STU ROBINSON // Magician + Evangelist

My friend, Stu Robinson, is a brilliant magician and evangelist. Check him out!

Here is an endorsement I wrote for him: “Stu’s magic show is dynamic, funny and well-crafted. After a few weeks of replaying the show in my head I still couldn’t figure out how he managed to pull off his astonishing tricks! Stu is equally good at interweaving a compelling and culturally relevant presentation of the good news of Jesus. Teenagers in our youth community wouldn’t have any problem in inviting their friends to a youth event featuring one of Stu’s performances.”

Check out his website. And here’s a video endorsement:

Stu didn’t pay me to write and say these things! So contact him with inquiries.

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SNIPPETY // Same-Sex Marriage + Free Music Ethics + Nalbandian + Fairfax

There isn’t enough time to write all the draft blog posts that circulate through my head. Solution? SNIPPETY. SNIPPETY is an irregular mishmash blog post of news, views and other snippets. Feel free to interact with the mash in the comments.

Stylish same-sex campaign glosses over real issues // Our Archbishop Peter Jensen had a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday. Read it here. Also you can read a letter that he sent out to all the Anglican Churches in Sydney during the past week. Snippet from the letter “It will help however if in the near future Christians who wish to stand for marriage, as instituted by God, would thoughtfully and courteously let their views be known to their Federal parliamentary representatives. We should speak up for the sake of love.”

Do you enjoy free music on SPOTIFY/GROOVESHARK? // I haven’t actually read this letter yet, but some musician friends have been sharing it. I’m bookmarking it for later reading as I’m interested in thinking through the ethics of subscription music services and their impact on artists. Read it. After I read it, I might leave a comment below.

David Nalbandian is a knuckle head // Did you see him kick line judge in the Queen’s Club tennis final? Watch it here. Read about it here. If Danny Vukovic got a 1 year ban for this hi 5 with the ref in 2008, then Nalbadian ought to get at least 5 years if not life.

Fairfax to shed 1900 staff, erect paywalls // Big changes at Fairfax announced yesterday. Read about it here. Over the last 10 years old media sources have struggled to grapple with new media. These changes from Fairfax are essential! Seth Godin has been talking about the need for old media to get with the program or die on his blog for a long time.

Comments welcome.

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ONE DIRECTION LIVE // “Remember when…”

At the end the video news I posted here, I welcomed ONE DIRECTION to the stage. Contrary to what some young girls at Soulies and some international friends thought, it wasn’t the real ONE DIRECTION! Sorry. But in my opinion our year 7 and 8 boy leaders (Dan Peters, Dan Malik, Nathan Bale, Luke Hutchinson and Luke Curnow) were just as classy! They did a lip-sync performance for 1 minute with the logo on the screen behind them and then they continued the show as the film clip played on screen. Here is the film clip recorded in bucketing rain at Collaroy Beach (skip to 1:10 for the action):

My aim in doing these things in our youth ministry is to create “remember when…” moments. Having 5 youth leaders pretend to be a boy band won’t see anyone converted. It won’t grow anyone in their faith. It won’t help them to know Jesus better. So it’s not essential.

BUT – part of life in a community is collectively sharing memories. This is one of them.

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