Good Newsof GreatJoy

For the Tiger Team · not part of the site

Decisions to make before we build

1. Scripture text. Crossway's ESV API lets a non-commercial church site show passages. We register for a free key, keep the ESV credit and a link to esv.org on each page, and stay under 500 verses per page. Our 25 passages are well inside that.
2. Devotional text. Desiring God's permissions page allows short, unchanged excerpts online with a link back, and does not allow posting full readings without their approval. To show whole readings on our site, we ask them first. Until then each day shows an excerpt and a link.
3. Photos. The two photos here are from bereanmission.com. Photos from last year's Christmas services and this year's decor would suit the season better.
4. Dates. Readings follow the book: Day 1 is December 1 and Day 25 is Christmas Day. Sundays on the site are December 6, 13 and 20; November 29 is not marked. The readings run five days past our last Advent Sunday.
5. Podcast links. Every day links to its own page on desiringgod.org, which has the audio. Solid Joys republishes each episode on its date every year, so Apple and Spotify give it a new link each time. This year's December links don't exist yet. Until someone pastes them in, those two buttons open the show.
6. Ebook in the page. The Devotional tab is built to show Desiring God's own PDF in a frame, opened at that day's page. Two things to settle first: whether their server allows framing (some sites block it), and whether they're happy with it, since their permissions page covers embedding audio and video but says nothing about the ebook. Ask in the same note as the full-text request. On phones the frame won't work well (iPhones show only the first page, many Android phones download the file), so phones get the "Open the ebook at this page" button.
7. Page numbers. Each reading's printed page comes from the ebook's contents. The PDF counts pages a little differently, so one number in the code (PAGE_OFFSET) needs checking against the real file before launch.
8. Video fit, for review. The plan's readings are different from Piper's, so I paired by topic. 5 share the same passage, 1 is the same book, 11 share a theme, 8 are loose fits and are the ones to look at. The table below has every pairing.
9. Daily videos: things to decide.
   • Day 4 now has the plan's nativity video (Luke 1–2). Christmas Day uses BibleProject's 1–3 John overview, since that day's reading is from 1 John; it isn't part of the plan.
   • Days 11 and 19 have the same passage (Hebrews 2:14–15) but different videos.
   • The plan also has its own written devotional each day. We use only its videos, with links back to the plan on Bible.com.
   • The four Advent word studies are part of the plan, so each now sits on the first reading day of its week: Hope on Day 1, Peace on Day 6, Joy on Day 13, Love on Day 20. The last three fall on our Sundays.
10. Prompts. The reflect and pray prompts are the same every day. A pastor or leader could write one per reading.
11. Sign-in is optional. Without it, everything works and progress saves on that device. With Google sign-in, check-offs save to the person's account so they follow them across devices, and they can opt in to the daily email. Reflections and prayers are never sent anywhere.
12. What has to be built. A small backend (Firebase or Supabase) for Google sign-in and saving check-offs, plus a nightly job that matches each Google email to a People record with the church's Planning Center access token and updates three custom fields: Advent joined, Days read, Last read. Planning Center lists built on those fields drive the scheduled emails. Unmatched emails go to a staff review queue.
13. Emails come from Planning Center, not Google. All 25 daily emails can be scheduled in People in late November, sent to the "Advent readers" list, each linking to its day (advent.bereanmission.com/#day-12). The catch-up email goes to a "No check-in 3+ days" list. People who don't sign in can join the email list with a simple Planning Center form.
14. Look and feel. Logo, navy, pale blue band, pill buttons and heading style are taken from bereanmission.com. The main site's Avenir font shows on Apple devices here; other devices get a close match until the font is licensed for the subdomain.