Archive - culture
RSS Feed
We Are The Outpost – AWAKEN – EP
We Are The Outpost have just launched a killer EP, AWAKEN. It’s seriously good, I’ve had it on repeat for the last week! Jesus-centred lyrics, solid tunes, well produced. The band was birthed out of the youth ministry of MBM Rooty Hill (Western Sydney, Australia).
I dig all 4 tracks, but the stand outs for me are 1 & 2.
(1) Anchored Hope – I was told by one of the younger guys at church that this song had a post-hardcore feel. I’m not sure what that means, but I guess it’s good! This song is jam packed with goodness from the New Testament book of Hebrews. The song begins with “burn your white flags, look up ahead” (this refrain is then repeated at the end). The idea of burning your white flag is all about not surrendering, not giving up, continuing to persevere and trust in Jesus until the end. This song will definitely be put on the playlist at SOULIES. It’s also got a good beat for exercise and running!
(2) Hallowed – Cliff Richard did an okay job back in 1999 with his Millennium Prayer hit in getting the words of The Lord’s Payer stuck in your head. We Are The Outpost do a much better job! I would love it if youth ministries all over the place got the words of The Lord’s Prayer stuck in their head through Hallowed. It’s got a little bit of a The Temper Trap feel to it. Tidy work.
If you’re part of making music happen in your youth ministry/church – get into this gear! If you’re not, get into it anyway – it will be good for your soul.
Props to Matt Sparks for running a sweet youth ministry. And BIG props to Steve Vassallo for writing & producing this EP and for his ongoing work with the band.
Staying Hip
Youth Ministry blog posts have been fairly sporadic over the past month. Stay tuned for some fresh gear in 2012. In the meantime this vid will help you stay hip with young punks ;)
See more Dear Jeffery Dallas vids.
Somebody That I Used to Know – Walk off the Earth (Gotye – Cover)
See the original from Gotye below:
Continue Reading…
A River With No End // Ghost Ship
Ghost Ship are a rootsy/bluesy band from Mars Hill Church. I’ve had their recent EP on repeat for the last few weeks. I dig the opening track – One God – with its call to turn from idols and serve the True and Living God. My favourite track is The Revelation of Jesus Christ – it’s more or less straight from Revelation 21 with an accompanying banjo to boot.
You can listen to the whole EP for free on Bandcamp. You can also get free copies of lyrics and chord charts etc. I listened to it lots of times before purchasing it. Because I really liked it, I paid $6 instead of the asking price of $3. Generous, I know.
How did our lives become so plastic?
One of my mates from high school recently spoke at the TEDx event in Newcastle. Check out Tim Silverwood’s presentation, How did our lives become so plastic? -
I’ve been really challenged over the past year as I’ve followed along with some of Tim’s environmental work to be more deliberate in caring for creation.
In John Stott’s final book, The Radical Disciple, he has a chapter on Creation-Care. As well as Tim’s practical example, I found Stott’s challenge in this chapter to be a firm rebuke for a lack of creation care on my behalf.
Stott has this quote from Chris White with a vision for Christians to take their environmental responsibility seriously:
They choose sustainable forms of energy where possible. They switch off unneeded appliances. They buy food, goods and services as far as possible from companies with ethically sound environmental policies. They join conservation societies. They avoid over-consumption and unnecessary waste and recycle as much as possible.
Here is Stott’s conclusion:
It seems quite inexplicable to me that there are some Christians who claim to love and worship God, to be disciples of Jesus, and yet have no concern for the earth that bears his stamp of ownership. They do not care about the abuse of the earth and indeed, by their wasteful and over-consumptive life-styles, they collude in it.
God intends… our care of the creation to reflect our love for the Creator.
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it (Deuteronomy 10:14).
Check out the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation, a foundational statement for those engaged in the ministry of creation care.
What are some practical ways that you are seeking to take care of creation?
