Love Wins

This video is likely to cause some ructions.....it's a promo, in a sense, for Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived and it's interesting to read some of the comments on You Tube that accompany it. Ructions are already in the making there.

I think one of the most interesting statements he makes in the short 2 and a half minutes is that many Christians believe 'Jesus rescued us from God'....Mr Bell has some issues with this....





PS - just found this wonderful line from Kim Fabricius:

There are Christians who reject universalism not because it is unbiblical but because, were it true, it would disappoint them.

Today video on children

There's a fun and snappy 4 minute video on a site called max7.org which can be used as a tool to inspire leaders, churches and ministries with the story of what God is doing across the world, specifically in relation to children. I can't download the video to this blog (at least as far as I can figure out) so you'll need to go to the site to watch it or download it yourself.

You could use it as part of a training presentation, in your church or at a missions conference. Though it's simply done, it's designed to think about the big picture of children in the Bible and across the world, without shying away from the challenges that children are facing.

Max7 resources have been freely donated for people's use so the video can be used widely (as long as it's not sold).

Using PowerPoint Effectively

Seth Godin doesn't like the way most PowerPoints are used and has been saying so for several years.

Here's his summary of how to use a PowerPoint effectively - it sounds good to me.

Here are the five rules you need to remember to create amazing Powerpoint presentations:

1. No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
2. No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
4. Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
5. Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.

Read his more recent post on the subject: PowerPoint makes us stupid.

Photo by Gareth Saunders

Simon Carey Holt on video

Alan Roxburgh is a name that turns up on this blog fairly frequently, but it was only today that I discovered the videos on Roxburgh Missional Network site.

The focus of these is 'moving back into the neighbourhood' and the two dozen or more videos look at different aspects of this. The softly-spoken Australian (so soft I had to turn the computer's sound up), Simon Carey Holt features in five of them, and gives as good an idea of what the focus is as anyone. He tells a story in the first of his videos about being in a Los Angeles neighbourhood when three young boys were mistakenly shot (the local gang mistook them for members of an opposing gang). In spite of there being a church of 9,000 people nearby, with 100 pastors, Holt was surprised to find that not one of those people seemed to know anything about the shooting, nor did any (as far as he knew) turn up to the spontaneous memorial that took place in the alleyway beside the Holts' kitchen window.

The problem was most of that enormous congregation drove to their church, and drove home again to a different suburb.

Holt is the author of a book, The God Next Door, which also focuses on the themes discussed in the videos.

Perhaps your church isn't very neighbourhood-connected. However, you are, and there's nothing to stop you being involved with the people who live on either side of you, or behind you, or across the street. We tend to think of our neighbours as being there by chance; perhaps the reality is, God has put them there purposely.

Tom Wright on Hell

Tom Wright may not be everyone's cup of tea/flavour of the month but for me he often speaks clearly and succinctly on a subject. This three minute video below is one example.



Not everyone will agree with what he has to say (which is something along the lines of the way C S Lewis writes about Hell in the opening chapter of The Great Divorce) and I'm slightly dubious about his view that Jesus didn't say anything much on Hell. I think he's trying to find a way of fitting Hell 'in' to his views on heaven and earth coming together at the end of all things; do people who totally reject God get somehow squeezed out of the Universe (both spiritual and physical?). That's not what he says, by the way!

Whatever Hell literally is, if one can speak about such a thing as being literal, it certainly isn't a place I'd prefer to go...whether it's a case of losing the Presence of God or (merely) having to live with an eternally tedious and irritating self.

The God Gene

John Cleese, looking considerably older than he does in the endless re-runs of Fawlty Towers, explains some new findings in the gene programme, including the one the makes us believe in God.




Keep your ears open; this is smarter than it seems...!

Thanks to Bosco Peters, who brought this video to my attention...

Forget Economics, Think Socialnomics

I found the following video on Bosco Peters' Liturgy site. The stats are most interesting, and have probably all been surpassed since the video was made, such is the speed with which internet social media is moving.




As Bosco comments on his site: If social media is here to stay - how is the church responding? How is your parish or Christian community participating? The seven last words of a Christian community are, “we never did it like that before.”

Is social media here to stay? Certainly for the next reasonable period of time.

