This is pretty funny.
There’s this old school universal cheat code from the days of the NES called the Konami Code.
Go to Mars Hill’s website and enter it – just hit the combo of keys above on your keyboard + enter – and you find an “Easter Egg.” Somebody there knows more about gaming culture than they’re letting on, because the code takes you to Driscoll’s ill-conceived rant about video games, posted and discussed here the other day.
H/T ChurchCrunch
This is awful. Don’t these children have parents…
Via Christian Nightmares.
“What you going to do with atheists? All those pagan atheists?
I’m going to set them free. Make them Christians just like me”
I hope they don’t think this song is part of that process.
But it could be worse.
I’m happy for you to believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs died in the flood, I like the Bible too. And I think taking it seriously is important. But please. Please. Please. Don’t take a song like this, and turn it into a song like that. Just awful. If people think your cause is ridiculous
I was sitting in church this morning wondering why there wasn’t anybody new there. Wondering why it is so hard to get people who aren’t just transfers from another church out the door on a Sunday morning and into the Christian community that goes on in often uncomfortable buildings with a bunch of weird counter-cultural trappings.
I’m wondering if we need a rethink. Not so much in the mechanics of what goes on around the globe on a Sunday morning – I think there’s a pretty Biblical picture of what Christians should do when they gather that most churches are trying to emulate. I’m thinking we need to rethinking our branding.
In the broader non visual identity context, your branding can be defined as “the reaction people have in their head when they think about your product” – it’s like a word association game. And I reckon say the word “church” to most Aussies and you’ll get something like “child abuse cover up”, “money hungry”, or in more positive cases “boring” or “conservative”… I’m guessing an invite to “church” on the weekend is likely to result in a negative response from most people’s friends. And lets face it, nobody wants to invite friends to church these days anyway. Any evangelism I do is more likely to take the form of apologetics with friends who are hostile to Jesus already, or conversations when people find out I’m studying at Bible College. This might be my failing, but I’m pretty sure most people aren’t inviting their friends to church every week. And because I think like a marketer one of my first responses is to question our branding strategy. If people are thinking bad things about church, but still, according to the Gruen Transfer, thinking good things about Jesus, then perhaps we need a change in terminology. It seems like a bandaid solution – but at some point a word just becomes too tainted by negative associations to reclaim.
The whole “marketing Jesus because people still love the idea of him” idea has it problems though. See what happens when people try to make Christianity cool in this article from the Weekend Australian.
“Jesus comes with a large production crew these days. If you doubt it, simply Google churches like Planetshakers, in Melbourne, or Paradise Community Church (Adelaide), or the grand-daddy of them all, Hillsong, which now boasts a global reach to cities like London, New York and Cape Town from its base in Sydney’s Hills district. (And if you don’t know what Google is, good luck understanding this phenomenon; like most of their peers, hip young Christians frame much of their day and establish much of their identity via the internet). Lined up beside each other, it is hard to ignore the similarities between the churches’ websites. From their home pages, each promotes a funky, urban feel with sophisticated graphics, high-quality video clips, stadium-style rock and pop music, and an emphasis on connection not just through Sunday services but an array of smaller social groups and through blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
Harder still is any attempt to locate the churches’ denomination on the traditional spectrum, such as that used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. As it turns out, all of the churches named above belong to the Assemblies of God tradition, a Pentecostal group which renamed themselves the Australian Christian Churches in 2007. But if their websites are any indication, affiliation with an overarching denomination is far less important these days than cultivating your individual church identity – or brand.”
Now, unlike the Australian I don’t think Megachurches with ridiculously good looking pastor couples, are the answer (but if you want to plant one here’s my guide).
“Another striking finding was that a majority of all denominations agreed it was “OK to pick and choose your religious beliefs”. Among those Gen Yers who do identify as Christians, this openness about specific beliefs – what some critics would call moral relativism – might go some way to explaining the new fluidity around church attendance and the related reluctance to affiliate strictly with any particular church.
