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.

Pen: ultimate

This pen has been floating around in my Google Reader queue for a while – just waiting to be posted.

It’s only a concept – but what a concept.

I’m not sure how feasible it is – but it is certainly clever.

June 21, 2009

Chair woman for the bored

No – this isn’t another story about the Cronulla Sharks…

Designer Alice Wang has produced a series of “chairs for the dysfunctional“. They’re interesting and clever, sometimes both.

The “Silent Farter”

“Those with excess gas in their abdomen can find it difficult to hold it in sometimes, even at important times such as formal dinner gatherings or meetings. Quietly letting the gas out may be the solution, but although the sound may be muted, the scent is still present. It can often cause misunderstanding and unnecessary embarrassment for the innocent others.This chair announces who the gas is from by amplifying the silent fart exhausted.”

You could probably integrate some sort of twitter functionality by copying the office chair guy…

There’s also “The Constant Shaker” which helps fidgeters justify their wiggling – providing a calorie counter that monitors your every on chair movement.

“Researchers believe these unconscious muscle movements may be caused by a chemical produced in our brain to trigger additional calories to be burnt. This chair calculates the amount of calories burnt when one fidgets or shakes their leg when sitting down.”

In fact, you could probably have this send information to Twitter too…

This last one though is for those who like the concept of Twitter without the technology – the Status Announcer…

“More and more people are reliant on online social communities such as Facebook and Twitter, leading to possible technology related anti-social behaviours. Those who are used to regularly publishing their personal life online may have difficulty adjusting to public scenarios in real life and may loose the ability to speak or interact with others face to face.This chair allows one to update their status like they usually do on their online profiles byputting up various signs that shows their current status.”

June 21, 2009

You got game…

If I was asked to reenact a scene from a computer game – any computer game – one of the last options I’d consider would be the bonus level from Street Fighter II where you get to beat up a car.

I’m not this guy. Who is taking things pretty seriously.

June 21, 2009

Gifting gifts

The thread I essentially highjacked on Simone’s blog has come to a gripping conclusion – of sorts. I think we’ve agreed to disagree – Simone may still disagree but we’ll see.

But it was a worthy exercise.

It raised, for me, a question about how Christians should use their gifts. And how we should balance use of gifts in a part time capacity verses using them in a full time capacity in vocational ministry.

My thinking is that particular gifts lend themselves to “vocational” use at different times. In the past paid organists were as much a part of church furniture as the organ. They were also essentially resident composers.

Now – web masters and graphic designers are playing an increasingly important role in the spread of the Gospel.

My gut feeling is that the Biblical principle of a worker deserving their keep holds for all excercise. If a job needs doing – and there’s nobody to do it – then pay for it.

The worker then has a decision to make – like Paul did – as to whether to accept this payment (he chose to work instead).

I also think there comes a time where a worker playing an essential role should be paid full time in order to free them from that work for the cause of the Gospel.

So the responsibility of the church is to pay – while the worker should consider their gifting as God’s providence and receive the payment (or not) accordingly.

There are different ways that this can work – an article I read about Mars Hill suggested that graphic designers who attend that church “tithe” their time and talents. There’s also an interesting discussion happening at “Communicate Jesus” about how the church should approach the issue. And another discussion in a similar vein at Sydney Anglicans.

The Communicate Jesus article features a quote from the Mars Hill creative director which would seem to indicate some sort of contradiction with the other post –

“I once had a chat with AJ Hamilton who runs all the media stuff for Mars Hill Seattle. I asked him about how he managed to achieve the quality of design across so much of their output – the online work for Death By Love being a prime example. He said they make a habit of recruiting the best designers. Okay I said, but how do you keep them? Answer: they’re the best paid staff in Mars Hill.”

It’s interesting that this is all coming up at around the same time – it creates an opportunity for some synchronous thinking.

Your thoughts?

June 20, 2009

A bunch of links – June 20, 2009

June 20, 2009

Fun with photography

JPGmag has produced a series of photos juxtaposing Disney’s princesses with scenes from everyday life – or indeed – murky every day life… some would say “reality”…


June 20, 2009

Bumper issue

Bumper stickers are always a little too pithy for my liking. So this collection of completely articulated bumper thoughts are my cup of tea.

I like this one…

June 20, 2009

Fun with photoshop

News that Iranian “President” Ahmadinejad has been photoshopping supporters into crowd shots is slowly making its way across the internet.

But making your election results seem more credible isn’t all that Photoshop is good for… you can also:
1. Wipe moustaches off the face of well known cultural figures…

Or unpopular political figures

2. Turn your favourite celebrity (or politician) upside down.
3. Produce some freaky family portraits.
4. Produce a racially diverse piece of marketing collateral

June 20, 2009

Transforming the movie industry

I’m pretty excited about Transformers 2. If you’re a guy you probably understand why already.

If you’re not excited – then you should be. Director Michael Bay has given some reasons why on his blog.

I will not reproduce his post in full. Here are some highlights…

Robots

  • 14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (ILM only)
  • If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator.
  • Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
  • Devastator’s hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid.
  • The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM.
  • All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles
  • Devastator’s parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 empire state buildings.
  • If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields.

Disk space

  • TF1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. Seven times bigger!
  • 145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs. Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall.