Horn of Africa Crisis – Dollar for Dollar
Dear Australians, we have a Federal Government who have been matching dollar for dollar every individual East Africa famine donation to selected NGOs during October and November. This is amazing! If you give $20, the government will turn that into $40. If you give $50, the government will turn that into $100. $400 becomes $800. $2000 becomes $4000. You get the picture. HOWEVER, it ends on 30 November 2011. So we only have 24 hours left to donate. Click here for a list of places to donate.
We may not hear about it much in the media, but the need is massive. Some 13 million people are directly effected by the drought, famine and conflict. Read more about the situation here.
If you haven’t yet donated, act fast! This is an amazing opportunity to leverage your personal wealth and the wealth of our nation for those in desperate need.
Here are 4 ways you can donate:
- Anglican Aid – I’m an Anglican minister, so I went through our Archbishop’s Oversees Relief and Aid Fund. Anyone is welcome. They have some great work happening in Kenya. Give now.
- World Vision – these guys are doing amazing work on the ground throughout the Horn of Africa. Worth checking out.
- Aus Aid – check the government website for all 19 NGOs that are approved for the dollar for dollar initiative. Go crazy.
- A night of prayer & song for East Africa – Trev Hodge is leading this event on Wednesday night 30 November in Sydney. All money raised will likewise, be doubled! Check the facebook event for deets.
Do something now. Hurry. Go.
Peaceout, Dave.
There is no wrong twin
Many Australian readers would be familiar with the tragic news of two twin babies being killed recently in a Melbourne hospital mix-up. Devastating. Below is an extract from an article that John Piper linked to in this tweet.
It’s from the volunteer disability ministry blog for Bethlehem Baptist Church.
It has also happened in Italy and the United States. Here are the headlines for each:
Australia: Hospital kills wrong baby, aborts twin.
Italy: Italian police to investigate abortion of wrong twin
United States: Doctor loses license after aborting wrong twin
Every headline is mistaken. There is no ‘wrong’ twin in any of these circumstances. Only helpless unborn babies, every one of them.
The only reason any of these babies was chosen to be aborted was because of potential disabling conditions.
The answer isn’t better medical tests or more specific hospital guidelines, but changed hearts that rush to help mothers and babies rather than destroy them.
Compassion Trip to Tanzania with Colin Buchanan
Compassion do an amazing job at releasing children from poverty. Over December/January during the last 2 years readers of this blog have been part of raising just under $5000 for clean water projects in Rwanda and Northern India. I’m planning on partnering with Compassion again this Summer. Stay tuned! In the meantime, I’ll be following along with Colin Buchanan and a bunch of ministers from around Sydney as they visit Tanzania.
Click here if you can’t see the video.
You can follow along with their trip by clicking ‘LIKE’ on facebook.com/CompassionAU or following twitter.com/CompassionAU Here’s the twitter hashtag: #TZtrip
Big Porn Inc – Melinda Tankard-Reist
Melinda Tankard Reist interview from Centre for Public Christianity. Part 1:
Part 2 below:
4 Rules That Every Young Christian Leader Should Know
Are you a young Christian leader? Work with them? Check out Mark Sayers’ 4 rules.
Here are the four rules:
Rule 1. Turn Up.
Rule 2. Understand the Back End.
Rule 3. Don’t want it.
Rule 4. Work on your weak spots.
Free Download from LIVING DEVOTION
LIVING DEVOTION is the latest album from the St Paul’s Castle Hill music team. I like it. It’s a stripped back live recording, with some great tracks. They are currently offering a free download of the track TAKE OVER NOW via their Facebook Page.
Also check out the website for resources (guitar charts etc) and some videos of the songs from the recording.
Familiar with the album? What’s your favourite track? I think mine is So We Would Know Our God.
JACOB’S STORY // Men must watch this
Click here if you can’t see the video.
(h/t derek)
Missing Person – Mike McCarthy
‘Missing Person’ is the first video from Mike McCarthy’s single ‘In Ages’ (2011). Produced by Frederic Dickerson, on location in Alaska, the clip shows a beautiful sparsity that adds to the music and performance of the music. Download the audio at inages.bandcamp.com
I dig it, it’s beautiful. Personally, I think I like the rawness of the earlier film clip better:
Continue Reading…
flickr pics
