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Archive - October, 2009
JOURNEY ON – Oakbridge featuring MC Shamrock
I went out with Mark Earngey (stage name MC Shamrock) on Friday night for some live Aussie Hip-Hop. Oakbridge was launching his new album. He was supported by Hoodsta Kidd and Broadkast from Brisbane. Earngey is featured on one of the album tracks, and so he performed that song with Oakbridge. Check out the video of Journey On:
The highlight of the night was Earngey owning the stage, closely followed by Broadkast and in particular their song Stay True. Check it on MySpace or listen for it on radio soon.
Most of these guys are hooked up with the Krosswerdz crew. Peaceout homies.
10 Ways For Parents To Protect Their Kids Online
The internet can be used for great good, but also great harm. Most children know more about how to use the internet than their parents. Therefore it’s incredibly important that parents work hard at understanding the potential dangers and develop strategies to protect their children online.
Here are 10 ways for parents to protect their kids online:
- Communicate, communicate, communicate.
- Work hard at understanding the online world
- Protect your computer
- Computer in public (e.g. lounge room not bedroom)
- Agree on a rules for Internet use
- Shoulder Surf – discourage secret keeping
- Remind to be cautious
- Learn the features of new devices
- Talk to teachers and Christian leaders about the latest useful websites for children
- Model how the internet can be used for good.
These are from a workshop presented at Hunter Bible Church. Listen to the talk (MP3).
Check out purity.davemiers.com for a growing list of resources
LIVE OUT LOUD Promo Video Featuring Steve Chong
Live Out Loud is only 5 weeks away!! (More deets here and here). Steve Chong promo:
Get your youth groups there… buy your tix online.
Is Posterous the future of blogging and social media?
I recently started experimenting with Posterous. I use it as a way of sharing twitter pictures and videos. It’s really quick & easy to use and it’s a tidy & attractive spot to store things. Here’s my posterous account: davemiers.posterous.com
Having now used it for a couple of weeks, I think it’s much more than just a place to store pics. While I’d probably still recommend WordPress (free or self-hosted) as a more flexible and comprehensive platform for blogging, Posterous is a really good way to do quick and simple blogging. Read more below…
Global Leadership Summit
Last week I went to the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. There was lots of good leadership wisdom to glean and it was good to spend time with Willoughby peeps.
I live tweeted. Check below (in reverse order) for some quotes, summaries and pics:
Youth Ministry Conference 09
Youthworks run a killer conference every year: Youth Ministry Conference. The theme of YMC09 is ‘Real Hope’ – “Real Hope isn’t wishful thinking about an uncertain future. It’s a confidence grounded in the past that gives a thirst for the present and a certainty for the future. Real hope is in Christ – we experience it, and we want the young people of our nation and world to experience it too!” Get your team along to this great event!
Monday 30th November and Tuesday 1st December.
Speakers include: Ed Springer, Glenn Davies, Dave Starling and Malcolm Gill.
Windows 7 Super Cheap, It’s Not Cheating!
Microsoft have some sweet deals on software for students. They now have their new operation system, Windows 7, available as an upgrade for only $49.95. Check out www.itsnotcheating.com.au for some action. (It’s called www.theultimatesteal.com in the US and it’s $29.99US – click on the icon in the top right corner for other countries)
I’m currently using Vista, I don’t really have a problem with it – it takes a bit of time to boot, but other than that – it does the job! Anyone updated yet? Is it worth it?
Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit
I’ll be at The Global Leadership Summit run by Willow Creek over the next 2 days. Speakers include: Bill Hybels, Tony Blair, Bono and Tim Keller.
I might do some tweets from the sessions. Follow here.
The glorious message of the cross
Quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones (check out his fully pimped out resource website)
“During these twenty-six years in my Westminster pulpit there have been times when in my utter folly I have wondered, or the Devil has suggested to me that there is nothing more for me to say, that I have preaching it all. I thank God that I can now say that I feel I am only at the beginning of it. There is no end to this glorious message of the cross, for there is always something new and fresh and entrancing and moving and uplifting that one has never seen before.”
Find out more about the Saviour King Jesus
Sign the UN Petition for the UNBORN CHILD
I’m not a Roman Catholic. I think that they get some serious stuff wrong (read about it here). BUT I agree with their regard for human life and the rights of unborn children.
I just signed a petition that is being sent to the UN in December. Read the deets below:
Portfolio | Lighthouse Church website
Just updated my portfolio with a screen grab of some work I did for Lighthouse Church. They are a local church in Sydney. The site includes sermon podcast, pastor’s blog, calendar integration, and can be easily edited by the church.
I’m currently hooking up design work for the summer holidays. Check out my portfolio, see what I do, contact me if you want to talk.
Changed by Jesus – Sermons
I preached at Willoughby the past two Sunday nights. The series was all about the difference that the gospel and knowing Jesus makes. Talk 1 was from Luke 19 and looked at the change in Zacchaeus upon meeting Jesus. Talk 2 was from Luke 16 and looked at the Shrewd manager and how his story encourages Christians to make decisions shaped by Jesus and eternity.
