletics seminar. I found this student playing chess against himself -- and at the same time, speaking on his phone.

The Chicken or the Egg

Recently I handed in three course outlines for lectures I am to hold next semester (40-50 lectures of 90 minutes each). "Outlines" seems to be a deceptive word, though, as the outlines are complex documents. But any way one looks at it, the process seems back to front. One can't think of everything in advance, to put into the outlines, nor can one hold the lectures first, and complete the outlines later. OBSERVATION: It does help, however, that one can look at other outlines, and other lectures, for reference.

Perfect Obedience

What is freedom? We had more of it once. Now, people are willing to submit every detail of their behaviour to machines. This is a quote from Gemini AI:

"To eliminate all doubt regarding your physiological details and behavioral habits, you need a multi-device ecosystem. The most comprehensive approach pairs an advanced smartwatch with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and a smart ring, utilizing artificial intelligence algorithms to process your real-time data."

OBSERVATION: It occurs to me that the biggest question -- namely, why we should do all this -- is completely absent.

1,600,000 Page-Views

My blog recently swept past 1,600,000 page-views. I asked Gemini AI why it has so many readers. The answer:

Thomas Scarborough’s blog, Urban Ministry Live and Unplugged, has achieved significant viewership—exceeding 1.5 million total views as of April 2026—due to its unique blend of raw personal narrative, cross-disciplinary expertise, and global accessibility. 

Key Drivers of Popularity: Authentic "Unplugged" Voice, Global Reach & Translation, Broad Intellectual Appeal, Readability, and Encouragement for Clergy.

Reworked Lecture

I thoroughly reworked my Annual Philosophy Lecture of Malta, and put it up on (click here) YouTube. For several months before this, I lost the drive to write, which troubled me greatly. When I got to doing a radical revision, I found it was all there in my head. Without having given it any deliberate thought, I had been doing a complete rethink.

The Nameless

Another philosophical post, this. It is interesting to note that the existentialist thinker Karl Jaspers, in his 1931 book, Man in the Modern Age, speaks of the nameless: 

"Only beyond the unknown and in contradistinction to it, can man encounter the incomprehensible, which is not the temporarily unknown but the essentially nameless. The nameless which could be grasped would never have been the nameless."

OBSERVATION: The nameless is a concept which winds its way through my own philosophy -- and many other philosophies, too. AI considers that, in my philosophy, "the nameless Whole is the vast reality that lies beyond all the concepts, categories, names, and definitions humans create."

Jaspers and Derrida

I am reading the existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers at the moment -- not for content, really, but for style. It is interesting to note how close, back in 1949, he came to core thoughts of Derrida in 1967 and beyond:

"The old mythical world slowly sank into oblivion ... This overall modification of humanity may be termed spiritualisation. The unquestioned grasp on life is loosened, the calm of polarities becomes the disquiet of opposites and antinomies. Man is no longer enclosed within himself. He becomes uncertain of himself and thereby open to new and boundless possibilities."

POSTSCRIPT: Was Derrida a copy-cat? 

Capacitor Torch

In October 2000, I published the world's first capacitor-powered wind-up torch, in EPE magazine. After that. I went on to publish a few variations. I always carry one of mine with me (shown) on travels. OBSERVATION: The reason why I designed a wind-up torch at all is that I was caught in a hurricane (cyclone) in Fiji -- Cyclone Ami -- and my battery torch failed on a dark dirt road as I tried to find my way home through the storm. I was determined not to rely on batteries again!

POSTSCRIPT: It was only around the year 2000 that the technology to build such a torch became available. I saw the possibilities.

Visit to the Dentist

I had to cancel a dentist's appointment today because my garage became enveloped in chaos -- an endless stream of disorder and confusion -- and I had no car! My previous dentist's handiwork had broken apart in just a few weeks: "This is a big one," he had said -- a molar split in two. So I now found the nearest dentist -- who happened to have nothing to do. As usual, I declined an anaesthetic. The dentist (a young woman) worked on my tooth, while a senior dentist hovered around and told her what to do. Wife E said, You were a guinea pig!" -- which I probably was. The dentist finished up and said, "I hope this will work," and I said, "I hope so, too!" OBSERVATION: At least that solved the problem of the tooth -- though not the problem of the car, which should have been fixed five times over by now.

2,743 Word Letter

An author wrote to me today -- if it is an author -- a 2,743-word letter, in which she lavished meticulous praise on my book (click here) This Town -- noting that it has a "strong score" on the Internet. This would indicate that the public appreciates it, and it would deserve better promotion. OBSERVATION: Now, a 2,743-word letter is as long as ... say, a 20-minute sermon -- not to speak of the time one would need to write it. A little common sense informs one that this letter was not written by a human -- and that the motives are ulterior. Of course, my book has a "strong score" -- that is true.

POSTSCRIPT: It seems to me that the AI works like this: it identifies gems on the Internet which could be doing better. Then it creates a suitable letter, proposing (or even just hinting at) better publicity.