Permanent Break from Blogging

Blogging is a good thing.

Communication is central to learning, and blogging allows us to communicate ideas really easily, and it creates a great forum for discussion.

I like blogging (see 4 Reasons to Blog).

But…

At this current stage in my life, I will not continue to blog. Blogging takes up time, and I have less t

ime than I used to. Sure, I could blog every idea that I am currently thinking about, so as to reflect on these ideas. But there I some things that I want to reflect on without sharing with everyone.

Blogging also at times isn’t so great (See 3 Reasons Not to Blog).

I have enjoyed blogging, and have enjoyed thinking through ideas, and receiving feedback on these ideas. But for now, its a permanent break from blogging (and Twitter, cos I think they are very closely linked).

If you are a blogger, power to you. I think it is a great thing to do. I may be back one day to blog, but if I do, I think it will be a more specific blog with fewer posts each week.

Thanks to all who read over the past few months!

We’re Engaged!

If you haven’t yet heard. Me and my wonderful fiance Alice are engaged.

This would be the reason why there has been little activity here for a while, and also why there is going to be no activity for a few weeks. Posting will resume sometime soon.

In the meantime, if you want you can read back through some of the best posts, or through archives.

• Best of…
• August
• July
• June
• May

A Week Has 5 Days #2

This weeks been pretty good. Here’s a blog breakdown for you.

P.S. Why haven’t you subscribed to this via email yet? Get all the action sent to you once a week. Do it here!

Posts from last week

• Prayer Spreadsheet
• Don’t Download YouTube Videos
• Biblical Storytelling
• What is the Gospel?
• My YouTube Channel

Latest Delicious Bookmarks (What is Delicious?)

• My Top 5 Digital Technologies For Ministry
• Lessons from the Twitter Outage
• 10-no-4 Days to Become a Social Media Expert
• Tr.im URL Shortener Shuts Down
• Copyright and Screening Videos in Church
• Election Fail
• Facebook Acquires Friendfeed
• The End of Worship Media
• Pixar Exhibition

Hope you enjoyed this weeks reading!

My YouTube Channel

Over the past few years I have been growing my video editing skills. Recently I shared videos from recent study camps (here and here). So here is another video that I did as a review for KYCK 08. If you would like to watch all of the videos that I have made, you can do so at www.youtube.com/DACTproductions

What is the Gospel?

The “Gospel” is mentioned 91 times in the New Testament.

I want to know what you think the Gospel is. So in the comments below, say what you think the Gospel is.

So often we talk about the Gospel, and spreading the Gospel, but can we summarise what we actually mean. Is it a story about Jesus? Or perhaps a presentation like 2 Ways to Live? I think that this is the Gospel.

¹Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ²By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. ⁶After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,⁸and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

1 Corinthians 15:1-7

What do you think?

Let us know.

Biblical Storytelling

Last weekend, I experienced a Bible reading like I never had before.

I heard a reading of Acts 1-2 done by somebody from The Backyard Bard.

The Backyard Bard are a group of people that tell Biblical stories very well. This is a quote from their website:

Biblical Storytelling is not about dramatising the Bible… The Bible itself is already full of drama and emotion. It is not about bringing the Bible to life… The Bible is God’s living and active Word. Biblical Storytelling is about connecting with these dramatic and living stories, committing them to memory and sharing them with the passion that they deserve.

The Bible is amazing. It is God’s Word and it is living and active (Heb 4:12). We can read it in extremely engaging ways.

I was challenged to try and read the Bible like this at church one night, we’ll see how it goes.

If you want you can see videos of what they do here.

You can also download workshop material that they presented here (It was a really great workshop as well).

Don’t Download YouTube Videos

According to YouTube terms of service, there are only 2 legal reasons to download YouTube videos. You must have either uploaded it or be a partner of the person who uploaded the video.

There is an excellent post over at communicatejesus.com explaining this, so I wont re-write that. You can view it here.

I am sorry if I have mislead anyone.

Prayer Spreadsheet

Daily prayer is a hard task. What do you pray for? How do you remember what to pray for? How do you have time for it all?

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

Colossians 4:2

Over the past few years, I have been trying to use a Prayer Spreadsheet to do daily prayer. All this is, is a Spreadsheet with the day of the week across the top, and then topics to pray for down the left. I then fill in the columns with different items.

Click to Download

This technique has helped in a number of ways.

• It helps you to remember to pray for different things each day such as missionaries, friends or your church.
• It allows you to spread out you prayers over the week, so that you can balance what you pray about (I find thhat this helps me to stay focussed)
• You can keep the Spreadsheet with you at all times in different formats (Paper, on your phone, on your computer)
• Finally, it allows prayer to be manageable, you have a set amount of praying to do each day, and it is there before you in a note form.

If you miss a day of praying, then that is ok, and if you want, you can pray for more than one day if you have extra time.

I really enjoy using this so I thought I would share this. If you would like to try this out, then here is a template for you to download and use*.

Do you have any tips to help Christians in daily prayer, or anything that works well for you? (Let us know in the comments below)

A Week Has 5 Days #1

Who has time to read a blog daily?

A rare few.

So this is for those of you who can only make some reading time once a week. “A Week Has 5 Days” is going to be a weekly summary of what happens on my blog. It will also show off some of the best stuff that I have been reading on the web during the week.

Best of all, you will be able to subscribe to these weekly posts via email! So you can get summaries of what happens here, sent straight to you, and you wont get daily spam clogging your inbox (You can unsubscribe from the emails at any time).

Posts from last week

• Download YouTube Videos
• Public vs Private #6 | Freedom
• Some Fun: Noah and Cubits
• What Are You Afraid Of?
• SUEU Bloggers

Latest Delicious Bookmarks

• Jesus All About Life Ads Look Like Winners
• Two Ways to Live
• When it’s Time to be Unsettled
• Facebook Rises to Snatch 4th Largest Website in the World
• Twitter Landing Pages
• Don’t Mess With Conventions
• Twitter Reputation Scores
• RICE en:trust is Launching with Chandler and Dever
• Basement Jazz = Friend Magnet
• How Did Hackers Bring Twitter Down?

So what are you waiting for, subscribe to these posts via email.

SUEU Bloggers

I have recently been constructing a list of bloggers involved with the Sydney University Evanglical Union (SUEU).

If you follow the link below, you can view a list of recent posts from SUEU bloggers (You can also subscribe to the list).

http://www.google.com.au/reader/shared/user%2F16078084746922649553%2Flabel%2FSUEU%20Blogs

Here is a list of the bloggers with links to their blogs.

• Jeremy Smith (Micaiah Sells Out)
• Rowan Kemp
• Tim Smartt (Insane Angels)
• Josh Street
• Kiri Farrell (HGP)
• Kiri Farrell (Blog)
• Andrew Hayes (The Crazy Australian)
• Iain Hart ([A m a d e u s])
• