According to a comment on Izaac’s blog – if I blog about how Guy Sebastian is a genre crossing fashion tragic I’ll get some new commenters who have google alerts set up to monitor mentions of Guy Sebastian. I’ve never sat near Guy Sebastian – but I don’t like his v-necked jumpers. I hope I’ve spelled his name properly.
Izaac, by the way, recently celebrated 200 posts. If you’re not already reading him you should.
I like photography. But my photos are never as good as I thought they were when I look at them a week later. Here’s a little bit of proof that photography actually requires no innate gifting – or that the gift is not limited to humans. This Orangutan called Nonja was a photographer for a recent Samsung campaign.
This is a gif of a head being x-rayed while talking. It is pretty cool.
From here – where there’s another one.
I suspect Hebrew would look very different.
Robyn is getting into tea a bit. We have a kettle, a teapot and a nice variety of teas. If you come around for a cuppa we won’t be serving your tea using the lost art of teapot blowing.
I did try it last night with some success.
Simone is married to Andrew. Together they are my boss. Kind of. In that I am currently a student minister at their church. At the moment I feel like Hebrew is my master.
Simone writes songs of goodness and blogs deeply and often at Another Something. When I first started blogging I had a template that featured white text on black. Simone told me it was too hard to read. I changed it. She stopped reading. She started again a while back.
When Simone is not writing songs, children’s material or soppy poems to her husband she is a supply teacher. Here’s what she has to say about Supply teaching.
I have one of the best jobs in the world. A job that makes me a nice pocketful of money, that is strictly school hours, and gives me the flexibility to work or not to work on any particular day. On top of this, it (often) takes little emotional energy, gives me the chance to contribute something nice to the world, and is (mostly) fun.
I am a supply teacher. I’ve been supplying for over two years now, and I’ve developed some mad skilz in my area. Let me share.
My top 5 tips for being a good supply teacher
And finally, don’t stress. Whatever happens, it will all be over at 3 o’clock.
Pretty funny. Unless there is an outrageous amount of swearing in the last 20 seconds. In which case this is terrible.
PC World has collected 20 dumb questions people have asked on Yahoo Answers – but I’m sure there are worse out there. Got any clangers?
Question: I was bitten by a turtle when i was a young lad, can i still drink orange juice?
Best Answer: No! If you drink orange juice now, it will activate the turtle venom in your veins and send you into a coma. Didn’t anyone ever tell you this before?
This proves once and for all that despite what you’re told in the first week of Bible College there are stupid questions.
David Bowie hasn’t always been incredibly famous. His name hasn’t always been David Bowie. When he was just starting out he responded to fan mail personally. Here is a scanned copy of his first response to a fan letter from the US.
Here’s a cool bit…
“I hope one day to get to America. My manager tells me lots about it as he has been there many times with other acts he manages. I was watching an old film on TV the other night called “No Down Payment” a great film, but rather depressing if it is a true reflection of The American Way Of Life. However, shortly after that they showed a documentary about Robert Frost the American poet, filmed mainly at his home in Vermont, and that evened the score. I am sure that that is nearer the real America. I made my first movie last week. Just a fifteen minutes short, but it gave me some good experience for a full length deal I have starting in January.”
I don’t remember ever playing the original Donkey Kong – but I loved the Super Nintendo version. So anybody who is willing to transform one of their walls into an homage to the 8-bit version is fine by me.
Information on how the construction took place is available here.
Have you ever wondered why Hollywood seems to avoid Microsoft at all costs? I’ve never seen a movie character seamlessly using Windows to achieve a significant computer driven task. Mark Coleran designs user interfaces for movies. He has a collection at his website. Read about them.
Via CafeDave.
There are times when I engage passionately in arguments when I don’t really mean it. There are other times when I engage passionately because the stakes are incredibly high and I think the issue is both theologically and strategically important. This, friends, is a case of the latter.
I’ve stirred up a veritable hornets nest of criticism both here and elsewhere for daring to question the assumption that people should stay in Sydney to do ministry. I thought it might have been one of those cases where I took an argument too far and risked causing offense. So I read my comments on Izaac’s blog a day later and in a rare moment of clarity and conviction found that I still completely hold on to every word I have written both here and elsewhere.
I did unwittingly cause Izaac some offense by quoting his post in an email to Phillip Jensen seeking clarification on his position. This was by no means my intention. Izaacs editorial surrounding the comments is balanced (and far less polemic than mine). I have no bone to pick with his contextualisation of the quotes. And I want to, in a public forum, apologise for the way in which I presented his views. I do think before I go further in criticising the statements attributed to Phillip I should find out if my criticisms are on the mark.
The irony of this situation is that I had heard recently, on another matter, that Phillip himself was critical of someone for speaking what everybody was thinking because “every statement is political”.
