Creating digital experiences that lead to freedom through Christ and community
It's been a wild ride the past few months.
Sickness. Chronic health flare ups. Holidays. Hitting a deer on the road. Overlapping work contracts. Great people asking if I'd help them on a contract or join their team.
When the noise of life and circumstance began to storm, anxiety and overwhelm walked in the door as if they were invited.
I have been battling sickness, a cold-like sickness. Anxiety and overwhelm that’s felt crippling at times.
I haven’t felt like myself lately.Â
 If I hadn’t responded to you or have felt less present lately, this is why
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More details here:Â https://github.com/orgs/supabase/discussions/20060
https://open-chat.dev
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
— Hebrews 12:2 BSB
“…my mind fills up with a few key projects and that’s it. I’m absorbed by those. That’s where my attention is. Had I made 20 minutes here and there for him, I’d be physically present in that moment, but mentally I’d be elsewhere. And that’s not fair to either of us.
Time and attention aren’t the same thing. They're barely related.”— Jason Fried
Jason put words to something I’d been wrestling with for years.Â
If you’re using an open-source project and run into a snag, perhaps from missing documentation or from a bug, consider contributing towards the project and making it better for the next person.Â
(Ahh, but open-source work can be scary, especially if it’s not received.) Don’t lose hope!
Start small. One of the easiest ways to contribute is to simply update docs.Â
Ecclesiastes. “Everything is meaningless.” Well… except things like eating, spending quality time with family and friends, and enjoying the work you’ve been given. Morale: there is deep meaning in the present.Â
Walking with Jesus one step of faith at a time.
When you are designing or developing for a need that you don’t have, you are destined for difficulty.Â
Like most devs, I started by learning the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Some of my learnings came from wonderful places like freeCodeCamp.org, flexboxfroggy.com, and Scrimba.com, and others through lots of trail and error.
I could create something from essentially nothing, and see a website shape and come to life.
Well... "come to life" as much as a static web page could…
1. Activate Pairing Mode on Your Earbuds: Begin by placing your CMF Buds 2 into pairing mode and make sure the earbuds are in the charging case. Hold down the button on the earbuds until the white light starts flashing repeatedly — this indicates it's ready to connect.
2. Access Bluetooth Settings on Your Mac: Next, navigate to your Mac's Bluetooth settings. You can do this easily through System Preferences (found in the Apple menu) or via the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
3. Connect the Device: Once in the settings, scan for available devices. Your CMF Buds 2 should appear in the list. Select it to pair.
Done!
Documenting this because I couldn’t figure it out, so I imagine someone else is running into this issue, haha.Â
If you are running into a weird issue with Astro Actions and find that your error message is properly handled with Astro.getActionResult function on local dev but not in production on Netlify, then it may be because you have the action throwing a 500 error, causing the server to truly throw a 500 error lol.
I feel called to step out in faith and commit to using my time, energy, and focus to work on empowering, connecting, and resourcing creators in the faith and tech space.Â
Had the wonderful opportunity to present Nahum at Spoken Gospel. I think this was years ago, because it’s been a while, but it was super fun to randomly see across my YouTube feed!
Update 2025-12-01:Â https://medium.com/@faithtech/redemptive-ai-ethics-framework-e2a2c278569c
Update 2025-09-24:Â https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/ai-christian-benchmark/
Update 2025-02-24: I’d deeply recommend reading Generative AI in Christian Evangelism from the Apologist Project.
AI is here, and it’s only going to get more powerful. Many believers around the world are working towards using the power of AI for redemptive purposes, instead of being frozen in fear.
We’ve seen a rise in Chrisitian-focused AI apps and tools. And frankly, there are a ton of apps created from people with good intentions and from people with bad intentions regarding AI and the Bible. Some have created incredible apps. Some have created what seems good but are wolves in sheep’s clothing—on purpose or on accident.Â
So, when it comes to AI tools that speak on behalf of the Bible, a person in the Bible, or on behalf of Christianity, here are some unofficial rules:
I hadn’t taken much time to reflect on my time so far at Techless.Â
Even getting to Techless was a fun journey. I was reached out to on LinkedIn by a guy who creates Kosher phones for the Amish; his name is Eli and he’s an incredible guy. He saw what I was doing with faith.tools and asked if I was interested in collaborating to create a phone (or rather phone experience) for followers of Jesus.Â
2025-02-02: Previously this post was titled “Freedom Stack is an aspiration”, but I was wrong. I’ll have to journal about it soon, but I spent around a month learning Laravel. I created a tool for work using Laravel and Filament. In theory it was easy to create, but the under the hood magic caused more issues than saved time. Plus, deployment was rough. I then tasked myself with creating the same exact tool but with Freedom Stack. Took one day. Deployed with no friction. Use what works. The grass is greener where you water it. Leaving this post here so I can remember that my own understanding in the moment isn’t always the best understanding.Â
I dream of a Tiny, Open, Portable, and Secure stack to create web apps (web apps that can easily even easily become mobile apps).
Freedom Stack was created to help me create.Â
It’s cool to see that at the time of writing this, 114 people have stared the starter kit on GitHub.
It has auth, an easy to use database, and paired with the absolute easiest front-end framework I’ve ever used: Astro.
Yet, I still feel limited with the stack.Â
I was trying to figure out how to block images and videos on Spotify for the Wisephone II, so that people can get the best of Spotify without the potential distractions/harms of some imagery or videos.
Every year, my wife and I each prayerfully choose a word of the year. Her word for 2024 was “blessed” and mine was “commit”. These aren’t necessarily words that we choose, but rather in prayer and contemplation come to mind and stick.