Ignatius the Ultimate Youth Pastor

The video below turned up on the Vertizontal blog. It's well put together, and the cast have a easy approach to their roles. Vertizontal thinks it explains things a little too much, but compared to some Christian videos I think it does pretty well.

It was shot by Taylor Robinson and George Wiley, with video post by Jason Poole and audio by Eric Chapman and Nate Dregger. The role of Ignatius is played by Josh Keefer. Written and directed by Travis Hawkins. Student Life produced the video for a free youth minister event called Refuge. It was conceived as a satire for what they consider to be an unhealthy "rock star" culture that has been growing inside Christendom, as well as an encouragement for the unheralded heroes on the front lines of ministry.

I think most youth groups would get a good laugh out of it - and perhaps even find the idea behind it thought-provoking.

Have IPhone, can Worship

Going to the movies, or a concert - or to church? Turn off your cellphone.

However, a growing number of iPhone owners are now using the device to "go" to church. Several churches have begun streaming services over the iPhone, and one of the first to do so is Northland, A Church Distributed, (yup, that's what they're called), which launched an iPhone Web app early in July this year. They offer not only videos of past church services, but also live streaming: the means to be "at" the service even though you're not physically there.

Northland has been innovative in this regard since 2001; hence the “distributed sites.” After opening four separate sites in Orlando, it began webcasting its services in 2006 , and in 2008 began an inteactive version of its webstream with access to an online pastor and the ability to chat with other worshipers.

I had a look at their website: at first it looks a bit underdone, but in fact, as you check it out, it proves to be more than adequate for the task.

While we hum and hah about whether virtual church is real church, there are people out there getting on and doing it. You can find out how they go about doing things technological on one of their blogs.

What does it all mean?

If you think we post too much about the Internet, Facebook, Twittering and the like on here, then check out this video. It asks at the end, What Does it All Mean?, but unhelpfully doesn't give an answer - of any sort.

It's primarily a batch of stats about the pace of life, the advancement of technology, the way in which the world has changed. The information is varied, and covers things like how many babies were born while the nearly five minutes of video plays through; about the fact that people growing up now are being prepared for jobs that don't even exist yet; that so much technological change happens every year that technology students can never keep up; that the amount of information engendered every day is more than happened over the last 5,000 years...and so on. You get the drift.

Not knowing what it means, or even knowing, it's still an interesting video (!)

Social media in business

At a bloggers' summit, held as part of the International ITB Berlin trade show in March, four top social media trends were noted.

1. A change in philosophy from the top of an organisation recognising the importance of social media.
2. Organisations will have social media specialists in the company.
3. Public relations will be using more social media channels
4. Twitter

These four were the result of a variety of possibilities suggested, such as PR on social media sites; 'crowd sourcing'; hyper local news; feedback 2.0; 'maps' as a new interface; integrated video.

The information above comes from an article in NZ Management called Social Media: when context is king, by Annie Gray. (June 2009, page 36)

As always, it's worth noting how what's being considered here is of interest to the church: where does social media fit? Is Twitter just a fad or something of value to the church? Is there someone in your church who is passionate about both Jesus and social media? Can they bring these together?

Twittering during the sermon

Some churches in the States have decided to allow people to Twitter during the service. Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Michigan, for example, flashes worshipper's Tweets on large video screens.

Distracting? You bet!

However, this is a church that already twitters people with information about service times, sermon titles (The Top 5 Things We’ve Done That Made People Mad but Were Worth It, for instance), church notices and congratulations on people's baptisms. So twittering is part of their modus operandi.

But then there a church that's well and truly into the techno age: a look at their homepage shows podcasts listed, video streaming, blogs (there are at least five, and here's a post on the twittering 'issue'), and various other Internet-based areas on prayer, discipleship and so on (which I spent far too much time playing around with).

Here's a comment from the blog I linked to above: For Westwinds, the use of Twitter, among many other things, are [sic] appropriate for us but may not be for everyone. It is our culture. It is expected we will try different things. Some will fail. Some become part of us.

I'm happy I found out about Westwinds....they look as though they're trying out all sorts of possibilities in the technological area, and doing well with most of them. And here's another blog post from another one of their staff with no less than 25 points on the Twittering issue.