In the US, this trend has been tagged the “Love Jesus, Hate Church” syndrome; a disenchantment with old-style churches that lock followers into “us-versus-them” mentalities, both internally, in the form of ancient hierarchies dividing the clergy and laity, and externally, in sometimes bloody rifts with other Christian denominations. In Australia, it manifests among Christian Gen Y-ers as an overwhelming focus on one’s personal connection with Jesus Christ, with attendance at a bricks-and-mortar church seen as only one of many means of honouring that connection. Actual denominations are seen increasingly as irrelevant – if they are recognised at all.”
There’s some truth in this last paragraph, and we’d do well to rethink how we do church in the more conservative and reformed circles I move in. But the start of that quote is problematic. What we can’t do is sell out the truth, and our exclusive claims to truth, in order to be more palatable to the masses. I’ve written previously about a problem I have with only focusing on God’s love in our marketing (the John 3:16 as theme verse thing). That was one of the problems I had with the Jesus All About Life campaign, and it’s a possible problem with any “rebrand” of the Christian message – see the recent hoo-ha about Rob Bell’s decision to sell out hell in the name of a palatable gospel (though read Arthur’s post about how it may not be a good idea to jump in and judge this before Bell’s book actually comes out)
So I reckon the language of church needs to change (and the way we do church, but that’s something I need to think about more, the Total Church model is one idea, this Messy Church concept is something I heard about during the week that also piqued my curiosity). Both of these models clearly have problems. Baby and bathwater problems. But there are some core concepts to them that are good. Ultimately we want people to meet Jesus and have their lives radically transformed. It seems to me that calling what we do “church” may increasingly become a barrier to that. So I vote we change it.
But what to call it? At QTC we’re big on the notion of “family of God” as the basis for our ecclesiology. But that sounds a little bit like a cult. I like the word “community” – but that’s because I’m currently thinking that one connecting point between the church and our culture is creating (or recreating) community for people living in an increasingly individualised society. What do you reckon? Am I barking up the wrong tree? What’s the point of staying attached to a word that etymologically comes from the Greek “House of the Lord” anyway? Gathering, or community, is more biblical.
Mark Driscoll doesn’t like nerds or geeks (neither do Westboro Baptist). He regularly bags out bloggers, now he’s having a dig at people who play video games. Watch from about 1:47 in this video… or just read this post on the Mars Hill blog.
“Video games are not sinful, they’re just stupid. And they’re stupid in this way: Young, particularly men, and now women are joining it, they want to get on a team, be part of a kingdom, conquer a foe, and win a great, epic battle. So they do it with their thumbs and it doesn’t even count. Nobody’s really liberated. The Taliban is not really conquered. Women are not really freed from oppression. Generations are not really changed. It’s all fake. It doesn’t count.”
No. It doesn’t count. Only the particularly deluded think games = real life. But games are entertainment, and like all culture and art, they are an avenue to connect with other people. You know. The type of thing you often encourage your followers to do when they’re engaging with culture.
In the first video, and the text in that first blog entry, Driscoll strawmans anybody who plays games – because we’re all motivated by wanting to fight a battle. That isn’t real. And doesn’t count. It’s just an odd little rant coming from a guy who at this point seems to be letting his prejudices against the nerdy types of people who sit in their mum’s basements and bag him out on their blogs cloud his judgment. It seems a little bit like he’s missing the whole fiction/non-fiction divide again a little (as he did with Twilight and Avatar).
Here’s what he said in an earlier post on the Resurgence blog about his approach to culture:
“What I’ve found over the years is that whenever I speak about something culturally related from a Christian perspective, a debate rages. This has been the case since the earliest days of my ministry. This is because I consider myself a missionary in culture. When we started our church we did so in what was among the least churched cities in the nation, seeking to reach the least churched demographic—young, educated, single, urban men. The truth is, these kinds of young men are generally missing from the American church. One thing these men of all races are doing is listening to rap music.”
Now, I want to know what the difference is, in his mind, between games and music – so far as looking to engage in the subculture in a missional way. I don’t get it. If it’s about escapism – then why is he ok with watching movies and television. And he is ok with watching movies and television. I assume he’s also ok with reading novels.
