I need help - please help test a workflow even if you don't use workflows.

A new workflow Verbum: Eastern Orthodox (Ware) Bible Study has just been shared as public. This is one of several that I want to make that reflect the Bible study methods of the ACELO churches (Anglican, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Oriental Orthodox) that may not be familiar to conservative Protestants. I am looking for a brutal critique that tells me where the workflow is unclear, missing steps, inconsistent, confusing, make unrealistic assumptions ... you know all those bad things that as author I am likely blind to. Thank you, very much.

Find more posts tagged with

Catholic Products

Comments

David Taylor, Jr.

MJ are you wanting conservative protestants to test?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204075#Comment_1204075

Yes, that would be very helpful to ensure that instructions are clear and complete. Knowing your reaction to an Orthodox approach would also be interesting.

Rosie Perera

A new workflow Verbum: Eastern Orthodox (Ware) Bible Study has just been shared as public.

I'm willing to take a look at it. These days I'm more progressive Anabaptist/Mennonite than conservative Protestant (Mennonites sometimes consider themselves a subset of Protestantism, but just as often they consider themselves a "third way"; neither Catholic nor Protestant), though I grew up conservative evangelical Protestant, so I still know the mindset. I think progressive Anabaptists might be just as unfamiliar with the ACELO method of Bible Study as conservative Protestants would be. In any event, I'm curious to see what this workflow looks like. I haven't tried out workflows before.

I need some help, though. How do I open a Public workflow? I was able to find yours by opening Guides menu and selecting Workflows down at the bottom next to "Get more shared..." and then filtering the list until I found this new one. But nothing happens when I click on it or double-click on it. If I right-click on it and select "Add to your docs" or click the "Add to your docs" button, I cannot find how whether anything happened. I go look in my Docs for it, and it's not there. If I click the New dropdown button, that doesn't seem to provide anything useful I can do with this workflow template.

So how do I actually use it?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204085#Comment_1204085

You should be able to grab it from the document menu:

Notice the tab set to public
Notice the filter set to: Workflow Template
Notice the search box set to: ver (short for Verbum)
Then the add to your docs box

I understand that you got that far, but others may not have.

Now go to the Guides Menu. It should appear under custom workflows. Click it there and enter a passage ... you should be off and running.

I have special fondness for the Anabaptists. IIRC their hermeneutics are similar to the restoration movement but with the Anabaptists having a healthy communal aspect to avoid idiosyncratic interpretations. The Restoration Movement leans towards rationality as their safeguard.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204091#Comment_1204091

It should appear under custom workflows.

Ah, that's what I was missing. Thanks! I don't think there's any documentation about this. At least I couldn't find any.

I have special fondness for the Anabaptists. IIRC their hermeneutics are similar to the restoration movement but with the Anabaptists having a healthy communal aspect to avoid idiosyncratic interpretations. The Restoration Movement leans towards rationality as their safeguard.

I don't know anything about the Restoration Movement, but you're right that the Anabaptist hermeneutic is communal. It also is Christocentric. A good article on it is "An Overview of Anabaptist Hermeneutics: A Summary of Stuart Murray’s book Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition".

I wish Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition were available in Logos; it's not in Kindle. I've just put in a suggestion for it:

https://feedback.faithlife.com/boards/logos-book-requests/posts/biblical-interpretation-in-the-anabaptist-tradition

John Connell

It will take a while to go through the entire workflow and more comments may follow. My first comment is in "Section 1.3 Commentaries." The text of the workflow suggests reading about the author in the Introduction section of our commentaries. The links in the commentary sections take us to Chapter 1 verse 1 of the commentary and not the Introduction. Would a search of some kind work better here? One that would take us to the Introduction sections of our commentaries?

-john

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204100#Comment_1204100

Good catch - you're right it needs reworked.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204120#Comment_1204120

In the first section you link to some prayer resources I don’t have even though I have both Logos and Verbum. Would it violate the purpose of the workflow to also include some prayer links in resources that might show up in Logos packages? I like the idea of praying behind those who have gone before us. John Baille is a favorite.