Here are the mp3s from the two talks:
- Talk 1 – Changed by Jesus: Changed Worship (mp3) – Luke 19:1-10 (text)
- Talk 2 – Changed by Jesus: Changed Priorities (mp3) – Luke 16:1-15 (text)
Top 5 websites for making free church graphics
I was asked after a recent sermon where I got the graphics from the PowerPoint and sermon handout. Here’s my answer that I emailed to the staff and leaders at Willoughby. Copied below for your convenience.
- www.creativemyk.com – some of the gear on here is a little bit cheesy, but there’s plenty of good stuff. I just subscribe to it via RSS (What the heck is rss?) and anytime I see a good one, I download and store in folder on my computer.
- www.sxc.hu – good range of free stock photos – they are also royalty free – so if you publish a book – you can use their pics without giving royalties. They’ve also got a good paid service – but I think there’s enough good stuff you don’t need to pay coin
- www.simplyyouthministry.com – there are some very very very cool backgrounds on here. Download all their folders, unzip them – and then put them into one gallery on your hard drive for quick viewing. The newer ones are better than the older ones (ie – the ones from 2002 are increasingly uncool design!!)
- www.stufficanuse.com – these guys have some fully pimped gear. You can download photoshop files etc.
- www.dafont.com – there are lots of really bad font sites online – and plenty that have annoying pop-ups. This site has some good gear and no pop-ups. I typically won’t download the ones that are “free for personal use only” – ie I’ll get the ones that the licence allows using on church material without having to buy the font.
- www.irfanview.com – yeah I know this makes 6, but this isn’t strictly somewhere to download gear. I have some sweet design software (adobe creative suite) – but often for something quick – I’ll just use PowerPoint. Put some fonts on your background – copy all – and then paste it into irfanview – you can easily crop and then save as JPEG (or any other number of file names).
Hope this is useful!
January 1973
This video gives an historic look at the slew of high-profile events which largely kept the public’s eye off the Supreme Court’s tragic rulings in Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton.
Go check out www.abort73.com
Samuel: 4 months today
Relatives and the posse of old ladies on facebook like pics of Sam. Enjoy the latest:
[click for extra cuteness]
Also check out the vid I put on my new quick blog site: davemiers.posterous.com
Should Frank Farina have been sacked?
Brisbane Roar made a brave move today in sacking Frank Farina as the coach of the A-League football (soccer) team. On Saturday morning, Farina was charged for the second time for drink driving. Farina was one of Australia’s greatest players and I believe a very good coach. Were the Roar a little bit harsh in ripping up his contract?
I don’t think so. While I genuinely feel sorry for Farina, the seriousness of the action taken against him shows how much responsibility coaches have in their example to their players and the community. Other football codes, of which Rugby League particularly comes to mind, would do well to take note of the swift and serious consequences of stupidity – only then will they have any chance of changing their seedy culture.
Here’s what Roar Chairman, Chris Bombolas, had to say:
“I acknowledge Frank’s contribution to the club but we can not excuse or condone his behaviour off the field [...] It is simply not in step with we expect of our players or our coaching staff, or what the community expects [...] The message from our board is very clear: the community and our fans expect a professional standard of conduct and behaviour and so do we.”
PS – if you stumbled here via google, I used to think that “soccer was life, and the rest just details” – that’s a bit silly, life is all about Jesus.
Portfolio | On the Voddy website + media strategy
New screen grab added to my design portfolio for an ongoing project: onthevoddy.com
This is a customisation of a WordPress template. The site includes: twitter integration; live video streaming; vodcast video and graphic design.
I’m currently lining up summer design work for December 09 through to February 2010… let me know if you want in! See the screen grab and other work samples in my portfolio.
Illustrating the Cross of Jesus
This morning in MPJ’s Doctrine 2 class, we discussed the limitations of a number of popular illustrations for the explaining what happened at the cross of Jesus.
Here are 3 things I’ve been thinking since:
- We often stumble when the illustration involves discussion involving a father giving up the life of his son. Parallels are quickly made between God the Father and God the Son. I don’t know of any illustration that adequately explains the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, one of the problems with these illustrations is that they’ve crossed into the impossible territory of illustrating the Trinity.
- For this reason, I think that it’s better to illustrate the love and sacrifice of Jesus with (albeit limited) examples of sacrificial love shown by other people. There’s the example of the husband who dies in the place of his bride (very different from this jerk) by putting himself in the line of the shark while on their honeymoon. There’s no need to allegorise the illustration so that the shark becomes a picture of God’s wrath or anything like that, but simply say that this is but a fraction of the love that Jesus has demonstrated at the cross.
- Don’t forget the Old Testament! Use it to illustrate the work of Jesus. About 10 years ago I heard Al Stewart explain the sacrificial system from Leviticus and used it to illustrate the work of Jesus – I’ve used a similar illustration quite a few times since. Another obvious example from the OT would be Isaiah 53 and the different images of Jesus the suffering servant.
What do you think?
No idea what the fuss is all about?? Check out this, this, this, this and this.
Break it Down #14
Hey funky chickens. Breaking it down this week with some high culture is Michelangelo’s David. For over 3 years he’s been my profile pic on Twitter (and previously on blogger). It’s time to say goodbye. I now have a profile pic on twitter and gravatar that’s actually me. You’ll be pleased to know I’m wearing clothes. Also my about page was kinda out of date. So that’s been updated too. Check it. More content under nude dude…
See below for all the haps on dmdc in the past week or so.
flickr pics
