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.

The myth of the perfect minister

While I’m in a “reflect on Sunday’s sermon” kind of mood…

There is much talk in pragmatic circles about getting the “best” ministers possible. We all want the next Driscoll/Piper/Chandler/Jensen rocking up to preach on a Sunday – or being an assistant minister doing what we tell them to do.

In a semi-tangental point in last night’s sermon our minister made a reference to difference between Paul’s approach to team ministry and Barnabas’ approach. Paul didn’t want John Mark on his team after the guy had a bad first innings, while Barnabas was happy to give the loser a second chance (which later paid off).

I suspect those of us heading down the pathway of full time ministry see this story as a chance to identify with either Paul or Barnabas – the perfectionist v the whatever it is that Barnabas is. I wonder if most of us are more likely to start off being John Marks – people who stuff up a bit and cause a schism amongst the older generation…

Were any of these guys perfect? I’d say no. Paul was too picky, Barnabas was probably not picky enough, and John Mark? Well who wants a rookie John Mark type character on their team?

One of the great things about the list I posted in that last post is that every guy on it (except Jesus) has at least one pretty major character flaw, and in most cases it’s kept for posterity’s sake in the best selling book of all time.

That’s a more preachy tone than I’m normally comfortable with (unless I’m telling atheists how to be better people)… so I’ll leave it there. For now.

October 5, 2009

Ten Bible stories for boys

During the kid’s spot at church the other day our minister was talking about the gross cool stories in the Bible. It got me thinking about my ten favourite Bible stories (because I’m a boy) – the ten stories I’d put in a book of Bible stories to excite young boys.

If someone hasn’t already done this I’m going to turn it into a book. Ten chapters long.

Here are my ten favourite Bible men. Who are yours?

  1. Abraham – gets a hot wife, goes on adventures.
  2. Joseph – goes to prison, becomes the boss. It’s a rags to riches story. Plus his big brothers beat him up, and he gets a chance to get back at them and does the right thing.
  3. Moses – stands up to a king, fights for injustice, does magic, starts a revolution – Che Gueverra was Moses-lite.
  4. Ehud – well, he’s partly disabled (left handed), he assassinates a king ninja style, then hides him in the toilet and coolly escapes pursuing armies.
  5. Samson – two words. Donkey. Jawbone.
  6. David – kills a giant, has fun killing bad guys with his best friend Jonathan who also manages to kill lots of bad guys, then takes over as king from Jonathan’s dad without him getting angry about birthrights and stuff.
  7. Elijah – Single handedly takes down another religion with his alter v alter shenanigans. Does other cool stuff.
  8. Elisha – shows a gang of bullying teenagers that baldness is no laughing matter – by getting wild bears to attack them.
  9. Jesus – Stares down the devil, collects a posse of merry adventurers and rages against the social and religious machines. Then dies and rises.
  10. Paul – A reformed bad guy who travels the world by foot and by ship – gets shipwrecked, stoned almost to death and eventually executed by the state, and writes half the New Testament in the process.

Good list. I’d like to be manly like them. Who wouldn’t.

Don’t go stealing my idea now people…

October 5, 2009

Comical discussion

A week after the PZ effect my traffic is just about back to normal… But for some of us the fun continued after discussion on that thread concluded.

Andrew Finden – opera singer extraordinaire (seriously, YouTube him) was in the blue corner, while a Canadian “stand up comedian” going by the name of Salvage was in the red corner.

I am going to call Andrew the winner in their 30 round match up. Salvage, like so many atheists before him, made the mistake of assuming:

a) that Andrew would be shocked to find out that Christians disagree about stuff.
b) that Christians have no idea about conjecture about the historicity of the Bible.
c) that Christians fail to grasp the basics of logic and argument.
d) that they, the atheist, on the basis of their rejection of Christianity, are in a better position to understand and critique the Bible.

He also couldn’t get past his notions of what Christians believe and actually engage with what it is that Andrew, and to a lesser extent me (he dismissed me on the basis of my disclaimer).

I’ve been pretty proud of the way Christians have conducted themselves in these threads – firstly Stephen on the original thread and then Andrew have handled obstreperous comments with grace and aplomb.

October 5, 2009

Nathan’s guide to better photography #1

When taking photos for publication don’t take photos of the back of people’s heads. These photos are unusable. They don’t tell a story. And it’s frustrating when you think you have photos of an event to use and you can’t use them.

That is all.

October 5, 2009

Speakers in disguise

I don’t want these. They’re tacky. But you know, if you’re putting together a Transformer themed bedroom – or a Transformer case mod they might come in handy.

If you do want Optimus Prime speakers you should get em here…

October 4, 2009

A unified theory of Supermanness

A scientist have finally figured out Superman. He was, until this point, a riddle wrapped in an enigma. A blue and red enigma. Why do superheroes wear tights? Is it for mobility or aesthetics?