Games are interactive stories. They are movies that the gamer takes part in, novels that the gamer helps write, entertainment that is active rather than passive, and increasingly they are art (though Roger Ebert doesn’t think so) and social commentary. Like music. Like movies. They’re culture. They’re not stupid, or sinful. But, like anything, the way people use them can be. And like anything, there are always a bunch of Christians looking to Christianise (or, to use one of Driscoll’s Rs, Redeem) this stream of culture. Though this one is satire:
Here’s a post linking to a good essay on the subject of games as art that I put up a while ago, here’s the one that Call of Duty image was originally featured in, here’s a couple of posts about Christian games: post 1, post 2…
Now, excuse me while I go to shoot some Mexican bandits on Red Dead Redemption.
David Cook is the outgoing (and departing) principal at SMBC (Sydney Missionary and Bible College). He’s here today at QTC (Queensland Theological College) sharing his top ten tips for preaching (and other stuff).
Tip one: Learn to shake hands and greet somebody. By the name they give. If they give a surname go with Mr or Mrs. Use names. Don’t just say “hello”… the sound of one’s name is the “sweetest sound in the whole world”…
But that isn’t about preaching.
The relationship between the Big Question, the Big Idea and the Big Answer
Big Question -> Big Idea -> Big answer
Use the subject and the compliment – what is he talking about? What is he saying about that?
Turn the big idea into a big question.
The easiest answer for a preacher to give is to the “how” question – but “why” is much more important if you don’t want to breed superficiality. How to questions are good, but shallow.
John 3:16 case study
The subject looks like God (use the first and the last words) – but almost every passage is about God – so lets go with Eternal Life.
The Big Idea: Eternal life comes through Jesus, God’s gift of love.
Big questions: How can I have eternal life? Is death the end? What will happen when you die?
Format of a sermon
State the truth of the passage -> explain the passage -> illustrate the passage -> apply the passage.
If you illustrate first it’ll be without power. Explain first.
The Pyramid
At the bottom level you are summarising with verse references.
At the next level you are looking at the movements in the passage. Which determine the structure of the sermon.
Next. The dominant picture (from On teaching and preaching with creativity – “the human brain is a picture gallery, not a debating hall”).
Subject and compliment.
The Big Idea.
The tip is the Big Question.
Five Keys to Clarity
This year Hollywood studios aren’t being very adventurous with the type of movies they make. They, like all other forms of art, are relying on the remix.
“With that in mind, let’s look ahead to what’s on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children’s book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.”
Which, if you think about it, should provide some encouragement to preachers who just want to point people to Jesus every week. We seem to enjoy the same stories. Retold. But with bigger explosions. Next time I preach I’m taking some dynamite to church.
“But for now, let’s just admit it: Hollywood has become an institution that is more interested in launching the next rubberized action figure than in making the next interesting movie.
Which is why my church will one day need to offer these plastic Jesus toys to raise revenue. Because there’s lots we can appropriate from Hollywood.
UPDATE: Be sure to read this thorough reading of the verdict from Peter Ould.
Wow. It’s a bad time to be a Christian in England.
A couple in England. A Christian couple. Who have fostered a bunch of kids. Have lost the right to do so in the future because the believe homosexuality is wrong and will tell the children they foster that this is the case.
This is like reverse gay-adoption. Now Christians can’t adopt. Essentially. Wow.
“At the High Court, they asked judges to rule that their faith should not be a bar to them becoming carers, and the law should protect their Christian values.
But Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.
They said that if children were placed with carers who objected to homosexuality and same-sex relationships, “there may well be a conflict with the local authority’s duty to ‘safeguard and promote the welfare’ of looked-after children”.”
Here’s the response from the Derby City Council. Bolding mine.
A spokesman said the authority “valued diversity and promoted equality” and “encouraged and supported children in a non judgmental way, regardless of their sexual orientation or preference”.
He added: “The court confirmed that the local authority is properly entitled to consider a prospective foster carer’s views on sexuality when considering their application to become a foster parent and in fact, failure to do so would potentially leave it in breach of its own guidance as well as the National Minimum Standards.”
