Latest Entries »

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.

An interesting article in today’s SMH 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.

Today it is reported that EMI has decided to drop the DRM (digital rights management) of songs on iTunes. In other words, songs by EMI will soon be downloadable from the Apple iTunes Store without any copy protection.

It is true that this will be popular for consumers. I, for one, hate being locked into one format for my downloadable songs. I worry that by buying a U2 song from iTunes that I’ll never be able to play my full collection of music on Windows Media Player, should I decide to churn players. I also worry that the resolution is too low on the downloadable songs, and would instead prefer a CD. This new move from EMI solves both problems, as the new downloads will be at double the current quality.

However, is the move to remove protection based on an optimistic view of society? Does it assume that people are generally good? Does it presume that people will not illegally copy music and give it to others? The problem for the record companies is that CDs already are unprotected, and this practice already goes on everywhere in brazen disobedience to the law. So, my guess is that this move recognises that people will continue to copy music no matter what ‘protection’ they provide. So, rather than try and restrict people from breaking the law, they will need to try a different approach.

Some copying of music is legitimate, for example, for personal backups of the media. Removing this restriction will mean the honest people will gain freedoms. Yet, it will also mean that the already rife practice of illegally distributing material will continue, since the bad guys will always work out a way to copy things.

I think it’s a very clever move from Steve Jobs from Apple, and also from EMI. It rewards honest customers, provides an incentive to buy from iTunes (the higher resolution) and gives up trying to restrict the lawbreakers. It is a mixture of a retrieval ethic (seeking the most loving outcome within the environment of an evil world) and clever marketing.

I’m thrilled to spread the news that a new CEO is heading to Youthworks. Zac Veron, currently the senior minister at St George North Anglican Churche, has had loads of experience in growing ministries, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he weaves his magic (so to speak) over Youthworks in the coming years.

For full details of the appointment, including comments from Zac and others, read this press release or this article from your.sydneyanglicans.net.