I’ve been wasting the last couple of hours compiling my playlist for the TripleJ 20 Years of the Hottest 100. Trying to compile such a list is, surprisingly an act of pure insanity, it’s hard enough to choose my favourite songs each year, but to ask for my top 20 from 20 years, that’s enough [...]
Steve Taylor recently lead a session at the National Rural Ministry Conference in Barmera, SA. The session was exploring Festival Spirituality and other ways that people in the Hebrew Scriptures would gather as faith community, worship or participate as a member of a community of faith. His framework categorised 5 ways that described how people [...]
One of the services that became a part of the TOLLS community was The Nature Service, a community of approximately 10 families, on average when I attended we had about 20-30 people including children. The gathering was very simple, meet at the bottom of Morialta National Park in South Australia early in the morning and [...]
Steve Taylor recently lead a session at the National Rural Ministry Conference in Barmera, SA. The session was exploring Festival Spirituality and other ways that people in the Hebrew Scriptures would gather as faith community, worship or participate as a member of a community of faith. His framework categorised 5 ways that described how people [...]
Steve Taylor, The Principal of Uniting College For Leadership & Theology in Adelaide recently lead a session on Festivals and Gatherings in the Old Testament at the National Rural Ministry Conference, (I’ll write up some of my thoughts on that presentation since then later). While he was there I asked him how his recent trek [...]
Here’s a list of resources is a list of music, all of which is available online, much of which is free to access. Before I go on, many of the albums on the list are sourced from a website called Noisetrade (www.noisetrade.com). Noisetrade offers artists a way to put their music out into the public [...]
DIY Paper Nativity by Joel Henriques (Free to Download) http://madebyjoel.com/?p=4362 A new and beautifully simple paper nativity by Joel Henriques, two pdf files makes up the entire kit. While you’re there check out some of his other craft ideas, paper cities and his book (I can highly recommend) “Silent Night” DIY Black & White Illustrated [...]
Go and purchase this beautiful creation over at My Little Bookcase now, the calendar includes illustrations by Kylie Dunstan Sue deGennaro Katherine Battersby Sally Rippin Freya Blackwood Lucia Masciullo Nick Bland Anna Walker Lisa Stewart Christina Booth Gus Gordon Peter Carnavas
An important and timely piece by Rev Andrew Dutney, President of the UCA on the ABC website. Amnesty International has confirmed that conditions for asylum seekers that Australia has sent to Nauru are wretched. There is poor sanitation, inadequate accommodation, overcrowding, and the mental and physical health of detainees is deteriorating. Uncertainty and loss of hope [...]
It’s been a while since I posted about new music that I’ve been enjoying, here’s a quick breakdown of some of the best of it… Sufjan Stevens – Silver & Gold Sufjan’s latest Christmas extravaganza, there’s some great reimagining of old tunes, some quirky originals, some beautiful instrumentals and some really edgy lyrics that you [...]
Over the last few years I’ve collected a number of Christmas books, let’s face it, there are hundreds of them out there, the catch is that there aren’t enough quality Christmas Picture Books out there, books that inspire wondering, awe and the re-imagining of the Christmas story and what it might mean for us today, here. [...]
So… Uno becoming a bit boring? Here’s a few ideas to spice it up a bit… It really depends on how silly you want to make the game… When a yellow card goes down everyone has to snap the pile and last person to do that either a) gets the pile or b) picks up [...]
I’ve hosted a number of Advent Workshops over the years, and during the time I’ve collected a number of alternative Christmas songs, songs that perhaps might not get regular airplay over Christmas time, especially during worship or around the candles at Carols by Candlelight. A confession: I’m not a fan of christmas carols, I’ve been [...]
I’ve been running Advent Workshops going on 10 years now, I’ve collected so many Advent and Christmas resources and ideas that, if a community ever decides to give me the reigns for a couple of years I’d be at a loss for where to start… Last year my community started Advent by creating our own [...]
I’m regularly asked for suggestions of good/great youth ministry resources and I’m happy to oblige with a referral to one or 100 different ideas, I have after-all been in this gig for many years and have an incredibly large library of resources and ideas from all over the place. But many of the conversations rarely [...]
A few years ago Adrian Greenwood hosted a MorePraxis Gathering with the theme of “Let The Wild Rumpus Begin,” at the event I curated a worship space based on the same theme using a lot of imagery from the children’s book by Maurice Sendak and the subsequent and beautiful film. I’ve been asked over and [...]
I’ve had a number of conversations as of late around the idea of heaven and hell, one of the more recent on a long drive home as we talked about the recent “Great” (read sarcasm) George Pell & Dawkins #QandA where George copped some flack for suggesting that he doesn’t have any control over who gets to heaven, but instead it’s God’s call. George was ridiculed for this as the host and Dawkins chuckled with the suggestion that even atheists can get to heaven…
When, during these conversations I’ve been asked about my understanding on heaven and hell I’ve responded “it’s not my call, it’s God’s,” and it’s here where I’ve been asked if I thought Hitler could get to heaven, the insinuation being that surely there’s some evil that just cannot be allowed in, and we need to know where the line is. What interests me is that it’s not the first time that the same question has been asked of me, it’s a fairly standard response.
The last couple of weeks have been “Fair Trade Fortnight.” Now, Fair Trade has been a bit of a hobby horse for both my wife and myself over the last few years and forgive me if you’ve heard all of this before, but please continue reading because while many of us have heard this before [...]
We’d like to invite you to think a bit harder this Christmas. It seems to me that there’s a part of the story of Jesus’ birth that we seldom dwell on, and we’d like to help your community enter into it. If you’re willing. A few weeks ago I participated in a conversation that gave [...]
Two of our wedding presents were tagines… yes, we were given two tagines, one was a traditional clay tagine, the other a Microstoven tagine. At first we both thought “what the bugger will we do with TWO tagines”!? And, after last night, I can tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna cook a lot [...]