This is why I think we need to move the goalposts on the debate surrounding homosexual marriage. Here’s a good post (and discussion) from Michael Jensen on SydAng. Here are some thoughts of mine on the homosexual debate from Venn Theology. Here’s a similar story coming out of the UK from a little while ago. And here is a post where Mark Baddeley and I thrashed out the question. This is really an issue we need to get our heads around for the sake of our freedom to proclaim the gospel and call sin “sin”…
I love public speaking. I’m not one of those people who gets filled with dread standing up in front of a crowd. In fact, the bigger the crowd the better. I guess at that point I’m classically extroverted. It’s a rush. Preaching is the thing that excites me most about vocational ministry. It’s not that I think I’m good at it. I’m not. I’m not bad – this isn’t an exercise in false modesty. You’d hope with a journalism degree I’d be ok at stringing some words together. But there are a few things I struggle with. But this isn’t a post about today’s sermon.1
I’m wondering about the long term effects of the adrenalin rush I get every time I preach. I love it. For me it’s like sky diving or extreme sports. The act of getting up in front of people – regardless of what I’m actually saying. I love MCing stuff as well.
Will I get addicted to it? Is that why preachers sometimes travel the globe preaching? Does this pose long term risks to my health? Most importantly, I’m wondering how sustainable my Sunday afternoons are going to be with the post adrenalin crash. Man. What goes up sure comes down. By about 2pm I can hardly keep my eyes open. I go blank. All that energy that I gain in the morning as I get ready to preach (I reckon the adrenalin kicks in at about 8am when I’m preaching at a 9:30 service) drains out, and takes whatever reserves I have with it. I’m pretty sure the adrenalin is what gives other people preacher’s belly – though for some it’s doubtless channelled as fear rather than exuberance.
I’d love to know how others go on the adrenalin front – is the Sunday arvo crash a common thing? Not having a night service anymore seems like such a good innovation on the days I’ve preached in the morning.
1Today’s sermon was mostly good. The last little application bit felt a little tacked on, and I really wasn’t sure where to go once I’d established that I didn’t think the passage was about sexual ethics, but rather about seeking God’s kingdom. So I said that. I talked about commitment. I tied it to Jesus (which was easy because of Matthew’s genealogy). I compared the righteousness of Tamar with the unrighteousness of Judah. But blah. Blah. Blah. That’s how I felt about the last fifth of my talk.
My other little bit of self critique (and I’ll post the audio for this sermon when I get it) is that I’m much more engaging (in my opinion) when I’m illustrating and telling a story entirely in my own words, as I would naturally. And in most of these cases I leave the script behind. At times I feel like I suppress my personality a little in the writing of my talks and I end up cold and robotic rather than talking how I would normally talk. Actually, I don’t sound robotic, I sound like a journalist, not a real person. On the plus side, all the old ladies tell me I speak clearly and audibly. I don’t write an essay – I try to write the way I talk, but I suspect I haven’t beaten out the writing for TV part of my previos training. There’s something just not quite right. It’s like I’m preaching in black and white rather than colour too. For the most part. Or at least that’s how I feel. Feel free to chime in if you heard me this morning (or once you’ve listened to the audio).
On Onan the Barbarian.
Here’s a wordle. See if you can figure out what my big idea is.
Accordance, or Logos. That is the question.
One of the perks of having slaved away over a hot computer over the holidays in my holiday job (more on that later) is that I can afford to invest in some Bible study software that will hopefully make my attempts to grapple with Greek, Hebrew, and essay writing, a little bit easier.
There are three options out there (fourth if you include just using the interwebs).
I’ve basically ruled out BibleWorks – because getting it to work on a Mac requires clunky parallel operating systems and I pretty much flat out refuse to do that – why would I go back to an inferior operating system? If I were a Windows user I may well go with it – because it has the benefit of being a cheap and easy language parser. But, because I’m a superficial marketing driven purchaser I can’t get past the ugly website and shoddy looking, WIndows 95esque user interface.
Next option, by price, is Accordance – and specifically the Scholars Premier + Library Premier option, currently on special for $599. Now. Accordance is designed for Mac. But I don’t like its website. It was designed for language work, and kind of tagged on the library stuff later. Twitter loves it. I put a call out yesterday and almost every response I got (possibly because the @accordance account retweeted my tweet) was in favour of Accordance.