John

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204123#Comment_1204123

The examples I pointed to were:

O Master,
Illumine our hearts with the pure light of divine knowledge;
Open the eyes of our mind to understand your gospel;
implant in us the fear of your blessed commandments;
and trample down all our worldly desires:
That we may live in the Spirit,
Thanking you and doing the things that please you
For you are the illumination of our life.
And unto you we ascribe all glory,
For you live forever with the Father
Who is everlasting and with the Holy Spirit
Who is all-holy and the giver of life.
Now and forever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
(Adapted from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)

Robert Webber, The Renewal of Sunday Worship, 1st ed., vol. 3, The Complete Library of Christian Worship (Nashville, TN: Star Song Pub. Group, 1993), 244.

-----

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
(The Book of Common Prayer)

Robert Webber, The Renewal of Sunday Worship, 1st ed., vol. 3, The Complete Library of Christian Worship (Nashville, TN: Star Song Pub. Group, 1993), 244.

-----

A Prayer of Illumination

Living God,
help us to hear your holy Word with open hearts
so that we may truly understand;
and, understanding,
that we may believe;
and, believing,
that we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience,
Seeking your honor and glory in all that we do.
Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.8

Robert L. Plummer, 40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible, ed. Benjamin L. Merkle, 40 Questions Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2010), 149–150.

-----

82 Lift us up

(based on John 3:14)

Faithful God …
Lift our eyes from present distress to your promised presence.
Lift our hearts from anxious thought
to the quiet confidence of a child with its mother.
Lift our hands from binding work into the freedom of praise.
Lift our lives from our feverish pace
into a gentler rhythm of service.
Failing this, O God,
we will not see the one they lifted up in scorn,
the one you lift up in love for us. Amen.

Diane Zaerr Brenneman, Words for Worship 2 (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2009).

-----

Prayer of Illumination

Lord God, we approach your Scriptures with reverence and gratitude that you have preserved for us your lifegiving revelation. Be present with us through your Holy Spirit and lift high the cross so that Christ’s amazing love might be proclaimed in the reading and doing of your inspired Word. In Jesus’ powerful name. Amen!

Robert Webber, The Services of the Christian Year, vol. 5, The Complete Library of Christian Worship (Nashville, TN: Star Song Pub. Group, 1994), 236.

On my first try to find Logos resources, I am picking up a lot of Presbyterian sources but clearly need to change my terminology for other denominations.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204124#Comment_1204124

I failed to mention that for one step an Old Testament passage takes a very different branch than a New Testament passage. The Christ-centered aspect contains this branch.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204124#Comment_1204124

Wonderful Prayers and perfect for starting to study if not starting each day. My point is that they should be more available within the workflow. Even just as text rather than links. More useful to those of us on fixed budgets.

john

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204126#Comment_1204126

I agree and am working on it from multiple directions: SUGGESTION: Add Reading List option to Workflow editor - Faithlife Forums (logos.com) would allow me to provide a list of resources and websites which makes for more independence from a library. Or I may be able to find translations that I know are out of copyright and include a couple within the workflow. Or I could use the expanding text feature to add additional links within the workflow. But while I work it out, at least now you have access to the texts.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204129#Comment_1204129

Already in my Morning Prayers notebook!

Thank you.

-john

David Taylor, Jr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204126#Comment_1204126

Wonderful Prayers and perfect for starting to study if not starting each day. My point is that they should be more available within the workflow. Even just as text rather than links. More useful to those of us on fixed budgets.

john

That was my immediate observation as well.

John Connell

Here is a nit. I click on a link in 2.2 and jump to a lectionary which might open in the same tile as my workflow. When it is time to come back to the workflow I click on the tab and am taken to the top of the workflow rather than where I was in section 2.2 (or anywhere else for that matter.) Now I have to scroll down to where I was. It would be nice if I could just click the next lectionary in the list. The same thing happens when I am perusing commentaries. When I come back to the workflow I have to scroll, scroll, scroll.

