Yesterday.Was.Amazing.
First time I’ve smelt summer in ages!
Archive for September, 2008
Last night I saw the RedFrog Crew at a big college party.
“What do you think of them?” a friend asked.
I replied, “I was talking to a [Christian] girl today who said she doesn’t go to parties because she doesn’t like seeing her friends like that.”
“I don’t like seeing my friends going to hell.”
“Exactly! I think the idea is spot on: go where the lost are, where we can serve them, and where culture is both lived out and created. These people need to hear about Jesus, and I wish more Christians would go to parties like this to tell them about Him”
We agreed that we were curious to see what they talked about, so we walked over and started talking to them, not letting on that we were Christians.
“What do your shirts say?”*
“Red… frogs” (Actually, they said Red Frogs Chaplaincy Network)
“And you guys are just giving out red frogs?”
“Yep”
“Do you get paid to do that?”
“No, we’re volunteers”
“Woah! Why do you do it?”*
“Well, we don’t like seeing people get smashed. And it’s a lot of fun!”
“Wait, you do it just to stop people getting smashed?”*
“Yeah – at Schoolies last year we prevented 7 suicides.”
“Who pays for it all?”*
“We have sponsors… Allens donates the frogs…” (oh yeah, he forgot to mention CitiPointe Church, Brisbane.)
“How do you get involved in it?”*
“Oh, through community groups, and churches and stuff.”
“Churches? What churches are you guys from?”*
“Well some of us are from… Hillsong… there are a few from, you know St Barnabus on Broadway?”
I said “Yeah, actually, we’re Christians and-”, my friend continued, “I go to Barny’s.”
We talked about some other things before I had to dash off.
It was a very disappointing experience.
Christians need to bring the gospel to the lost, and we need to do it where they are and in a manner which makes contact with them. But we need to bring the gospel! The gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s absolutely fantastic that these Christians are serving the community at parties, but unless Jesus is proclaimed, it is of no eternal significance.
When I asked, as a Christian, “so do you guys come out here hoping to talk to people about Jesus”, his answer was along the lines of “People see that we’re doing a good thing and want to know more”. I pointed out that I had asked for more and still had not heard it connected to Jesus.
Read back over the conversation above and count the number of easy entrances (*) into a conversation about Jesus. We could not have made his job any easier…
On their table, next to cups of water, were brochures titled “Love”. They invited the reader to search for a deeper love than the superficial ‘love’ of the world, but there was no mention of anything spiritual, certainly no mention of Jesus.
There is a lesson here. When ministering in Jesus’ name, as Christians ought do, we must do it in Jesus’ name. Jesus must be named! And as we contextualise the gospel, such as, apparently, the brochure, we must include the gospel! The gospel will always be unpopular. But nothing is gained by forgetting it in order to spread ‘it’ better.
There is no new lesson here. But it is a vivid reminder of an old truth: preach the word. Preach the word.
“I think this is going to be huge for our culture on the Coast and it would be just like Christians to have nothing to do with it.“
If it’s happening, stop polluting. If it’s not happening, it will be soon, so stop polluting. If it’s not happening and never will, stop polluting my air and my planet anyway!
Craig makes some predictions about church planting in sydney:
“I imagine Acts 29 will be receiving many applications from Australia over the coming months. Last week Driscoll hinted that he would be returning to Sydney in 5 years time. By Monday, this had shrunk down to 18 months. I’m guessing that he expects there will be some local Acts 29 churches to encourage by that time. Actually, I’ve already heard some rumours of such. I suspect that Driscoll sees Sydney as a ripe field, awaiting the right harvesters.
My bold prediction is that we (Sydney Anglicans) are going to lose a lot of very talented young people to Acts 29 affiliated independant churches over the next five years…”
I think his predictions are spot on, and I couldn’t be more glad. Roll on the church planting!
(Not sure if this is supposed to be public, so off-record and unofficially, let me hint that a growing ‘alliance’ of independent evangelical churches in Australia recently committed to planting 50 churches in the next 15 years. Pray for harvesters!)
Violinkid.com has undergone a reawakening this week. Posts are coming hard, fast, and quality. (He even broke the Chrome story before I did.
Don’t show Mark Driscoll this article on why young men refuse to grow up. While Mark says (that Jesus says) “Men, be men“, many men prefer to go Peter Pan. (h/t VK)
A fascinating interview with Carol Dweckin New Scientist on the importance of mindsets. Unless you have a subscription, the new scientist page won’t be much help, but you can read most of the interview here. It caused me to consider whether I had a “fixed mindset” or a “growth mindset”.
Finally, I can’t wait for the 9th of September. Why? Apple is having a conference. They will announce a new line of iPods. Finally! (I’ve been waiting for them to update the line ever since my mini finally died in early August. The week after I bought my mini, they announced the first gen nano. Wasn’t going to be burned by that again.
Let’s Rock! (Wishlist: smaller, cheaper, more spacious nano.)
If your Google Chrome installer never gets past the ‘Connecting to the Internet…’ stage and you access the web through a work/school/university network, or other proxy, it may be that your proxy requires you to put in a password (ie authenticate). (If you get the error message “Send request returned 0×80042197. Http status code 407.” this is also likely to be your problem.)
The Chrome installer is trying to download itself, but the geniuses (yes, really) at google forgot to put in a password input box. Until Google releases an updated installer, you can download the full Chrome installer here:
http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/149.29/chrome_installer.exe
Once you have that file, all ya gotta do is run it. Have a good one!
In the world of mp3 players, the phrase everyone wants to apply most is “iPod-killer” – a device so ingenious that it (finally!) ends Apple’s domination.
I think I may have just stumbled upon a ‘Firefox killer’: Google’s brand new, open-source browser Chrome. Tell your grandkids: you heard it here first.
My first reaction was “oh yeah, sure, like we need another browser.” I figured it was a lame attempt to get in on another market, with nothing new to offer except, perhaps, simplicity. But this comic book convinced me that they really do have something new to offer. They’ve re-done browsers from the ground up, and made some really sensible decisions to adapt to how the web has changed. (I can’t explain the technomagical mumbo-jumbo – find out more here)
I’m not ready to throw out Firefox just yet, but I have been sufficiently stunned to give Chrome a run. What are your first impressions?
(I’m no privacy-freak, but I’m starting to get worried: google indexes the files on my computer, scans my emails, knows my calendar, tracks the visitors to my blog, and now watches my browsing…)
Hooray!