The Lord is my strength. Warm fuzzy for verse reference.
[click for full pic]
To Know Your Name
I learnt this song last term while visiting a youth group. It’s been in my head all week.
I love the music. I love the lyrics. I love the Saviour. Here’s the chorus:
I know you gave the world
Your only son for us
To know your name
To live within the Saviour’s love
He took my place
Knowing He´d be crucified
And You loved, You loved
A people undeserving!
Here’s the film clip:
Shopping Centres + Brothels
Pornography is bad. Brothels are bad. Duh. Every Christian would agree. I suggested in a recent talk that catalogues and TV commercials are just as dangerous as pornography and that walking through a shopping centre can be like walking through a brothel.
We don’t just lust after flesh but we are also prone to lust after material things and stuff. The great danger of shopping centres and catalogues is that we don’t realise that they are dangerous. It’s normal to see products and want them, it’s normal to hang out at the shops and buy stuff whenever we want stuff.
Only when we understand how much our culture is shaped by consumerism, materialism, affluenza and the desire to get stuff will we understand how easy it is to be personally shaped by this mindset.
5 tips for fighting the idol of stuff:
Overseas Council Australia
Overseas Council Australia are doing an incredible job at helping to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection throughout the world. “OCA raises funds in Australia to give to approved theological colleges in developing countries.” Not only are they training locals to preach Jesus in their own context, but they are training faculty to train locals to proclaim Jesus.
Sponsor a student. Give some cash. Proclaim Jesus. Check their website.
Concern for that great city
DMDC Update: Blogging break over. Currently finishing a number of design and writing jobs. Uploaded a bunch of talks from Term 2 (need a speaker?). Jesus is still the King.
Scott Petty spoke last night (at Senior High + 645 church) kicking off a week of prayer in preparing for connecting with the St Ives community throughout 2009. He spoke from Jonah 4 and Luke 18. In the talk he compared the prayerfulness of the persistent widow (Luke 18) with Jonah’s prayerlessness. In the talk we were challenged to see the heart of God for the 4 million people of Sydney.
But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)
NITE CHURCH LIVE
We joined in the fun with CCEC people for NITE CHURCH LIVE tonight @ Avoca Beach Theatre (sweet location!). It’s the first live CD that CCEC has done, and hopefully they got some good recordings worth distributing more widely. Purchased played the first set with keyboard driven pop-tunes. Shadow Gallery were second with their folky sound. And Jacob I loved finished off the night with some hard-driving rock.
There was a good combination of new songs with new tunes and old songs with new tunes. The songs were beautifully drenched with cross-centred lyrics. My favourite one of the night would have been the final song “Holy Sovereign Lord”. Keep an ear out for it in your church!
It was good to catch up with people we don’t see often and together praise Jesus. Shout out to my homeboy Dan for the great work he’s been doing with CCEC music for the last couple of years.
Amazing Grace: Just the Black Notes!
I spoke on Grace last night. Faith tonight. Jesus tomorrow. The video below is very cool!
(h/t Peter C – via Lachlan Soper)