Another killer day at Oxygen. More solid gear from Lennox and Piper. Here’s a Day 2 vid:
I was really encouraged by Paul and Sue Harrington’s elective on family and ministry. Below are my tweets from the day. Read from bottom up…
Archive - August, 2011
Oxygen Christian Leaders’ Conference Day 1
Oxygen is rad. Here’s a video from day 1 of Oxygen (I haven’t watched it yet).
Below are are my tweets from Piper, Lennox, Reaching the Next Generation and Piper. Read from the bottom up.
Continue Reading…
Where is God in a messed up world?
At my “More Justice” talk today at UWS, they played the following video as an intro:
It’s called Lunchbox: Suffering from a series put together by UCCF: The Christian Unions in the UK. Here’s the deal with the lunchbox:
Five tasty treats for evangelistic events [...] LunchBox is a collection of short, thought-provoking films on questions people often ask. The films open up the questions, without presenting the answers, so they are ideal for getting people thinking, leading in to lunchbar talks and debates.
I haven’t watched the other ones in the series yet, but assume they are also useful like the suffering one above. You can download HQ versions of the RELIGION, SCIENCE, LIFE + SUFFERING videos from here. You can also get embeddable versions at their YouTube channel. Let me know if and how you might use them.
Interested in some answers to the questions this video raises? Check this out…
UNASHAMED + RICE + CONFIRMATION + MORE MISSION
I’m in the middle of a particularly busy time at the moment. (Sorry if I haven’t replied to your email!) Lots of good things going on at St Faith’s and Soulies as well as some external ministry opportunities. This blog post is a quick highlights package…
UNASHAMED – Friday night was great!! Over 350 young punks turned up to our northern beaches combined youth event! Awesome music by City Surrender (from St Paul’s Castle Hill) and a very sharp and pointy sermon from Ross Ciano. Approx 15 responded to the gospel with a bunch more recommitting themselves to following Jesus. Lots to thank God for, a few things to iron out if we do it again.
RICE – there were about 4000 young crew in at the Sydney Entertainment Centre for the rally. I really enjoyed the stripped back program… it actually finished early! Sam Chan gave an absolute cracker of a talk from Luke 19:1-10. I don’t know how many responded to the gospel, but there were hundreds… maybe 250-300? That’s a guess. I had the privilege of praying with 6 young guys afterwards. Such a buzz. Such a joy.
CONFIRMATION – I’ve really enjoyed the last month of Confirmation Classes with a bunch of year 10s and some older lads. We spent quality time learning the basics of Christianity from a John Stott outline and working through the catechism in the Anglican Prayer Book. Solid stuff. Sunday night was the confirmation service. Really encouraging. Killer sermon from the Bish (Glenn Davies). Packed house. Good vibe.
MORE MISSION – I’ve given 5 talks at universities across Sydney in the last week with 2 more to go this week. Lots of Christian uni students across the 3 campuses have been excited to be on mission together with many of them bringing guests to each event. I’ve had some good chats with people and know there have been a few respond to the gospel with many more keen to keep checking out Jesus. Rad.
Praise God for good gear going down.
3 of the 4 pics originally from here.
Hope Beyond the Grave
What do you hope for in life? What are your dreams? What are your aspirations? How certain are you that your hopes will be fulfilled? My guess is that you DO have hopes and aspirations. Often though when we talk about “hoping” for something, it’s really just another way of “wishing” for something. I really hope (wish) I win the jackpot lottery! I really hope (wish) the good looking girl takes notice of me!
But when the Bible speaks about hope, it’s not about wishful thinking. The hope offered in the Bible is actually far more than we could hope for or imagine. Hope in the Bible is certain. Guaranteed. Assured. Without a doubt.
We live in a broken world where our hopes and dreams are often shattered. And ultimately we are all on the same trajectory toward a certain death. Death is our great enemy. Death shatters all our dreams.
The good news of Christianity is that Jesus offers hope beyond the grave. It’s not some wishful thinking that I will one day go to a mystical place in the clouds. The Christian hope is a certain hope built on the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The Christian hope is a certain hope that those who believe in Jesus will also be physically raised from the dead.
Gotye – State Of The Art
Gotye hasn’t had a mention on this blog for a while. It’s time. State Of The Art:
Good music keeps coming out of Melbourne!
Simple and Obvious
Avril Lavigne once sang: ‘Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated!’ I don’t think she was singing about leadership, yet I think one of the things we often do in leadership is overly complicate things. Likewise in communication.
Check out this useful blog post from Steven Furtick: Simple and Obvious. This is applicable in many contexts, but none more important than the gospel of Jesus. Keep it simple, keep it obvious, keep repeating it. Check out this simple gospel outline.
Have you made the switch to the HCSB?