Rendering times

  • If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year’s premiere!
  • A single imax shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop.
  • IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

Imax

  • Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
  • Imax frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render.
  • IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

June 20, 2009

Maturity

Once upon a time I annoyed people when I tried to push their buttons… now I ask honest questions, have them ignored, and annoy people all at the same time.

I guess this is growing up.

June 19, 2009

Robo-coffee

The coffee of the future will not be made by man – no, we’ll have little robot servants to make the coffee for us. The original post is in Japanese – but this video demonstrates its awesomeness.

June 19, 2009

A bunch of links – June 19, 2009

June 19, 2009

How open source songs might work

Debate rages at Simone’s blog. Well not really. I just keep writing long comments one after the other as new ideas strike me. This has kept my hippocampuses firing all day.

Simone doesn’t seem to think an Open Source model would produce quality songs.

Every open source product in existence would seem to disagree – but she’s also not sure how it would all work.

I had the following thought.

Open Source companies make money by offering support, some by performing specific development tasks and extensions for companies that request them. Here’s an article about how open source companies make money.

Basically it moves from a model where a product is provided to a model based on service.

I believe Open Source, when applied to computer software, produces better products than proprietary software.

So, an example of how a gifted song writer could make money/produce quality songs under the Open Source business model would be to produce songs upon request (and upon payment) by a particular church for a particular sermon series that they’re working on. Once it is used for that purpose it would then be added to the pool of songs for other churches to use.

Any other ideas?

June 19, 2009

Economic downsizing – Arnott’s biscuits

We had some leftover biscuits in our office after a meeting today. Arnott’s Biscuits. The variety pack. The one with Kingstons and Monte Carlos in it.

The economic crisis is obviously biting pretty hard – both of these perennial favourites were about half their normal size.

June 19, 2009

On Work

This is a long post. Be warned.

Discussion on Simone’s blog has evolved in an interesting direction. And one I’ve been meaning to write about for some time – or at least since the “Ministry Matters” day the Walkers held a few weeks ago.

The debate about the value of secular work vs vocational ministry puzzles me.

Before I begin I want to say that I affirm the value of secular work – in most cases. So long as the job is in some way about “bringing order to creation” I see it as being of some merit. But to suggest that God is as glorified in secular work as he is in “ministry work” just seems odd.

It’s odd because I think the Bible’s pretty clear that one is more valuable than the other, that there are rewards for ministry (including anything that serves and builds up the Kingdom of God) that don’t exist for those who diligently work in their vocation.

The very fact that we get so little information about Jesus’ pre-ministry vocation in the Bible but so much about his ministry and preaching would suggest there’s a difference in value. But that’s a fairly long bow to draw…

I brought up the distinction between the two types of work in the comments on Simone’s post about rewriting song words – because I think it’s right for artists to be protective of their secular work – that which earns them their living, but I think the standard is different for those who are in ministry. I think their aim is to glorify God and serve the body of believers with their gifts.

I don’t think using gifts – for example a gift of communication – for your job is the same as using them for the spread of the kingdom. Luther and Calvin both affirm the value of secular work – and the value of using God given gifts in secular work – but you can affirm this without putting it on par with ministry.

My understanding of what both Calvin and Luther have to say about work is that it’s a valuable activity and should be tackled with gusto. They see work as a means to create or restore order – and again, I’d argue that for the Christian this is most likely to be expressed through the ministry of the gospel – whether by preaching, or teaching, or hospitality, or acts of service – than through secular work (I’m not saying this has no value – just less).

Overt glorification will always win out over intrinsic glorification – both in value and effect.

Full time ministry is a special calling – with special responsibilities, special rewards and special consequences for doing the wrong thing.

There’s also a hierachy within the context of ministry (where preaching and teaching is considered more valuable than other gifts – see below for the passage this idea comes from).

Let me back up my thinking with some Bible verses (which I’ll copy directly from my comment on Simone’s blog…). Obviously the “Great Comission” means that “making disciples” is the fundamental priority of all Christians. And lets face it – nobody is converted without some input from the word of God.Actions alone aren’t enough. They are important though.

1 Corinthians 3 is where I’d be drawing most of my thinking from with regards to the greater heavenly valuation of ministry.

Verse 8 implies a reward directly linked to ministry.

8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.

Verse 9 implies that Paul is specifically talking about ministry…

9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Verses 10 through 15 seem to be linking the heavenly outcomes for those in ministry with the quality (not quite the word I’m looking for) of their work…

“10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

I contend this isn’t talking about the vocational cleaning of toilets – though that be done well and to God’s glory.

I don’t think you can form a doctrine of work solely from the exhortation in Colossians 3:17…

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Then 1 Timothy 5 suggests gospel workers are worthy of double honour…

“17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” 19 Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 20 Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.”

Then you’d have to consider Ephesians 4 – which suggests acts of service are a gift, but I don’t think it equates exercising them in the secular context with exercising them in order to serve the body of believers…

“11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

And finally, 1 Corinthians 12. The whole chapter is relevant. It starts off by establishing that while gifts are different they all come from God – but then the chapter only really deals with gifts that serve the body – again, not equating secular work with serving the body of believers.

“4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.” And the last few verses seem to establish a hierachy – and exhort us to desire the “greater gifts”… “28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts.”

That’s my thinking anyway. And I’ve spent enough time on this. I have work to do.

June 19, 2009