N T Wright on the Resurrection

Here's a brief two minutes from Tom Wright on the Resurrection - he manages to convey a great deal in the short time.



And there are some intriguing visuals in the background...

Being tangible

The Tangible Kingdom is a new(ish) resource from a site called !! The Tangible Kingdom. There's a book which has received quite a few kudos, and you can see a 'remix' version of it here.
I personally didn't find that particularly helpful maybe because I didn't look at it carefully enough, but there's also a video:



The video is slow and quiet, and takes a minute or so to begin to make its point, but it does make its point - by using one neat symbol.

Love versus Lust

Here's a resource your Youth Group might find useful. Actually some adults might well find it useful too. It's been produced by the Grainger Community Church, and it's well produced too.



A simple idea, very well executed. (Not quite sure why it's taking up more room on the blog than videos usually do!)

The Reason for God

I've recently finished reading Timothy Keller's book, The Reason for God: belief in an age of scepticism, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an original approach to apologetics, and as soon as I can find a copy I can afford, I'll buy it. (It's only available in hardcover at present.)
Surprisingly, my local library had a copy of it, for which I was very grateful. In fact, over the last number of years they've accumulated quite a store of good books in the Christian area. Obviously someone on their staff has realised that they have a lot of Christian readers amongst their 'customers.'
If you want a bit of an introduction to Keller's book (apart from the link already given) you can check out the site dedicated to the book. It has a video of Keller talking about his book on it as well.

Using Movie Clips

It's a big thing in some churches these days to use movie clips to add a different dimension to the service or the sermon. But one issue that churches have to deal with is that of royalties, and, on top of that, whether the church actually has permission to show the clip in the first place.

YouthTRAIN lists about a dozen sites that have movie clips for use. It provides a brief description of the kind of site - whether it provides a synopsis of the movie, whether there are study guides available, whether you have to pay a fee or a subscription, whether the clips are new or old and so on. Some of the sites have free material, and one or two are more about giving an overview of movies than providing material.

All in all, this is a useful list. Just make sure you give yourself a couple of hours to check it out!

I'm a Christian....and I'm a Christ follower

By now this series of videos (six or seven in all, I think) are becoming widely known, but just in case you're one of the people who still hasn't caught up with them, check them out. They parody a series of ads that compared Macs and PCs. (For those who can't get enough of them, you can find more variations on the theme on You Tube.)

The original series shows two guys, one of them a laid-back Christ follower, and the other a rather up-tight Christian with all the latest Christian gear. There's a little animosity between them - more from the Christian - but the playing of the characters is so smooth and gentle that you can only laugh. While many viewers may side with the Christ follower, it's probable that the Christian has plenty of supporters too!

The versions available for viewing on the FaithVisuals site (in the link at the beginning of this post) are a bit small. You Tube's versions are larger, but they're fairly fuzzy when they're enlarged to full screen.

Video-venues

The celebrity church must die. And doing anything—like video venues—that prolongs its life, even in the name of the lost, runs counter to the best interests of the Church in all its expressions, big and small, and its mandate to see more people not only reached, but gifted, trained, and sent.

So says Bob Hyatt, whose church has moved from pub to pub in Southwest Portland as its outgrown each venue. As he writes, We are the church on a pub crawl.

In his article on 'Out of Ur' he speaks against churches that are going multi-site in the sense of having one preacher in one location being videoed to several other locations. Closeness of congregation, and interactivity, are for him the keynotes. Check out the rest of the article here.

Bob Hyatt is a father of three, leading pastor of the Evergreen Community (Portland, Oregon) and a church planter with a passion for helping other planters. He blogs at bobhyatt.typepad.com and runs PastorHacks.com. He also edits the online e-zine, Next-Wave.org.

Tim Keller

I'm in the middle of a blog discussion with a couple of people who steadfastly see Christianity (and any other religions) as based on myths, and refuse the consider any other worldview. So it was interesting to come across the video of Tim Keller speaking on the conflict that such a entrenched veiwpoint causes. The video was shot when he visited Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, "The Reason for God." This event took place on March 5, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series. It's about an hour long, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back.