Month: November 2006

Karen B had an article in today’s new issue of the briefing on Christians and blogging. In the article she said that eternal weight of glory was easily the best blog** run by a Christian in Australia! This is fantastic because it coincides with my 10,000th hit!!! (Not quite as many as Craig and only just beaten by Sam and Soph)

Yep – that’s right – 10thousand hits in less than six months. The first website I made was for a University Christian group I started called: OCS (it will now redirect to an ugly site). I remember sitting in the computer lab at uni clicking refresh repeatedly to try and boost the hits for the site… let me say there’s been none of that here!! Here are some of my personal favourites from the past 6months:

>Youth Ministry: Emo Evangelism I and II – ripe for the pickin’
>The Wisdom of Solomon – I heart the dentist
>Elizabeth Bennet is Hot! – yep
>17 – demonstrates my ability to manipulate readers (50 comments)
>Katie Noonan, Aron Ottignon and communication – I sound like I know what I’m talking about!
>Youth Ministry: Don’t drag dead possums – my favourite youth ministry post
>Gaurdian Angel-cat – meowww
>The cat is out of the bag! – I think I’m sticking to these aims?!?

It’s been a while since I commented with fake comments to make it look like people were commenting… so thanks for reading… and thanks for commenting!

1) What’s your favourite post(s) from eternal weight of glory?
2) Why do you keep reading this blog? (…like seriously???)

**This is quite simply untrue… but it got your attention!

This is probably one of the most fun On the Poddy episodes we have done! We recorded ‘On Location’ at a wedding 2 weeks ago. It was a great wedding. If you read my blog and aren’t a Christian check out this passage. It talks about what Jesus has done for his bride – and is ultimately the wedding that all other weddings are to point to. Christians – likewise – go be encouraged.

Podcast page is here
This Episode is here
Download directly here
Subscribe in iTunes here

The plan is to go to different locations during summer for recording. If you have any ideas on where we could record this summer – let me know in the comments…

The Real Thing is a Youthworks Holiday Camp (formerly known as Camp Howard) that I lead on for 5 years or so. It’s the sister camp to Swing into Action – another Youthworks camp that Row and I direct during the July Holidays.

They have a blog set up counting down to the camp this year. I think it’s a great idea. Check it out here. I’m not sure who is running the blog – but I found the link on James and Anita’s blog.

Youthworks Holiday Camps are great for Christian teenagers and for their non-Christian friends. They are great for Christian teenagers in that they can hear the gospel clearly proclaimed and be certain of their stance before God. They are fantastic for non-Christians to hear the glorious news of Jesus death and resurrection in a super-fun context. Youthworks Holiday Camps work hard at seeing teenagers followed-up into local youth groups.

For more info click here. Download the rego form here. And encourage any teens in your youth groups to think of friends they can take along.

Have you been on a Holiday Camp before? What’s your fondest memory?

Congrats Matt & Tash on the engagement!!

Gluttony is a sin. I’m prone to losing self-control and being a glutton. I need to repent of this sin. I do love food… but sometimes my love of food takes over!! But I do think that you can love food without being gluttonous.

So what have I done?

I set a target at the start of November to lose 15kgs by Christmas – I have already lost 7 with 8 to go over the next month. I am doing more exercise and praying that I would be reminded of what holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Thanks for praying. I would love to know how I can pray for you (do it in the comments or by email).

Praise:
>Rowena – my bride. She’s gold and I dig her lots
>Day off on Tuesday

Prayer:
>summerfest meeting tomorrow and prep over next month
>high school scripture plans for 2007

Because no-one can guess the competition from last week or the week before – here’s a new one: At which ski resort was the above photo taken? (Prize = some ice from my freezer)

The above reading is from WorshipGod06. I’ve only watched the first couple of minutes (because my dodgy-dial-up cut out!) – but it’s fantastic! It is easy to understand and the Word of God is clearly heard. I think that by nature the passage is visual – but Ryan does a marvellous job of reciting it.

What do you think? (If someone has a better internet connection – let me know how it finishes!)

For those waiting for the Thursday post announced on Tuesday – you’ll have to wait until next week.

Are you sick of life??? Are you EMO??? If you’ve stumbled here via google and have no idea what ‘evangelism’ is… go and check out THIS SITE to find out what Jesus has done to fix this sucky world…

Last week in Youth Ministry: Emo Evangelism I shared some thoughts on why Emo’s are ripe for the picking when it comes to evangelism. The mantra of the EMO could almost be summed in this: “The world’s bad, my life is bad, pretty much everything is bad!” At church on Sunday night I spoke on Romans 12:1-2 as part of our Romans series. During the talk I did a brief overview of Romans 1-11. Romans 1-3 are the ‘EMO’ chapters! The picture is dark, terrible and without hope.

Romans 1:21-23

“21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

The Gentiles have not treated God as God. Therefore, further on in the chapter (v24,26,28) God gave them over to their sin.
Gentiles are bad.

Romans 2:5

5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

The Jews are stubborn, unrepentant and deserving of God’s wrath because of their wickedness.
Jews are bad.

Romans 3:10-12

10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”

THERE IS NO-ONE GOOD. All of us have sinned (Romans 3:23)
ALL of us are bad!

“Jews are bad, Gentiles are bad, ALL of us are bad.” Sounds pretty similar to the EMO mantra…

I would love the opportunity to read these chapters with some EMO’s and then read on to the beautiful big BUT verses here (and maybe even to the end of the book).

I think I’m on to something…