Awakening is Christian City Church’s Young Adults Conference, held for the first time this year in three different locations: Sydney, London and New York. I’m highly anticipating this conference due to a combination of factors, primarily because God has given us the opportunity to talk up the Edify program and the Sexy Justice site via a stall at the conference (thanks Beth)! Besides that, I’m looking forward to being at Awakening simply because it is an opportunity for spiritual refreshment.
A Swedish outfit called Illuminated World hopes to change the notion that the Bible is an arduous task to read by creating Bible Illuminated, a ‘relevant’ version of the historical book. The website Cool Hunting reports:
One of the best examples of how they’ve made the Bible hip is the book of Mark…Between the stories of Jesus healing a paralyzed man or healing a boy with an evil spirit are today’s goodwill ambassadors, such as Al Gore, Angelina Jolie, Bono, and Bill Gates, who have worked hard to raise awareness of the problems in Africa or teach us about the effects of global warming and pollution.
With a goal to drive an emotional reaction and get people to think, rather than verses there is running text over a provocative image, forcing you to understand we can all still relate to the classic stories. Like in the book of Romans, where we are reminded about the importance of not judging others, with a photo of a woman pulling the leg off of a cooked duck.
They’re not kidding either. Click here to read the Cool Hunting article and view images (including the cooked duck) from Newsweek’s report appropriately titled “Sexing Up the Bible” here.
kt
Well, we’ve just wrapped up the first STUMP of 2009 and what a whirlwind week it was – full of learning, discomfort, joy, tears and reflection. Here’s the dangerous Franciscan benediction we prayed over the STUMP group every day: Read the rest of this entry »
Well I am excited about being a part of the first STUMP of 2009! We will have 9 young people coming to stay with us from Sunday the 11th to Saturday the 17th to serve and live in community at Streetlevel Mission in Surry Hills.
That’s 9 people who will hopefully return back to their communities and churches with fresh perspectives on the issues of injustice in our city. I’m praying that the week will ignite their desire to be the change they want to see in the world.
As Nathan will be off to Melbourne on Tuesday to be at the Insane Conference for three days, I will be supervising the group (yikes!), but I’m up for the challenge. Make sure you check out the STUMP section of this blog as I will be filming some video blogs as I’m out and about on the streets. It will be an amazing week and I hope that more people will take this opportunity by the horns throughout the year!
kt
Here’s the Teaser Trailer for The I Heart Revolution’s “We’re All In This Together“.
This video is quite moving and hard-hitting at the same time. Hats off to the guys at Hillsong United for pointing at themselves in this video, as if to say “Yes, we’re all in this together, but not only in the call to fight injustice, we’re all responsible for being the perpetrators of the imbalance in this world, too.“ It’s almost as if they’re deliberately trying to shatter the notion that they are on any kind of pedestal which we can so easily put them on in our age of Christian-celebrity ‘worship’.
Read the rest of this entry »
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
- Jesus Christ
(Matthew 7:1-5 ESV)
Let’s be frank and honest. I’m one of those people who can naturally be very quick to judge others, especially my own Christian brothers and sisters. I observe behaviours and attitudes with an air of pretentiousness without a hint of grace, I criticise quite scathingly at times either in my mind or verbally; I construct an invisible soapbox to air my opinions to denounce the fallacies of everyone (heck, why do you think I’m writing a blog?). What I do not do so naturally is turn the big fat pointing finger towards myself.
