NYMC07 #5 – Thanksgiving

Observation: Americans are good at giving thanks. Culturally they have a day set aside each year to express thanksgiving and it seems that they are much better at acknowledging people in ministry than we are in Australia. Josh Griffin and The Skit Guys are both good at simply saying ‘thank you’ to youth pastors and volunteers for the work they do in loving teenagers and loving Jesus.

Is it trite? I don’t think so. I think we have much to learn from the Americans in how to show our thankfulness to people for their work – and ultimately God for his work.

Shout out to CCECYOUTH leaders. Thanks for your work with Central Coast teenagers – I am truly thankful to God for the way you share the gospel of Jesus and your lives with them.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 – Live Blogging; #2 – Getting here, #3 – Josh Griffin, #4 – My Place on MySpace.

NYMC07 #4 – My Place on MySpace

New record for September: 7.5 hours of sleep!! Glorious! This morning Josh Griffin ran a seminar on the internet, social networking and teenagers. I’m running some similar things early next year – so it’s good to rip his ideas! Here’s some:

To protect yourself on line you must…

  1. Stranger-protect your profile
  2. Limit the use of personal information online
  3. Open up to parents and accountability
  4. Regularly clean-up your profile
  5. Only befriend real-life friends
  6. Don’t talk to strangers
  7. Report red flags to the proper channels
  8. Take a few minutes and clean it up
  9. Move the computer to a public space

6 Key to remember

  1. What you post is like a billboard along the information superhighway
  2. It is quite possible you are being lied to
  3. People say things online they would never say in real life
  4. What you post is permanent
  5. Don’t be afraid of “shoulder surfing”
  6. The internet is as safe as you want it to be

To get people to your website

  • Content
  • Community
  • Current

Stay tuned for a special episode of On the Poddy with Josh.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 – Live Blogging; #2 – Getting here, #3 – Josh Griffin.

NYMC07 #3 – Josh Griffin

Today was a professional development day. I spent the day with Josh Griffin. He’s a good guy (and famous blogger). The workshop was called: Your first two years in youth ministry. While I was familiar with lots of the ideas he presented, having read lots of the gear that has come from Doug Fields and the Simply Youth Ministry crew, it was a very encouraging day.

It was good fun. I won a prize with an sms competition (yesssss!). Three statements stood out to me and were very timely:

  • A healthy youth ministry requires leaders to depend on God’s power
  • A healthy youth ministry requires leaders who recognise they can never do enough… but God can.
  • Ministry never ends… believe you can’t do it all

It was also good to chat to Josh over some Seafood noodles at lunch about some specific questions to do with our ministry.

Good times. Thanks Josh.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 – Live Blogging; #2 – Getting here.

NYMC07 #2 – Getting here

I like to think of myself as a city-slicker. Let’s be honest. I’m really just a country-bumpkin! Here are two sms’ I sent to Row on my way here:

  • Conversation #1. “Excuse me sir you seem to look a little lost”….”Um can you tell me how I check in”.
  • I’m on the bus. I thought we were going the wrong way until I realised the ocean was on the right hand side

I made it to the Gold Coast. I made it alive. And I even made it on time! However… I came without having booked any accommodation. God provided. Thanks to Andy, Cameron, Ron, Chris and James for letting me bunk in with them. Good times.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 – Live Blogging

Youth Culture

Below is part of an email I just sent to a friend asking some questions about youth and what makes them tick.

Here are some posts of mine that quickly come to mind reflecting on something of youth culture:

I’m sure there’s more posts that are relevant… But that’s a good start.

I think that it would be profitable to spend some time just observing your local youth culture. You can do this by simply watching them at the shopping centres, skateparks or where ever they are hanging out. It’s also profitable to ask them what makes them tick, what they care about, who they are etc…

Saddleback do the whole ‘Saddleback Sam’ thing – basically they draw (and describe) a picture of the typical person in their culture and context. We’ve done this before and it’s very helpful! In the end the observations you make will be generalisations – but nonetheless a helpful activity in understanding the culture you’re reaching.

Here’s a couple of websites that might be helpful:

  • http://www.ypulse.com/“Ypulse is an independent blog for teen/youth media and marketing professionals providing news, commentary and resources on commercial teen media for teens (teen magazines, websites), entertainment for teens (movies, games, television, music), technology used by teens (cell phones, instant messaging, SMS), the news media’s desire to attract teens (newspapers, cable news), marketing and advertising (targeting the teen market) and civic youth media (highlighting organizations’ efforts at promoting youth voices in media).”
  • http://www.youthfacts.com.au/“This site provides facts and statistics about Australia’s youth – how many there are, what they do and what they’re like. The site is for anyone needing quick access to data about young people.”

I just found a whole bunch of my youth posts that I compiled into the one place.

If you’ve read this far – please leave a comment with your favourite Australian animal.

Guessing comp – name the famous person in the above pic… warm fuzzy to the first correct answer.

Secularism doesn’t work

This gold nugget is from John Anderson’s final Parliamentary speech:

Dawkins and Hitchins et al would have us believe that the problem is that we have not been secular enough. They would say that we ought to be more secular. As I see it, we gave secularism a great run in the 20th century. We tried atheistic communism and got 60 million dead in Russia and we got the killing fields of Pol Pot—and goodness only knows how many dead in China. We tried atheistic right-wing fascism in Germany and beyond and got the gas chambers and another 60 million dead. Today we are not so arrogant; we are beginning to question again. But I would urge that we learn the lessons of history when we seek out and respond to the truth. When we do not sit on the fence, we in fact will find that truth is available to us. I deeply and sincerely believe that. I think if Wilberforce were here today he would say, ‘Your society is not so different to the one that I have been active in, and the great truth remains,’—challenging us that the central figure in history said to us: ‘There is such a thing as the truth, and I am it and the way to God is through me.’ I put that challenge there. We are free to respond either way, but I say that as a society we should no longer go on ignoring it. We can no longer go on skirting around it, either as individuals or collectively.

(h/t craigS)