Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
If you were going to make a film clip about God using kids for ministry – a notion I have no problem with1 you could at least pick a bunch of kids who looked happy to be there.
1I think God uses kids. I think kids participating in ministries is fine, and evangelising people is fine, and generally the concept of kids being Christian children (as opposed to the ideas popularised by Richard Dawkins). I think these things are fine only if the kid is acting under the kid’s own (and God’s own) steam. Just want to put that disclaimer out there… in case you think I have a problem with the sentiment of that song – and not just the apathy expressed on the faces of those children.
Colby is less apathetic though. I suspect this might be the original version of that song.
People get in real trouble if they try to link world events to specific acts by members of specific governments. We saw that with Danny Naliah yesterday. Exhibit B is YouTube Prophetess (or televangelist) Cindy Jacobs – who suggests a bunch of birds are dying because of a decision to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy regarding homosexuals in the US Army.
If we could track God’s direct intervention in judgment like these guys suggest:
a) I’d be a very rich man.
b) He’d be using a better logical connection than “the Governor’s name is B.B and this is happening in a place called B.B.”
c) He’d be doing much nastier things to much nastier places. Queensland is Australia’s Bible belt. We’re the birthplace of Ken Ham. Why isn’t Kings Cross flooding?
There are some doubts about the origins of this cartoon (found at Scotteriology) – said to have been produced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses to explain their faith. The sword and fireballs are my favourite He-Man-esque scenes.
This serves alongside the South Park Mormon episode, and this other video, as a bit of a primer on the difference between these Cultic offshoots from Christianity and the rest of the flock.
Some people should learn to keep their mouths shut. A few years back Danny Naliah had much of Australian Christendom on his side when he spoke out against Islam and fell foul of Australia’s religious vilification laws… free speech is important. But it seems he has a desire to walk around as a test case. Here’s his idiot filled statement about the Queensland floods.
“Around 8pm on Friday night the 7th of January we had a strong prompting by the Holy Spirit to repent on behalf of Australia. As we started doing so, I was reminded that every time America went against Israel, there was disaster in the land and this has been documented over the years.
Then at once I was reminded of Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel in Israel on 14th December 2010. It is very interesting that Kevin Rudd is from QLD. Is God trying to get our attention? Yes, I believe so.
Also the Lord said to us, “ I will humble Australia and bring her down on her knees. As she has taken pride in my blessing, and man has taken the glory and not given it to Me”.”
I wonder what he’s going to do if New South Wales goes under. And you’ve got to wonder what these people did wrong (using his thinking).
Here’s what Jesus said about people in natural disasters (from Luke 13) as quoted last time Naliah opened his stupid mouth…
““1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.””
Don’t be one of those classless Christians who meets people’s grief with talk of judgment. I’ve seen murmurings like that from friends on Facebook. And I don’t like it. Sure. Judgment is part of the broken world we live in. Be one of those Christians who meets grief with love, and the promise of hope in Jesus.
I just finished reading what I think is possibly the best book you’ll read on Fonts and typography. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life… it changed the font here on St. Eutychus. I decided I was bored with Georgia and switched to Palatino. They look almost indistinguishable.
The book takes an entertaining walk down memory lane, stopping to study different fonts – as though they’re shopfronts – along the way. It makes the most of the Interweb’s collective fascination with typography – featuring the type of thing you’ve no doubt encountered here and elsewhere (including a vivid description of Max Kerning).
You’ll learn fun facts about Helvetica and Arial, the history of Futura, German blackletters, old school printing press movable type… how fonts are designed. You won’t regret it. Promise.
If you’ve ever been curious about the world of type but not known how to dip your toes in – or if you’re a bona fide expert who knows your baskerville from your goudy old style – then check it out. It’ll no doubt provide some good blogging fodder over the next few days before I return it to my dad. Who I borrowed it from.
At the moment I’m sitting on level five of a building in Southbank, overlooking the river. I’m watching a truck out the window, across the river, on the Riverside Expressway. It’s crawling. The same truck has been in about the same spot for the last fifteen minutes.
I’m also playing with Instagram – an iPhone photo app that I like.
These floods are amazing – and weeks of watching the rest of Queensland go underwater have instilled an odd panic in lots of people. The office is pretty bare. Lots of people have left. Rumours are flying (thanks to Sky News) about the impending closure of Brisbane’s public transport system. Nobody is quite sure whether or not that’s happening. Us marketers/PR people are a hardy bunch, and will no doubt be the last out of the doors.
Yesterday my sister-in-law who lives in Toowoomba walked into a shop just before the inland tsunami swept cars and utes around the streets like an over-zealous street cleaner.
My parents-in-law are bracing for a second round of flooding on their farm outside Dalby. It’ll probably go higher than the last one – and doubtless do more damage.
