If I had eight spare hours in my day I don’t think I’d be making this. Mostly because I don’t have that variety of artistic talent and inspiration, but partly because I’d be doing other important stuff like procrastinating on reading the first six chapters of my Hebrew text book.
Author: Nathan Campbell
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.
Things that make you go awww…
McDonalds makes you go “mmm” then “urgh”… Lego just makes you go “hmm” and then “ahh”, and this little video made me go “aww”.
This Lego ad in the guise of a short film is possibly the greatest thing ever put on YouTube. It made me smile and feel all warm and gooey inside. And if I had my childhood Lego collection in the house I would be playing with it now instead of sharing it with you.
More on Christian games
After exploring the topic of Christianity in gaming a couple of weeks ago two things happened.
Firstly, Mika told me about this flash fighting game where you pick a Bible Character and fight other Bible characters.
Secondly, I read this other article on the matter that came with this quote from James Wyatt, a game designer (Dungeons and Dragons) who is also a Methodist minister. Because games are the new literature he appears to be talking about classic pieces of fantasy:
“Games aren’t a place where you are expected to cling to a belief in something that can’t be seen or proven,” Wyatt explains. “It’s a world where the power of gods is demonstrated daily. [The Lord of the Rings’] Gandalf was — almost literally — Jesus walking around with the adventuring party.” I’ll admit to being somewhat shocked when Wyatt, in a calm and fatherly tone, explains how awesome it was to cast aside the preconceptions of our shared faith: “Fantasy has this ability to open our eyes to the enchantment of our world, and to view real things with more wonder.”
To illustrate his point, Wyatt invokes Chronicles of Narnia author (and notable Christian scholar) C.S. Lewis:
“[A child] does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing.” — C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children
Photographic Memories
I had a little victory today. And I want you to know about it. If you’ve ever scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page here on the blog you may have noticed five Polaroid style pictures. Up until now three of them were the same photo, and the other two didn’t ever change. But no longer. With some coding wizardry and the help of Shashin – a great little Picasa plugin – these five slots will now be filled with five different random images from a Picasa album.
Very exciting.
I’m pretty happy with my efforts.
Here’s a sample.
Will it Press
You’ve heard, no doubt, of Will it Blend – the ever popular viral marketing approach taken by Blendtech Blenders. Well, today, for a change of pace, I give you “Will it Press” an exercise in cooking everything with a sandwich press.
This is pretty similar to the Mars Bar Toasted Sandwich
And here’s a “pressed” breakfast…
Similarly – the Waffleizer uses a waffle maker to cook just about anything… Like Waffleburgers
Bible Stories for Boys: Say Shibboleth
The Brick Testament made another appearance at church this morning. Last week’s story about Ehud the Ninja was always going to be hard to top. I went with another story from Judges (the one just after my least favourite story in the Bible).
Jephthah did something silly – but then he kind of redeemed himself a little, teaching a rogue tribe of Israel a lesson in the process. Jephthah was like a secret agent. Because all secret agents have passwords. It’s how they identify themselves to their helpers and friends in foreign countries.
As an aside – has anybody else noticed that the story of Jephthah and his daughter is exactly the same storyline as the Beauty and the Beast, and that he’s essentially Robin Hood.
Here’s the talk.
Today we’re going to learn about a guy who was a bit like a spy. A secret agent. Who here wants to be a spy when they grow up? Does anybody know about any spies?
Today we’re going to learn a story about a man named Jephthah. He was the leader of Israel a little while after Ehud.
Jephthah went off to fight some of the enemies of Israel – called the Ammonites – but one group of Israelites – didn’t help with the battle. And then they got angry at Jephthah and decided to fight him…
So Jepthath and the army of Israel fought against the Ephraimites.
And they drove them all the way to a river. The Ephraimites couldn’t beat Israel so some of them ran away.
Later, some of the survivors came back to the battlefield and tried to cross the river. But Jephthah, being a clever secret agent, came up with a plan to stop any of the Ephraimites escaping.
Ephraimites had different accents to the people from Israel. They were a bit like people from New Zealand and us. Have you ever heard a New Zealander say “fish and chips”. It sounds a bit different to how we say it. Well, there was a word that the Israelites said differently to the Ephraimites. Shibboleth. So Jephthah made that word the password. And he told his men at the river to check how people wanting to get past said the word.
And the Ephraimites couldn’t do it.
And when they couldn’t do it the Israelite “secret agents” judged them, and killed them.
We’re a bit like the Israelites. And Jesus is a bit like a secret agent. See, one day, God is going to judge the whole world. A bit like Jephthah judged the Ephraimites. And we have a password – a bit like Shibboleth – a password that God uses to sort people out.
Our password is Jesus. The Bible says that anybody who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. Anybody who calls Jesus Lord. And only God’s people can do that. People who aren’t God’s people will be like the Ephraimites – they’ll be in trouble.
And do you know – that if you like people, and you want them to be part of God’s family – all they need is the password. They need to know that Jesus died for us, and them too. And because he died for us – we know the secret password.
The End.
The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
Mac Decals are great. I’ve posted some before. But check out these four…
Eutychus in the Brick Testament
Pop quiz. You know that a figure has reached sainthood when a) they complete two miracles, or b) they are featured in the Brick Testament…
I’m going with b.
Looking for answers: Technocally speaking
All techno songs sound the same to me. So I’m surprised this Yahoo Answers query produced results.
People do ask some dumb questions on that site.
Shirt of the Day: Sharkephant
This thing will stampede you, then flip over and eat you.
Remind me why I played Farmville?
I used to play Farmville. Then I let my crops die and neglected my animals. Because the game is a black hole of time wasting boringness. This ad just about sums it all up.
Costume party
Halloween was months ago – which shows you how far behind the eight ball I am with posting the stuff in my queue. These are my two favourite costumes form around the blogosphere this year.
First of all there’s this “Roy Lichtenstein” style make up job.
And then there’s this one. The awesome 3D paperhead. Phenomenal.
Teach your kids about life on the street
The problem with the youth of today is that they’ve got an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Strip that from your offspring with this hobo inspired paper bag beanie.
How to choose a contrasting colour
Apparently the key to a successful poster design (the type of poster that gets plastered all over city noticeboards) is a design that “pops”.
The key, according to this wikihow article, is to use contrasting colours.
They give this star shaped guide to picking two colours that contrast. You pick colours from opposite points. Done.
Ringerprints
Etsy store fabuluster will send you a little casting that you stick your finger into and turn the results into a pretty novel wedding band.
I would have said unique – but a journalist I once met from Germany had something similar.
There are a few different varieties available and they are reasonably cheap (at $150USD).