Archive for 2007


It was only a matter of time before the secular media began to affirm what Christians have been saying for years (if not decades) that pornography is harmful. In her incisive and challenging article in today’s SMH, Adele Horin mounts the case for concern in the ever-rising popularity of Internet porn.

Listing case study after case study, and compounding the evidence with a barrage of statistics, Horin demonstrates the effect of porn on marriage and relationships. At its best, the viewing of explicit material leads men to choose the internet instead of intimacy. At its worst, the attendant secrecy breeds distrust, and marriage failure.

Sexuality is a beautiful gift from God, for enjoyment and procreation in marriage. The sooner people wake up to this fact, the sooner marriages will be stronger, and God will be glorified.

If you are a regular visitor to my site then you will know that it’s been a while since my last post. Things have been particularly full-on with work, especially the launch of the new Year 13 Gospel Gap Year program for 2008. Check out www.year13.youthworks.net to see what’s new!

This long gap between posts has made me realise the tyranny of irregularity. When it’s been a while since the last update, the next update gets harder and harder every day of delay. You feel the need to apologise, and what’s worse, the need to fill in every thing that has happened in the meanwhile.

But the problem gets worse. Once you’ve resolved to fill in the gaps, there is a natural tendency to want to post lots of catch-up articles. Is this good nettiquete? Is it ok to fill up your feed with all the articles you should have written before, or is it better to just let it all go?

Finally, just how often does a person need to post to be regular?

PS – I’ve got to say, it feels good to post again…!

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are today running a story in the ‘Next’ IT section of their newspapers on my use of the Moodle program for our online learning at Youthworks College.

The article, titled “Use your moodle to deliver lessons” outlines the benefits of online learning, and documents some of the process by which we implemented it in our teaching.

Here is an excerpt:

Jodie McNeill, priest, lecturer and technology enthusiast, fell in love with Moodle late last year.

 

The open source course management system (CMS) is at the heart of Mr McNeill’s theology course for school-leavers, Year 13. Every week he uses the online system to post texts required for the following lesson.

 

Students must read them and complete comprehension tests before moving on. At the end, they must enter a summary and ask questions. Mr McNeill then monitors the answers and uses them to prepare his weekly face-to-face lectures.

Read the full story here.

In this week’s sydneyanglicans.net the Year 13 program is featured alongside the Church Army program in this story on gap year programs.

Here’s an excerpt:

Most Sydney Anglicans probably know a teenager who is wondering what to do with their lives. In the past, teenagers went straight from school to a trade or a degree. Today, Christian teenagers have the option of trying something new, seeing another part of the world and building up their Christian faith.

Read the full story here, and check out the forum in which I have been invited to participate.

Are mission teams there to act as ‘hired gun’ evangelists, or could they be better used teaching congregations how to love their churches and lead the mission?

Here’s an excerpt from my latest sydneyanglicans.net article:

Yet, it is possible, and perhaps even preferable for the mission team to concentrate less on evangelism, and more on equipping. We assume that because it’s called a ‘mission’ team, the group must be doing outreach. However, the reason they are a mission team is because they are ‘sent’ from the Bible college. After all, the word ‘mission’ comes from the Latin missio (to send.)

 

So, if we remove the premise that a mission team must concentrate on doing the evangelism, then many options open to us that may provide much greater opportunities for church growth (in both number and quality.)

Read this latest sydneyanglicans.net article here.