I wonder about the political wisdom of making a statement – polemical or otherwise – suggesting that areas of the country where there are more people than sheep (and I suspect removing the hyperbole this can be translated to rural Australia) – are of less strategic importance than the city. That’s not the attitude demonstrated by the ministry of Jesus, nor is it the attitude expressed in the parable of the lost sheep. People of all stripes and locations are important to God and need the gospel. Which means people of all stripes and locations need gospel workers with a heart for sharing the message of the cross.
It doesn’t seem to serve the cause of the gospel in reaching the rest of Australia and the world – but it does seem to serve the cause in Sydney. Phillip’s statements are fine in that they represent political statements that further his cause – gospel ministry in Sydney – I don’t really get the flack I’m wearing for disagreeing and presenting an alternative priority for growth in Australia.
It’s all well and good to suggest that other regions and states should be looking after themselves and setting up sustainable cities – but if you choose the Billy Graham crusades when the Jensen brothers were converted as the start of a groundswell of evangelicism in Australia, or if you choose any other moment in Australian history, the influence of Moore College as Australia’s premiere and premier training institution for evangelical workers needs time in order to create a cycle of self replication.
Here are a couple of potential case studies.
Case Study Number 1 – Maclean
Maclean, the town Izaac and I grew up in, has a population of about 3,500 people. It’s not a “strategic regional centre”. When my family moved their 20 years ago there was a night service meeting in Yamba (population 5,000) and two morning services – one in Lawrence (population – from memory less than 1,000) and the other in Maclean. We stayed in Maclean for ten years and by God’s grace left a thriving and gospel centred church family behind when we moved to Brisbane. Maclean has been vacant for almost half of the last ten years (by my guestimation). The strategic regional centre for the Lower Clarence is not Maclean – it’s Grafton. Grafton is the natural hub for small towns in the region. And holds the lion’s share of the regional population.
The church in Maclean has, again by the grace of God, produced a number of Godly young adults who still live in Maclean and a number who are serving in churches around the country – in Perth, Tasmania, Brisbane, Sydney and throughout New South Wales. For a town of less than 4,000 people Maclean is more than punching above its weight in terms of people entering theological training and ministry apprenticeships. But there has been a pretty long lead time. It has taken 20 years from the moment an evangelical ministry beginning in Maclean for two of us to be entering Bible College (and I think we’re the first). I can’t even truly claim to have completely grown up in Maclean (and Izaac rightly credits the faithful ministry he has received in Sydney for propelling him to where he is today).
To suggest that Maclean should have produced its own ministers to sustainably and strategically (as some have done both overtly and between the lines) look after the future of the region is disingenuous and doesn’t really take into account the nature of regional centres where a high percentage of young adults leave to seek their fortunes (and education) in the city.
According to Wikipedia 3.2% of residents of the Clarence Valley earn a living in “sheep, cattle or grain farming”… there’s a pretty good chance that there are more sheep in the region than cattle. According to the Clarence Valley Economic Development stats page more than 7% of residents are engaged in agriculture. ABS census statistics indicate that the Mid North Coast region (which includes Maclean) is home to approximately 3,000 sheep. It seems going to Maclean is ok. But not if it is a question of cattle rather than sheep. There are 409,000 head of cattle in the statistical division and 297,000 people. The region extends from Taree to Grafton. Maclean is typically rural.
For it to produce its own sustainable gospel work (on the assumption that this requires a home grown college trained worker) either Izaac or myself would have to go back there. I can’t for at least 8 years (candidacy locks me into Queensland for six) and Izaac would have to do two years of PTC training at the end of a four year degree. The suggestion that these regions should fend for themselves is pretty laughable.
Case Study Number 2: Townsville
I’ve spent the last four years in Townsville. It’s fair to say that evangelical ministry in Townsville is in its late infancy. There are perhaps five churches in Townsville that could be defined as evangelical. Townsville has a population of 180,000 people. It’s growing at about 5,000 people a year. All the ministers serving in Townsville have come there from elsewhere.
Dave Walker has been working for AFES in Townsville for (I think) nine years. AFES Townsville, again by the grace of God, has trained hundreds of students in that time. A number of these students are in full time ministry in high school chaplaincy, others have left Townsville for graduate positions. None, at this stage (to my knowledge) have entered theological training at this point. Nine years of fruitful labour has not been enough to meet staff shortfalls with the student ministry – let alone going close to providing enough workers for church ministry in the city.
I don’t think Dave will have a problem with me pointing out that AFES have been trying to appoint a female staff worker for the last couple of years – pursuing a number of candidates but attracting none to this point.
According to the ABS, North Queensland has no sheep, but it does have 496,000 head of cattle. Compared to Sydney the North Queensland region is an evangelical baby. It is not in a position to be self sustaining – give it 150 years and perhaps the region will have a population, and training college, similar to Sydney’s now. Sydney apologists can’t forget that they owe their strength to missionaries who came to Australia in the first fleet. All regions around the world, since Jerusalem and Judea, require workers to come in from the outside.