Two months ago I began researching the possible options for replacing the popular, and now out of print, NIV 1984. The HCSB is one English translation that is beginning to gain some traction around Sydney. Here’s an endorsement video:
I’ve been reading and enjoying the HSCB during that time. I had a go at preaching from it at Soulies Undeground last month. I stumbled a number of times when reading because of my familiarity with the NIV 1984!
Have you read much of the HCSB? What do you think?
Has anyone started using it within a youth ministry? How did it go?
Sideshow Alley // Indie Hipsters from Melbourne
What do you get when you combine Melbourne alleyways with tight indie folk musicians and killer video design skills? www.sideshowalley.tv It’s a tidy little project. Matty J linked to this vid from The Waifs:
I haven’t watched them all yet, but really enjoyed the ones I’ve seen. See below for a selection and/or browse the site:
Life with the Grain of the Universe: Proverbs
Row and I are currently reading through Proverbs each evening. So much wisdom! But, particularly in the big chunk in the middle, it’s difficult to discern any connected between each saying. I was excited to see that my friend Andrew Errington has just linked to a bunch of studies he’s written taking a thematic approach to the book. They look really useful. Download the PDF here.
Coincidentally (are there ever coincidences?) a different friend recently asked if I had any resources that would be useful for teaching Proverbs in a youth ministry setting. I don’t, but I do now! While these weren’t written for a youth ministry setting, if they are too difficult for your group, they’d serve as a really useful tool for a leader to use in prep.
Got a favourite Proverb? Share it in the comments…
Rice Rally // 20th August 2011
RICE Rally is back again this coming Saturday. God has brought many young people to himself through this ministry over the last 10 years. I wasn’t able to make it last year, so I’m looking forward to joining in the action again this year.
Still deciding whether to take your crew along? Do it. It will be epic. Check out the website for some rad promo vids, tickets and any more info.
Blog readers – pray for this sucker! Pray that 100′s of peeps will put their trust in Jesus’ death for their sin and resurrection to new life. Pray that God would keep using youth ministry to change the world.
UNASHAMED // 19th August 2011
I’m noticing around Sydney lots of Youth Ministries getting together with others in their region. This is really cool. Some great momentum is being gained at the grass roots level that is helping to fuel discipleship and evangelism among teenagers. Here on the Northern Beaches we have a combined youth event coming up on August 19: UNASHAMED.
Historically combined events have happened on the beaches, but it’s been a few years. There are a bunch of youth pastors who get together every couple of months to hang out, encourage and pray. And last year a local leadership training event began that continued again this year. There seems to be some good momentum.
It felt like the time was right to try and do something together. We should get 250-300 young people this Friday. My hope is that the event will encourage Christian teenagers to be unashamed to follow Jesus on the Northern Beaches, and that those that aren’t already following Jesus will be challenged to consider following Him.
We’ve got Ross Ciano speaking and the band from St Paul’s Castle Hill leading the music. If you’re local – come along! If you’re not, we’d value your prayers.
Are you doing some grass roots combined youth events in your area? What works well? What lessons have you learnt? What value does it add to your own ministry?
Bill Hybels Addresses Speaker Change at The Global Leadership Summit
Check out the Bill Hybels‘ gracious response to a speaker pulling out of the recent Willow Creek conference. The leadership lesson from his response is probably even more valuable than what the Starbucks CEO would have added to the summit. Check it:
What do you think? What do you learn about leadership? What do you learn about grace?
Andy Stanley on exploiting your strengths
“Your fully exploited strengths are always of far greater value to your organisation than your marginally improved weaknesses.” Watch the clip:
(h/t Matt Perman)
Riots and Looting in the UK
Check out this useful analysis from Mike Ovey (Principal of Oak Hill College).
Pic from boston.com
Any other useful articles worth sharing?
(h/t mpj)
MORE University Missions
MORE is a mission happening simultaneously across 3 Universities (UTS, UWS and MAC) throughout August. I’ll be one of the speakers. It’s a great initiative. Here’s my intro vid:
I’d value your prayers over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out on twitter for updates.
3photos: Hunter Valley
3photos of Sam in a Hunter Valley winery. Don’t worry, he drank hot chocolate.
2 more below
Continue Reading…
MOVE + EAT + LEARN
“3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..” These were commissioned by STA Travel Australia. Short. Simple. Creative.
EAT + LEARN below
Pray for Steve Chong. Now!
Steve Chong (from Kirkplace and RICE) is preaching to 7000 young punks at the Newday youth festival in England. I want to invite you to pray for him this week. Pray that God would be at work by His Spirit as Steve opens the Word and points young punks to Jesus.
It’s an amazing opportunity and it would be good if we could gather as many peeps in Sydney and Australia to partner with Steve by praying for this ministry.
Watch the vid above. And pray now.
His first talk will be roughly 630pm tonight (Tuesday 2 August – Sydney Time).
We can hopefully get another vid from Steve later in the week.
Follow him on Twitter for regular updates.
Share this vid or blog post to get others praying too. Deal?
flickr pics