-john

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204132#Comment_1204132

When it is time to come back to the workflow I click on the tab and am taken to the top of the workflow rather than where I was in section 2.2 (or anywhere else for that matter.)

Question: Is it always to the top or is it to the first step that is not marked complete? -- trying to figure out whether this should be reported as a bug.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204135#Comment_1204135

I will check tomorrow. I don’t mark my steps complete.

john

Rosie Perera

Only have had time to look through the first step and up through the intro to Step 2.1 so far. My mind tends to go for the nitpicky things, so I don't have any feedback on how the workflow works. But here are some typos and the like:

1. Typo:

2. "Words for Worship 2" is not a Verbum resource. It's a FLEB resource. Ironically (given our earlier exchange), it happens to be from Herald Press, an Anabaptist/Mennonite publishing house. I have it. Great resource.

3. Typo:

4. Inconsistent capitalization of "Scripture" and "Church" throughout. It seems the capitalized versions are preferred, so need to find the uncapitalized ones and make them consistent. Some shown in this screenshot, but there are others.

5. A couple of punctuation/spacing issues: inconsistent spacing around a hyphen, which should really be an en-dash or em-dash; and only one of the bullet points has a period at the end -- should make them all consistent, probably without the period, since these are not complete sentences. And another uncapitalized church.

6. Should be "these commentary series" since "commentary" is modifying "series" so it doesn't get pluralized.

7. The mention of these two series without any link or help in finding the appropriate volume in them (if I have it) is less helpful than it could be. I clicked the "More>>" button so many times!! But it finally became obvious that among the 223 volumes listed once I fully expanded the list (I had to jump through some hoops later to count them!), I didn't have the volume in CCE that went with the sample text I had tried this workflow with (Psalm 46). I knew how to look that up and buy it, but a person less familiar with Logos and/or their own library resources might not have. I'm not sure if it's possible to provide any help opening the appropriate volume. Perhaps the best that could be done would to provide links to the Logos website for the main listing of those. If the person already own that volume, it will show a link there to open it in their library.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204163#Comment_1204163

Thanks Rosie. When it is my own work I become blind to errors in spacing, spelling, and consistency the moment I type them. Everything typed looks right. From the feedback thus far, I think the 2nd iteration will be much improved.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204095#Comment_1204095

It should appear under custom workflows.

Ah, that's what I was missing. Thanks! I don't think there's any documentation about this. At least I couldn't find any.

This inconsitency is a nuisance - even though I did work with workflows back when they were introduced in Logos (only rarely since then, I have to admit), I looked for the workflow under my Docs rather than in the Guides menu. MJ's post helped me to find it - actually I'd expect those things that are missing in the help file to find in the exhaustive documentation she has built - but I hope FL will one day make this work like other documents or find another solution that's intuitive enough to not need to consult documentation in the first place.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204135#Comment_1204135

When it is time to come back to the workflow I click on the tab and am taken to the top of the workflow rather than where I was in section 2.2 (or anywhere else for that matter.)

Question: Is it always to the top or is it to the first step that is not marked complete? -- trying to figure out whether this should be reported as a bug.

Well, the Workflow seems to jump back to the last green check mark which was put in place when I clicked "Continue."

Now we get into a deep philosophical discussion of how and why to use Workflows. I don't use the Continue button because I am not too interested in earning green check marks. (Do I get a prize when they are all checked in?) The question is then: what is achieved for the user when the Continue button is pressed? Are we merely establishing bread crumbs so we know where we were when we stopped working? Is something else happening that is not apparent?

I am not a Workflow user, although after reviewing yours I see some potential utility in perhaps creating my own Workflow to remind me where I was before I went down the last Rabbit Hole.

-john

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1204178#Comment_1204178

Any final comments? I'm doing my final editing before begging Faithlife for some modifications to the application.