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
How often have you heard the saying “Preach the gospel always, and if necessary use words� This oft-repeated quote from St Francis of Assisi is often bandied around as a reminder that our actions speak louder than words. Yet, this motivation to live good lives can easily turn into an excuse not to speak at all.
Read my full thoughts in my article at sydneyanglicans.net.
Generation Y is the so-called ‘options’ generation. They are renowned for their lack of long-term commitment and last-minute attitude to life. So how do you recruit and manage volunteers from people whose every commitment is flexible?
Read my answer in my latest monthly article at your.sydneyanglicans.net.
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.
An interesting article in today’s SMHÂ suggests that the way in which we have been using PowerPoint in many of our churches and educational institutions is in fact working against the learning process, not helping it.
I have had a hunch about this for some time, and have stopped using PowerPoint to accompany my sermons and youth talks. The main reason is that I feel that PowerPoint creates a gap between preacher/teacher and congregation/class, and that simply talking allows much more scope for relationship. The fact that Gen Y’s crave experience over explanation points further to the fact that a speaker who speaks with emotion and engages the crowd will be more likely to have an impact than those who present the information in a formal teaching style.
Even more interesting is the observation that by reading along in our Bibles when the Bible reading is spoken in church may in fact be making it harder for us to comprehend the message.
I’ve got to confess that I didnt’t really get very excited about the Earth Hour that turned off the power across Sydney last Saturday night. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m keen to see our world preserved from the impending sauna we face unless we stop our CO2 omissions and other factors leading to global warming. But, I’m not really sure that the stunt on Saturday night will make a difference.
Part of the reason behind my Gen X scepticism is that I expect that many of the participants in this event will probably make few, if any, changes to the way they live and work. People, generally, have grown too accustomed to their creature comforts. We want our air conditioning, the ‘stand by’ on the photocopier, and every other energy-hungry perk we can utilise. We’re happy to wear the t-shirt, but will we really sacrifice our pleasures?
Now I might really sound like a child of the ‘greed-is-good’ 80s, but I think that the only way we will really stop people wasting electricity is if there is a financial incentive. We need to charge businesses and individuals more for power, and probably sign onto a form of carbon credit system. Obviously we will need to protect the poor through means-tested discounted electricity, but if we made power more expensive then perhaps people might naturally start to buy solar hot water heating, and choose to live in houses with eaves and thick walls instead of paper-thin houses that require huge air conditioners.
Earth Hour had some use. It provided education and awareness. But without ongoing financial ‘encouragement’, I suspect most of the citizens of our self-centred world will continue to suck the energy from the grid, whether or not they bought an ‘Earth Hour’ t-shirt.
