Jodie McNeill lives in Jamberoo, NSW, Australia, and is the Senior Minister at Jamberoo Anglican.
Home: 20 Tate Place, Jamberoo NSW 2533 Australia. Email: jodie@jodiemcneill.com Phone: +61 425 222 338
Happy New Year to everyone. This is my first official post on my new-look website, and just to make it even higher-tech, I’m writing it from my BlackBerry.
I’ve moved my website from a Coranto CMS to WordPress, and it seems to have been a great move. Interesting trying to migrate the posts, but I think I’ve worked out the process.
This new site should go live this week, when I’ve got the bugs out of the system.
I just returned from over two weeks away on holidays in Canberra and at Callala Beach (Jervis Bay). It was a very relaxing time away with the family doing very, very little (a stark contrast to normal life!)
We spent the first four days at Canberra, doing every tourist ‘thing’ we could fit in to our schedule: Parliament House, Questacon, National Museum, Telstra Tower, Australian Institute of Sport, Cockington Gardens, Planetarium, and more! It was great to get ‘distracted’ by the destination!
The remaining ten days were spent at Callala Beach, on Jervis Bay, near Nowra. Lots of time doing very little. In fact, the most ‘productive’ activity was sorting 5,000 digital photos on my hard disk, and culling it down to 2,000. From that, we selected 300 which we then printed on paper. Quite an effort–especially considering I tweaked all the photos in Photoshop first (levels, dodge and burn, and even some desaturations into B&W).
I returned to face 400 emails, but got them down to 100 quickly. Spent a day answering them, and now I’m back on track, but feeling a bit exhausted. Maybe it’s time for another holiday…!
This year the Australian Cricket Board took a gamble. They broke tradition and decided to telecast cricket games in the same city as the game was being played–even if all the seats weren’t sold.
The result was stunning. As was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, the first day of the Sydney Test was a record highest attendance.
But why? Why didn’t people stay at home in air conditioned comfort and enjoy the stunning technology of a modern telecast, complete with Snicko, Hawkeye, and Slo-mo?
The answer is that there is something more to being at an event than just the content. You can see that on TV at home. But being in the crowd–getting sunburnt, participating in passive drinking (getting splashed with beer), and paying-out the Members as they refuse to rise for the Mexican Wave–you just can’t get that on a telecast. And when those cricket milestones happen–Ponting’s double tonnes in his 100th match, for example–it’s worth its weight in gold to say “I was there!”
The same is true of church or Christian conferences. In this age of free MP3 sermon downloads/podcasts, there must be a reason that people still pay the admission fee to attend a conference (plus the travel and accommodation fees). The reason is that there is something ‘more’ to the event than just the Bible talks.
When people are asked why they enjoyed a conference, many say that their highlight was “the teaching”. I disagree. I think it is the experience of hearing the teaching with this gathering of people. People go to experience the gatherning as it taught, not just to ‘download’ the talks. It’s what one of my former Doctrine lecturers, Robert Doyle, used to call “propinquity” (from the Latin ‘near’). It’s the nearness of time and space that we enjoy when we are face-to-face. And it’s the reason why people will continue to pay to hear great teaching live and in the company of others–even if it’s offered elsewhere as a free download.
This should come as no surprise. Heaven is all about relationships: with God and with others. All those who are ‘in Christ’ are already gathered in heaven now (Heb 12:22 – you HAVE come to Mount Zion). When Christians gather on Earth it’s for more than just teaching. It’s to do what we are already doing in heaven–being gathered around God and enjoying the fruit of our unity with other believers.
Sermon podcasting is great… but there’s no substitute for community!
Read article online at www.sydneyanglicans.net, click here. To discuss the article, visit the forums at sydneyanglicans.net.
This week seemed to be a milestone in email frustration. On a personal level, my email server crashed, giving me 24 hours without email. If you sent me an email on Wednesday, then you now know why it bounced.
Yet this was not all. My outbound emails were bounced back due to some servers blocking certain Optusnet mail servers. But since Optusnet block Port 25, I can’t use another SMTP server to send my mail and avoid the problem. I’d be interested to hear what the ACCC would say about an ISP forbidding use of a competitor’s mail server… mmm…
Clearly we have become very dependent on email. For me, this is really my primary form of electronic communication. I typically receive up to 40 emails a day, not to mention the 70 odd SPAM that also clog my system. I’ve been able to get on top of the SPAM problem by using a clever filter (thanks to Chris at Trend Micro).
But there is a hidden cost to SPAM. Speaking to Hamish, the Sys Admin at the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, the unwanted emails generate enormous amounts of extra bandwidth… which costs money. Some spineless spammer mightn’t care how much it costs others, as long as he or she gets a couple of orders of Viagra. Yet it costs others!
This is a classic example of our sin. We think that it won’t effect anyone else if we disobey God. Yet, when we serve ourselves, it is inevitable that others pay the cost.
Bill Gates has boldly claimed to have the solution to Spam. He says that by 2006 we will have rid the world of this problem. Like many others, I am sceptical. It is impossible to create a world without sin, even if it is in cyberspace. Humans will always work out a way to be selfish and unlawful.
The answer to sin is to deal with the root problem. Only Jesus’ death can deal with sin. Yet, fortunately, the cost is borne by him, not us. There is a new world which will be free from SPAM… but it won’t be ruled by Bill, it will be ruled by Jesus.