The option I’m currently leaning towards is Logos. Logos just looks schmick. And it has multiplatform support in built. And the ability to add module after module of good stuff. Accordance has modules as well – but it doesn’t have the same publishing base (as far as I can tell) that Logos obviously offers. The base level Scholars pack is $629. It just looks schmick too. And as a marketer I like that. It looks like a Bible software package marketed by Apple, rather than made for Apple.
My college principal, a Mac user, uses Accordance, while possibly the widest reading lecturer at college uses Logos. Both have suggested their product of choice is a good choice.
Should I flip a coin?
Some helpful links if you’re facing this decision:
Arthur wrote a good little post pondering the merits of these packages here. There’s a lot of bloat – but the bloat might be useful if ever I do decide to pursue further study (a possible option in my mind).
I think this is the Pokemon theme song? Maybe? Just because of the “got to save them all” line.
Just awful.
This is just too cool for school. The Internet’s favourite hackers (well, if the internet is an anti-social teenage boy who likes playing WoW) Anonymous have turned their ire towards the Phelps family Christianity’s favourite “they’re crazier than me” church.
This could get interesting. They wrote an open letter (posted in full at Jesus Needs New PR).
“We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism. We have always regarded you and your ilk as an assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots, however benign, who act out for the sake of attention & in the name of religion…
Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are, we have hitherto allowed you to continue preaching your benighted gospel of hatred and your theatrical exhibitions of, not only your fascist views, but your utter lack of Christ-like attributes…
ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites.
Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. ”
Them’s fighting words. So Westboro Baptist responded.
Westboro’s websites are now down. Time to break out the popcorn.
I’ve said before that Christopher Hitchens’ treatment of Christianity is a little shoddy. He is guilty of creating a straw man Christianity out of the very worst of “Christian” behaviour and setting it on fire in beautifully vitriolic prose. He is, I think, the most dangerous of the nu-atheists because he is so articulate and personable. He’s more appealing than Dawkins, I think, because he demonstrates a sense of humour.
Here, in this article, he is interviewed by a Unitarian minister, Marilyn Sewell, who wants to know if he doesn’t like Liberal Christians as much as he doesn’t like fundamentalists…
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian…
Read my full take on this, and some more interesting bits from the interview, over at Venntheology.
The Superbowl. Watched by millions. For the ads. American Football is a commercial juggernaut. They pause play for ads (they do this in Aussie Rules too). The Superbowl regularly features big budget advertising blockbusters. They don’t necessarily steal the show. But they go close.
This year a group of Christians decided they wanted a slice of the Superbowl action. So they produced an ad, and booked a slot, and the broadcaster decided to turn the ad down. They didn’t want anybody being offended by a religious ad. And this is in a nation that prides itself on its Christian heritage.
Here’s the ad.
There’s not a lot in there that’s offensive. It’s pretty clever. The website is nice. The ad, at the time of writing, has been viewed by 300,000 people (approximately) on YouTube – a far cry from the millions who would have tuned in on the day, but at least the producers are getting some benefit for their efforts.
This, friends, is why we shouldn’t be kicking up a stink and trying to get atheist bus ads pulled. What goes around comes around. If we’ve got truth on our side – what have we to fear from other voices being heard in the marketplace of ideas so long as we can put our side of the story out as well. Now we may not be able to do either – because if they can’t show an ad like that in America, what are the chances of similar decisions being made by TV networks in the rest of the world?
Here’s a New York Times article on the fiasco which again goes to show that the ad wasn’t wasted – when was the last time a major newspaper ran a verse from the Bible as the second par of a news story?
The ad’s producer Larry Taunton had this to say about his motives:
“Corporate America uses its creativity and millions of dollars to come up with 30-second blasts to get you to buy a beer or Coke or tennis balls… Last year, as I began to reflect on this, I thought, ‘If I had 30 seconds to speak to a billion people, what would I say?’”
What would you say?
Oh. No. This even gets autotuned at the end. It’s like all the badness merged together. I like how they say this is the “official film clip” in the title – as though anybody is going to make an unofficial one that could possibly be worse than some guy sitting in front of a fence, if you watch closely you’ll notice that they horizontally flip one of the clips (which makes all the writing backwards) – is there some sort of backwards masking going on there?