On our college mission in 2010 we had the opportunity to sit through a presentation by Straight Talk Australia’s Jim and Faye Lyons. Perhaps Australia’s most seasoned abstinence campaigners.
I thought the presentation could have done with a smattering of “forgiveness” and “grace” alongside the “unwanted pregnancy” and “gonorrhea” – but it certainly scared me. And I guess if it can scare a married 26 year old it can scare a 16 year old. Right?
The presentation was interesting. It involved a video of one of America’s biggest abstinence campaigners – Pam Stenzel – doing her thing on an Australian tour in 1998. The video is dated, jaded, and Pam is wearing an off putting combo of high pants with a big belt buckle that draws altogether too much attention to her chest area.
This is one of the many videos of Pam at work on YouTube.
Anyway. I wouldn’t necessarily endorse the product. But I thought Ben Law’s take on the program in an essay for the Monthly (from a couple of years ago) was pretty interesting. Ben is a gay essayist of some talent, and growing repute. He was my creative non-fiction lecturer at uni, and I saw him perform some stand up as part of JJJ’s Raw Comedy competition (I was cheering on some of my friends). He’s a funny guy, and remarkable even handed in his treatment of the program for one so diametrically opposed to all it’s seeking to achieve – though Pam’s outfit was too much for him:
“The Lyons invited Pam Stenzel to Queensland in 1998, and made a DVD of the resulting school tour. The Price Tag of Sex is the core of Jim and Faye’s presentation at Inglewood. Stenzel, despite looking a little dated (she is wearing high-waisted jeans that rise above her navel), is aggressively charming. She speaks with that irresistible American mix of authority and mocking disbelief. Throughout the DVD, there are clear-cut rules she shoots out. “Absolutely no genital contact of any kind – none!”; “Keep your pants on – simple!”; “If you are not married, don’t do it. If you are married – go for it!””
It’s worth reading to get a feel for what outsiders think of the stuff you might put on in your churches and schools without much thought. His analysis resonates with my experience of the program too. And his concerns are my concerns – though we approach the issue from vastly different perspectives.
Here it has been put to a different use – showing just how dumb a batch of Calvinist pick up lines might sound in real life. Just in case you’re working your way through the process of Christian pick up artistry.
I’m a sucker for stuff related to Kanye West’s Twitter presence.
So this video that has been doing the rounds gets stamped “worthy of posting” and now, sits amongst the other webtritus (thanks Arthur for the term) posted here…
It’s been everywhere already, but I think I saw it first at ChurchCreate.
I’m reading a book about fonts at the moment. A fairly long, and well written, entertaining book about fonts. It’s called Just My Type (Amazon). It pointed me to this video on YouTube:
And then mentioned that most fonts these days can be carefully examined using these two one word options:
Handgloves
or
Hamburgers.
Apparently all the rises, falls, and curves of the significant letters in a typeface can be tested in those two words. So there’s really no need for the fox after all.
Our friends Izaac and Sarah are visiting us this week. So tonight we’re having dinner with Andrew and Simone. A chance to turn the virtual into the real. Should be fun. I told Simone she had to come up with some controversial conversation topics. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Stay tuned for reflections on what it’s like to meet those people in real life, from the other people.
When a television show channels its inner Happy Days and features something as ludicrous as the Fonz jumping over a pair of sharks on waterskis those in the media biz know its days are numbered. It is said to have “jumped the shark”… this is a pejorative description of the act of doing anything to garner ratings and attention. Or it was. Until now. A Serbian man named Dragan was swimming at the beach and decided that it would be fun to jump off a high diving board. He landed on a shark. A man eater. Killing it. Here’s the news story, corroborated on the New York Post’s website.
Here’s a snippet:
“Dragan climbed on the jumping board, told me to hold his beer and simply ran to jump. There was no time for me to react or to try to stop him, he just went for it” says Milovan.
“Dragan jumped high and plunged down to the sea, but didn’t make as much splash as we thought he would”, explained Milovan.
The reason could be because Dragan Stevic ended up jumping straight on the shark which was lurking near the beach, probably looking for its next victim. Dragan had nailed it right in the head, killing it instantly. The Egyptian police found the shark washed out on the beach that morning.
Sadly. The story is a fake. Not even a good one. And it’s an indictment on the state of modern journalism that the New York Post decided to run it just because it had already reached a viral tipping point online. They have jumped the shark.
If there’s one thing Toy Story (the first one) taught me it’s that toys are made for being melted. Well, especially plastic soldiers. I was more inspired by the nasty neighbour’s treatment of his mangled army of toys than by good old Andy’s treatment of his coterie. So I had a collection of melted soldiers, and the associated burns on my legs and arms. Plastic and fire don’t play nicely together.
Little did I know that what I was doing could probably be classed as “art”… and sold on the internet as a “bowl” that “makes a statement” for almost $200.
