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.

How to catch a rabbit Australian style

This guy is nuts.

Via 22 Words.

How a can of coke is made…

Here’s the chain of events that leads up to the “cshhht” sound you can of Coke makes when you open it. It’s complicated. And sort of beautiful.

coke cans

And it all starts in the bauxite mines of Western Australia

The number of individuals who know how to make a can of Coke is zero. The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero. This famously American product is not American at all. Invention and creation is something we are all in together. Modern tool chains are so long and complex that they bind us into one people and one planet. They are not only chains of tools, they are also chains of minds: local and foreign, ancient and modern, living and dead — the result of disparate invention and intelligence distributed over time and space. Coca-Cola did not teach the world to sing, no matter what its commercials suggest, yet every can of Coke contains humanity’s choir.

The humble pencil has a similar story, which is why sharpening them is an art.

Media relations for churches

This free Media Relations ebook (PDF) from Church Juice echoes much of what I’ve written here over the years, but with better typograpgy. It’s a very handy resource.

Media Relations 101

Words are powerful: Why bullying sucks

This is great. And sad.

Totally necessary invention: The Oreo Separating machine

It uses a hatchet. It’s a bit like a chicken deboner.

It’s a fantastic ad campaign. Here’s a second video…

How TED works

This behind the scenes look at TED is pretty cool – especially when they talk about what they’re looking for to make a “lecture” a “story”…

They also talk a bit about “getting out of the way of the idea” when it comes to what you do and say, but supporting it in terms of how the idea is presented.

It’s got me wondering what that would look like in the church context.

A social media infographic

Once the church website is up and running, I’ll be putting some more thought into how we use social media. I’m also toying with turning some old blog posts, some other bits and pieces, and my masters project, into a social media ebook.

This is a handy infographic. Because it’s a visual reminder that using the right content on the right platform is important.

framed-visualstorytelling-e1361895487860

Via Churchmag, from M Booth.

It’s a sign (painter)

This looks brilliant. Mind you. I enjoyed the movie “Helvetica” – which was a documentary about fonts.

There’s a swear word. Consider yourself warned.

SIGN PAINTERS (OFFICIAL TRAILER) from samuel j macon on Vimeo.

There’s also a book.

Some wind down videos

These are nice and relaxing.

The Me Bird from 18bis on Vimeo.

The Wood Turner from Elliott Forge on Vimeo.

Got anything similar I should watch?

A sneaky sneak peek at a new website

I find myself in need of some people who can give constructive feedback on something new and exciting.

If that’s not you, then feel free to go back a couple of posts for some hilarious goats.

If it is you, we’re a couple of days away from launching a new website at Creek Road – this has been a labour of love for a few of us for a month or so – including a pretty handy web developer who can do just about anything, a writer or two, and some talented graphics types, and we’re now so caught up in it that it’s very hard to be objective. If you want to check it out, and let me know what you think in the comments here – that’d be great. I’ll update this post with a link to the actual site when it goes live too… I’m hopeful it does what we wanted it to do, and I’m also hopeful that with a little bit more work we’ll be able to turn what we’ve done into something that can be used as a WordPress theme by other churches without too much trouble.

Our big aim is for the website to be something that’s aimed at people who aren’t from a church background, so we want the gospel to be the focus, and to be pretty clear. If you find any unhelpfully complex jargon I’d love to know that too.

There are a couple of things that aren’t exactly what I want them to be – when you hit the link for more posts the alignment goes funny – but that’s the nature of pinboard type sites. I’m hoping to replace some of the wordiness with videos, but words do better things with search engines…

Creek Road Website

The Wilhelm Goat

I was thinking, as I watched those hilarious movie videos, and as I read Andrews comment that the goat scream was possibly fake, that it did sound an awful lot like the Wilhelm Scream.

Someone has suggested it supplant it.

Goats who yell (and sing) like people

Meanwhile, on the Internet… these goats have also been taking the world by storm.

Especially the world of not great music.

Now that I’ve posted two such important things (and almost finished our church website), I might be back in the habit. We’ll see.

Kai, the awesome hitchhiker guy

I posted this on Facebook a while back, and, in the absence of any better content to post right now… here’s possibly the best TV interview ever given (a bleeped out version) with one of the best autotune songs ever made… I know it’s old news now. Wait until you see the goats post coming up next…


 

And a little bit of Kai singing his own song.

What is Love?

I hope in 50 years to still be loving my wife like Bill loves his wife Glad. And for the same reasons… This sort of faithfulness is a really nice reminder of what marriage is intended to be.

This sort of video and its crossover success – with mainstream media attention – is a reminder of why online video is such an important platform for the gospel – and I’m thankful that Bill was able to articulate the relationship between his love for his wife, and God’s love for them.

A pep talk from Kid President

I’ve been vaguely aware of these videos floating around the traps. I watched some tonight. They’re fun.

“This is life people. You’ve got air flowing through your nose. You’ve got a heartbeat. That means It’s time to do something”

“You’ve got two paths, I want to be in the one that leads to awesome…”