There aren’t all that many sheep in Queensland. Just 3.9 million. Luckily there are 4.1 million people. We should have no trouble filling vacancies in regional Queensland now should we?
I’m sure my friend Mike from Rockhampton could share equal tales of unrequited ministry opportunity – which is why those of us outside of Sydney get a little put out when we see a map like the one featured in this post.
Andrew posted this helpful list of tips for being a good citizen of the Web 2.0 world from Jaron Lanier. Read them. Follow them. Unless you’re just using Twitter purposefully as a vessel for self promotion.
The problem with Web 2.0 is that the signal to noise ratio is skewed because it’s so easy to take part. It’s too easy to take part. This goes a long way to explaining the problem with more than 90% of the status updates that clutter up Facebook. Here’s the list:
Sometimes people get confused and think a metaphor represents real life. Metaphors are generally good for helping the reader understand an element of the topic via a handy comparison. Benny hates analogies. He would probably like this shirt. He would say metaphors are like analogies because both are stupid…
The best thing about this shirt is that it’s a simile.
Amy and Tim are an almost completely unstereotypical highschool romance. I believe Tim once told Amy he would never be interested in her. Or something. I was at school with them – on the sidelines – watching as this resolve disappeared. There are many areas Amy and I disagree on – these probably trace back to sharing so many subjects in high school, where I was no doubt incredibly annoying, and our different personality types. But she is also very intelligent and a worthy foe (though she takes arguments personally) and has (more often than I care to admit) along with the West Wing dragged me to the left more than anybody else.
Despite getting a letter about how good her writing was in Queensland’s Core Skills Test she studied graphic design and now works for the propaganda machine that is the Queensland Government (in a pretty cool and wildly popular area where the propaganda is deserved). Here are her tips on Graphic Design.
While at night, obviously, I am a secretive caped crime fighter, I still need to eat, so by day I’m a graphic designer. Apparently this sounds impressive but I can tell you that if there is glamour and big bucks I must have missed the memo.Saying that, graphic design allows me to be both creative and paid, which is pretty good for an art college graduate (she jokes, mostly).
Pretty much everything you see around you in modern life has been designed by someone – that book you’re reading, your yoghurt packaging, that brochure you picked up. From day to day I’ll work on flyers, logos, signage, posters – with the occasional illustration job or ‘wrinkle-smoothing’ photo manipulation. And while you might think that my job is pretty shallow, just making things look ‘pretty’, good design is about clear communication. Graphic design, if you will, is the visual equivalent of the speech read with verve and passion, rather than a boring monotone.
Graphic Design makes your message clear and accessible.
Most of you aren’t going to be pulling together books and brochures, but all of you will be pulling together some sort of document that could benefit from a few tips and hints to make your message clearer. So, here’s my design 101 course…
You know those fantastic fonts you just downloaded from the net? – resist the urge to use all of them in your church newsletter. Pick 2 fonts per document, 3 at most – 1 for all the body copy, and another for your headings (that third one could be for a super special event, or pull-out text that you particularly want to highlight). Resist the urge to fill up all the space available – white space is good, it lets it all breathe and keeps the focus. Don’t go overboard on the colour – we don’t need the Rainbow Express. This approach means your document looks deliberate and consistent, not just a mess of stuff all put together.
So there you have it – a crash course in design 101. If you take nothing else away from this I hope at least you agree that Comic Sans should be wiped from the face of the earth. For everyone’s sake.
The End.
Some handy links…
My friend Andrew is a fully sick opera singer. He’s not going to teach you how to be a fully sick opera singer – instead, he wants to foster a greater appreciation of the arts in the readers of this relatively low brow blog.
Andrew and I were part of the world’s most inappropriately named “beach mission” on the Tweed River. He has the honour of having a cafe in Toowoomba named after him. That’s inspirational and aspirational stuff. Here’s what Andrew has to say about appreciating opera.
I think opera is the greatest art-form. To be fair, when it’s not sogreat, it can be awful, but when it’s good, there’s nothing like it. (As far as I can tell, the voice is the only the instrument created before the fall, which explains a lot).
Thankfully I moved on from a childhood love of Andrew Lloyd Webber after beginning singing lessons during high-school, and discovered Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, and then the operas of Mozart. I spent 9 years as a uni student studying singing, in Toowoomba, Sydney and London, before landing my first gig, in the Opera Studio of the Staatstheater Nürnberg.
The stereotypes of opera and opera singers are generally not true, and they should not put you off exploring opera. So here are my five tips for the uninitiated:
So I why not dip your toes in the water of opera – it’s good once you’re in!