Month: June 2007

DAN GODDEN has a new blog address. Change your bookmarks and RSS feeds etc… Who’s Dan Godden? Go watch these two videos for more…

I’ve just been for a walk (thanks Mark Driscoll for the reminder to exercise) and I’m loving O Praise Him (video above) by the David Crowder Band. It has a reasonable beat… it makes me walk faster and has some great throne room words about Jesus. I feel like I’m in a film clip as I walk down the street listening!

If you could be in a film clip – what song would it be?

My observation is that term 3 is traditionally a bluesy term in youth ministry (in fact in any ministry). In Australia it’s the coldest term and the term that is most likely to have people disappear from your ministry. Here’s 3 tips to fight term 3 blues:

• Recognise that it’s the bluesy term
• Don’t be boring and make it worse
• Give the term something extra that will create a bit more vibe and energy. It might be more evangelistic events, it might be something crazy, it might be flashing lights, it might be…

If you can get through term 3 without losing droves of peeps – it will mean that in term 4 you can grow rather than re-build. Does that make sense? You can build your numbers rather than trying to find those that have disappeared.

We have some sweet plans for this year’s term 3… wheels are currently in motion… I’ll let you know soon of the crazy plans. Big. Big would be an understatement.

Got any ideas (tested or not) on fighting term 3 blues?

We’ve had some great speakers at coast youth REVOLUTION.

• Ross Ciano – Fix your eyes on Jesus – Hebrews 12 – 10 June 2005
• Martin Shadwick – Life, the universe and everything – Psalm 148 – 19 August 2005
• Al Stewart – If I were God I’d make myself clearer – 1 John 1 – 16th June 2006
• Paul Dale – If I were God I’d end all the pain – Mark 2 – 15th September 2006
• Tim Baldwin – REVOLUTION – Starts in the heart – Ezekiel 36 – 8th June 2007

Tim’s talk from Friday night has just been upload. It was a great night. RSS feed: http://cyrevolution.podomatic.com/rss2.xml (go download in iTunes – it’s currently ranked 21!!! EDIT: It made it as high as 14!!)

I made a header for CraigS‘ new site: Gospel Evidences. This type of thing doesn’t take me long. Here are my tools:

• If I don’t use my own pics I get them from yotophoto. I have it set so it only finds images that are legal to use (it’s the yotophoto non-CC plugin for firefox or internet explorer)
• I use Irfanview to resize images, basic colour changes + batch conversions and batch renaming. It’s very quick and easy to use
• I use gimp for more complex stuff. I think it’s a bit like a photoshop – only free (and therefore not quite as capable)

I use all of these regularly in different ministries. Good tools. Easy to use. Free. Effective.

Do you do any of this type of stuff? What do you use?

Andy M has 5 things to say about singing in church. Here’s 1 of them:

OK, the whole “worship” thing. Yes, some churches misemphasise the purpose of church as being to worship God, in a sense which might suggest we are not worshipping God the other 6 days a week, and some have confused what we do in church with Old Testament cultic worship, and that we somehow enter into God’s presence when singing in church i.e. the “praise and worship” time. BUT, we evangelicals have way over-reacted against some of these errors by almost purging the word “worship” from our vocabulary all together, and removing any sense that when we gather together as God’s people we are worshipping God, or that singing can involve worship. I think we can and should acknowledge that singing does involve worshipping God, while recognizing that worship is also much more than singing.

Go read the rest and leave a comment.

Don Carson. Is he or isn’t he? Carson has written oodles of books – but it’s difficult to find what he believes about the Millennium in Revelation. It’s been debated whether he is Premil or Amil. I thought he was Premil, but Reformation Theology is suggesting he’s Amil. Heardy preached a cracker on it last term.

For the record – Revelation has little to say about the Millennium, but much to say about JESUS. It’s all about Jesus. If you’re a fruit loop and think it’s all about the Millennium go and have a read of it! If you have no idea about what I’m talking about go read this and this (no girly skirt on Jesus in this passage – just a tattoo, sword and blood) about Jesus. Rock on…

It’s nuts on the Central Coast! Just saw on smh.com.au that The Premier has declared the area a Natural Disaster. It meant that there were lots of people missing from coast youth REVOLUTION… but it was still a good time. Tim Baldwin preached a cracker on Jesus starting a revolution in your heart. Garage Hymnal played the congregational tunes + a number of items. Good stuff. They also joined us on On the Poddy… good times. Keep praying for the Central Coast.

Have a good looooong weekend.

ps – this post is link city!
pps – currently watching the honourable wally norman – i like aussie humour!