Category: life

(h/t to dan)

If church was all about you (btw IT ISN’T!!!) what’s one thing that it would have?

Edit:Ben is a party pooper.
You can still view the video here
(YouTube link removed and screen shot is now above)

I made a new website today. It’s for coast youth REVOLUTION. Go and check it out WWW.CYREVOLUTION.COM

For the blogheads: the interface with wordpress is slower than blogger, but if I had broadband maybe it wouldn’t be a problem!

Had a look yet? What do you think?

More2life is the basketball team that I put together 2.5 seasons ago. At the time I was weighing up whether to bring my own team of Christian friends together or go down to the stadium and ask to be put into a team of strangers. Within a day of simply mentioning it to a couple of people at church… we had a team!! I work for a church and although I have contact with non-Christians, they are usually contacts from other people at church rather than friends of my own.

I am going to quit the team at the end of the season!!! Next season I will either go into a team that needs players at the stadium or change to a better sport… indoor soccer with a bunch of strangers.

I’d been thinking about it for a while and a conversation with Dave Sheath a couple of days ago pushed me over the line. He’s a minister and plays in a basketball team and uses it as an opportunity for fitness and building friendships with non-Christians.

What do you think of my decision? Good, bad or ugly?
Which one is me in the photo? Good, bad or ugly?

Just got back from a conference. It was pure gold. Great to reflect on the mission of planting more churches around Australia.

4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7 (ESV)

MySpace is ugly. I think that it isn’t particularly functional, the designs are ugly and cumbersome. The system for commenting is annoying. Users often talk about rubbish, but then again teenagers are the key demographic for using MySpace. I think that there are better methods of having a presence on the internet (such as blogger and wordpress). BUT… having said all this, ccecyouth has a myspace page. I made it earlier on this year before I knew of any youth group kids that had one. A couple of months ago I stumbled onto a whole bunch of them (only 29 at the moment). I don’t spend much time at myspace. I will occasionally quickly peruse their pages but not much.

Why have a youth group myspace?

• Teenagers have them – so it’s a way of being present in their world
• Teenagers often write stupid things, ungodly things – so it’s good for Christians on MySpace to have some form of accountability knowing their youth leaders and friends from youth group will look at their page
• It’s a way to redirect people to our main site
• I’ve encouraged our youth to put ccecyouth in their top 8 friends so that non-Christian friends will see the distinct ccecyouth logo and possibly visit our site or youth group – or at least know that their friend is happy to be associated with ‘Christians’

Here is the page of a youth group for a series they did on Moses. Not a bad idea.

Do you have a MySpace? Does your church or youth ministry or organisation or band have a MySpace? Do you think it’s ugly?

21AUG Update:
Article here & here (h/t Tracy) and here (h/t Josh)

24AUG Update:
Interesting article here. It talks about the link between myspace, generation Y, meaning and ministering to Gen Yers. Too many good quotes to put here (so go read it!)… but here’s one: “In a media environment in which marketing is king, young people have become marketers of their own personal image and ‘brand’.”

25SEP Update:
Check out this article (h/t Josh)

I’m off to a conference for the next 3 days. Make sure you go and check Dan’s blog and give him some comments. Fantastic 25th Epidose of On the Poddy with Dave & Dan. Graceout.