This new study, by a guy named Ben Tippett, started by debunking commonly held misconceptions about the Kryptonian.

“Siegel et al. Supposed that His mighty strength stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result, gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet of krypton would therefore endow Kal El with more efficient muscles and higher bone density; explaining, to first order, Superman’s extraordinary
powers. Though concise, this theory has proved inaccurate. It is now clear that Superman is actually flying rather than just jumping really high; and his freeze-breath, x-ray vision, and heat vision also have no account in Siegel’s theory”

The report found that Superman does not have many powers – he in fact has one power that manifests in different ways.

“We conjecture that all of Superman’s powers come from His ability to alter the inertial mass of objects in his immediate vicinity or with which he is in personal contact.”

The findings were supported by convincing diagrams.

October 4, 2009

Five reasons to write lists

  1. Traffic. If there’s one thing I learned from the last week it’s that lists work. Every “how to write a better blog” post I read suggests writing lists.
  2. They’re easy – lists are the easiest of posts to write. You start with a half baked idea and build.
  3. They’re easy to read – the structure is nice, points are enumerated,   discussion is easier.
  4. They’re finite – the reader knows what they’re getting. You know where to stop.
  5. They’re controversial – lists start discussions. That’s why magazines have had “top 100” features forever. People have different ideas about what shouldn’t be on the list – or thoughts as to why your list is wrong.

There’s a great article here about why “lists of n things” are such popular fodder. You should read it.

Some quotes…

Structurally, the list of n things is a degenerate case of essay. An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. In a list of n things the writer agrees to constrain himself to a collection of points of roughly equal importance, and he tells the reader explicitly what they are.

It’s fine to put “The” before the number [in the title] if you really believe you’ve made an exhaustive list. But evidence suggests most things with titles like this are linkbait.

Lists are in. They are great Internet fodder. If you want to get discussion happening about something – write a list.

October 4, 2009

Nobody likes Beck

Glenn Beck is a bizarro Christian shock jock in the US. Atheists hate him.

He praised Muse on his show this week. A representative from Muse apparently emailed him asking him to retract. He was going on about how Muse are libertarians who don’t want a one world government.

Beck retracts his endorsement at four minutes and twenty six seconds into the story.

October 4, 2009

Robobama

And we worry that K-Rudd might be robotic. Check out the amazing consistency of Obama’s smile.

Barack Obama’s amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

October 3, 2009

Slap stick

This made me laugh more than it should have.

October 3, 2009

Blockheads

Minifigs are great. Especially knitted ones. But if you don’t want to order a customised minifig from brickarms for your A-Team Lego movie you may have to build Mr T piece by piece…

Like this…

There are heaps of these on Flickr.

Including ninja turtles…

Comic book characters…

And transformers…

October 3, 2009

Stocking take

These are a couple of cool stocking ads – for stockings so dark you’ll be holding up inanimate objects.

Hat tip to Daily Vowel Movements – which continues to be excellent. You should subscribe. You won’t regret it.

October 3, 2009

Taking the “O” out of Lego

I love Lego. If you ask me why I want to have children one of the reasons high on the list is that I’ll get to play with Lego again.

The worst thing about Lego is that it hurts when you tread on it. It hurts a lot. Someone should invent cuddly Lego…

Oh wait, they have. You can even buy a knitting pattern.

And look, he comes apart…

Found here.

October 3, 2009

Breadwinners

Sandwiches are great. Bread + Filling = Great idea. They’re great. They’re the reason the expression “the best thing since sliced bread” was coined. Why else (other than toast) would you slice bread?

Well. Now you can figure out if you’re being ripped off by that cafe that wants you to pay $14 for a BLT with this sandwich calculator.

From BoingBoing.

And then, since we’re in the mood, why don’t you check out the winner of a recent “BLT from scratch” competition… here’s the post that set the rules…

“From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.”

The winner was an American chef living in Sydney… here’s the concluding post from the competition.

Here’s his winning sandwich – but the best bit is the photographic flow chart he made (and the fact that he harvested his own salt from the ocean)…

October 3, 2009

Colbert v Dawkins

Given that (thanks to PZ Myers) 90% of my current visitors are atheists, I’m going to keep writing about atheism.

Here you go, a nice dialogue, between two people, about God… both are smug.

Everybody wants to claim Colbert as one of their own – either he’s a Christian satire, a conservative satire, an actual conservative, or a Christian… He’s probably a mix of all of those. He certainly has a track record of active involvement in church. And he looks like Will Bailey from the West Wing…

Anyway. This made me laugh. If only atheists were really like Richard Dawkins. Online, anyway.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Richard Dawkins
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

October 2, 2009