but this is too much!

Gotta love comment #2 on the site

This needs to be breaded afterward and then deep fried.

via::buzzfeed.com

I think the buzz in recent years is that we are in or approaching a time of ‘revival’ in biblical Christianity. not just in America either, Lindsay Brown at SPRTE said a similar thing, placing this as a time of significant expansion in the gospel being effected in great part by the university student movement in Africa and South America.

This article from NY Times ‘Bad times draw bigger crowds‘ was an interesting read.

During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent

Apparently church attendance has swelled this year with ministers realising this may be a once in a lifetime event.

With the swelling attendance they were seeing, and a sense that worldwide calamities come along only once in an evangelist’s lifetime, the study has encouraged some to think big.

To be honest, I’m skeptical about the trend. Without having looked much further my guess is that attendance has increased in large part because the opportunity to work on sunday has (sadly) evaporated for many. So ‘less regulars’ may have become more regular boosting the week on week attendance figures.

Perhaps there have been many who having sacrificed greatly to the god of this age, the mighty free market, and have been left with nothing… making the creator’s voice a little less of a distant murmur. That would be great, praise God indeed if he is mocking our greed and saving people in droves! bring on the ‘revival’ if that is the case! Time will tell…

Does anyone know if we are seeing a similar trend in Aus? are we likely to? any stats/economics boffins reading? I haven’t noticed it at our church to date…

On her way home from work on friday Jodie was confronted by this:

What’s a pirate doing catching a train? and would a real pirate really need an umbrella??

She refrained from introducing herself and informing him that she is married to a man who seems to think he is a pirate.

I know many of you use wordpress for your blogs…if you havn’t heard yet, wordpress 2.7 has been released. It’s a major update with many imporvements.

Just installed and so far I like.

If you want a quick and easy way to update, install the ‘wordpress automatic upgrade‘ plugin and it’ll take care of the details for you.

This is unbelievable! and sad (if it is true)

People praying over a bull outside the NY Stock Exchange.

via::bedeviant.com

This is great. If you have ever used fruityloops or reason this is similar, but free and web based! I feel some major time being wasted!!

Hobnox audiotool

via::buzzfeed.com

This is the title of our current series at church. I started it off with my last talk for this year. The title was “It’s hard to believe in Christmas becuase of …angels”

The comments after were interesting. For almost everyone the presence and existence of angels didn’t pose much of a problem. Perhaps this is because angels feature so often in the ’scenery’ of the bible that they stop standing out for Christians? Perhaps it’s their constant appearance (in their pop-culture form) every Christmas? I’m not sure…

Don’t you think that the existence of angels is just a little strange though? messengers from an invisible, other dimension?

In some ways the angel sightings in the Bible might be equated to alien sightings in our day…the difference seems to be that alien sightings seem mostly focussed on what the alien looks like, and what it did to it’s helpless victim. The ‘angel sightings’ of the bible instead are squarely focussed on where they’ve come from  who has sent them (e.g. Lk 1:19) - the invisible God who reigns from heaven above accomplishing salvation for people in the world he has created.

Simon and Anna have been visiting us from Adelaide for the past couple of days. Was really good to see them again (Anna was one of our bridesmaids).

As part of the tour-de-sydney we took them on the Bondi to Bronte walk. We hadn’t done it before but it confirmed again how beautiful the Eastern coastline is. A few too many posers at Bondi for my liking, but it is an impressive beach and interesting place to look around.

One thing we came across was the blood donation semi-trailer…since none of us had ever given blood before we though we’d give it a go. That and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to mark another one off the list (#32) ! After far too many liters of water and lunch at ‘bondi tucker’ (v. nice despite the name!) we did our time in the chair. The nurse commented on the size of my vein - is that a manly thing to have? big veins? I took it as a compliment.

Mars bar, twisties and biscuits in exchange for superfluous blood? score!

Hi! I’m back from temporary blog-silence… It’s been a busy lately! First reason: SPRTE (usually known as NTE - national training event)

It’s for uni students and is a national gathering of student groups in Canberra from across the south pacific for training. Following the conference the campus groups disperse to many different places to engage in mission. It’s always a great time and this year was no exception!!

Of course Jodie and I are no longer uni students (bible college doesn’t count)…we were there as strand leaders for ’strand 2′. It was a privilege to serve some young enthusiastic uni students by teaching some of the stuff that we’d learned in OT and Bib. Theology this year. We hope/think/pray that they got something out of it!

The conference topic was ‘cross and culture’. Lindsay Brown (previous IFES gen. sec.) gave a liberal smattering of stories from across the globe of how the gospel of the cross of christ is being taken throughout the world by students. It was heartening and shocking at times given the extreme persecution and persevering under trials that some have endured.

Philip Jensen gave talks on the cross. They were good, but came a little too soon after our doctrine 1 exam it think Jodie and I were pre-empting his points based on the justification by faith essays we had written. He basically refused to talk about culture insisting that the cross is about saving humanity, not cultures, bringing unification as one new man under Jesus. what do you think? fair?

All in all a good time.

Jodes and I just finished watching season 1 of “One tree hill” which I think got some air time on aus tv but didn’t go the distance. Jodie loves it (don’t tell her I said that I can understand the ratings!).

The one redeeming and kinda head-spinning feature of the whole show is that the lead character looks almost identical to Andrew Errington (from college, for those from the real world)

Chad Michael-Murray as “Lukas Scott”:

Andrew Errington as “Chad Michael-Murray look-alike”: (sorry I don’t keep high qual photos of him!)

So I wouldn’t recommend that you watch the entire season…to save you the trouble, here’s what happens:

Andrew Errington’s father, Dan was a Basketball star. He knocked up AE’s mom then abandoned them. Dan had another son, Nathan. Nathan and AE are highschool aged, Nathan is the star of the school team while AE shoots hoops in the park with his home boys. That is until he is spotted by the coach (Whitey) and given a chance on the team. AE is a natural, becomes the star and drives Nathan and his Dad to jealous rage.

AE takes an interest in Nathan’s gf, Paten (blonde cheerleader). This is the start of his many girl troubles. he has 3 on the go at his peak.

In a vengeful scheme, Nathan dumps blondie to woo’s AE female best friend, Haley “tutor girl” to get back at him, which works pretty well.

AE dates Paten’s best friend, Brooke (brunette cheerleader whose strength is not conversation). Blondie and AE almost get it on and Brooke finds out. Brook hates blondie for most of the series then makes up in the last episode. great.

AE and Nathan become friends. Nathan and Haley “tutor girl” get married.

AE’s mum, Karen has been lifelong friends with Dan’s brother Keith (Dan knocked her up). Keith likes Karen, but Karen “loves him but is not in love with him”. Late in the season Keith proposes to Karen but is shot down. Keith Leaves town. AE sees Keith as a father figure. AE feels like he has turned to the dark side because of his fame (see tripple dating above, + pregnacy scare etc) and decides to leave with Keith to “find himself”. How teenaged girl of him.

Nathan’s parents are messed up. They both have had affairs, work too much, and bully Nathan. They end up filing for divorce and the last scene of the season is Dan about to sign the divorce papers then suffering a heart attack. His wife finds him clutching his chest. He tells her “You’d better hope I die”.

And that’s it in a nutshell. I was surprised at the amount of domestic violence against the men in the show.