Month: October 2007

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2

It's taken a week to work out what to write for my 500th post. I couldn't go do any better than the above verse.

Do you read this blog? Thanks for reading. If you've never left a comment before… do it now. Peaceout.

Dan has some great reflections on visual art within Christianity. Here’s a snippet:

All of that being said, Best argues that artifacts should be part of the christian life, not as a way of explaining the gospel, but as offerings of worship to the creator God. I draw a picture as an expression of the creativity God has given me, and people can see his creative nature through my work. He gets glory from art. Artifacts are offerings, not tracts.

Read the rest.

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The virus scanner that came with my computer 18 months ago, ran out over the last few days. I’ve started using the free scanner avast again. It’s very good if you need a sweet freebie!

My ccec address has been getting 30+ spam emails per day. This has been annoying! I found a free spam killer this morning. It’s called spamfighter and it syncs in well with Outlook. It works!! I was away from my computer this arvo for about 4 hours and the filter put all the junk in the spam folder and all the legit things in my inbox. Giddy up.

Shout out to Ivan Harris. This is his entry from this year’s ignite short film comp.

Greg Stier has written a great article over at youthministry.com Here’s a snippet:

Let’s face it. Most of us look at the clean cut Mormon missionaries that peddle the streets of our city and knock on the doors of our houses as somewhat out of date. Although they are kind and well spoken young men, when they knock on our doors we either don’t answer or tell them we are already Christians who reject Mormonism and bid them good day.

We think to ourselves how “behind the times” these young people are forced to be when they are required to do door-to-door evangelism for their religion. We reflect on how grateful we are that we have the truth once and for all delivered to the saints. We may even think about how much more superior our youth ministry strategies are compared to theirs…

Read here how he suggests maybe we have some things to learn from them. He’s got some really helpful stuff to say while clearly distancing himself from Mormonism.

Whether you’ve read the article or not, what do you think we can learn from the Mormon’s on doing youth ministry (and ministry in general)?

Guessing comp: On which famous Sydney street is this soccer-loving cafe situated?

Parade Magazine has two articles on Brad Pitt in their latest issue (here and here). Brad grew up in a Southern Baptist family but turned away from God in his late teens. Check out this quote on some of his thinking about God:

“Religion works,” he goes on. “I know there’s comfort there, a crash pad. It’s something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it’s comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn’t last for me. I didn’t understand this idea of a God who says, ‘You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I’m the best, and then I’ll give you eternal happiness. If you won’t, then you don’t get it!’ It seemed to be about ego. I can’t see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

How would you respond to him? Is he right? Has he misunderstood something about God? Himself?

Comment away…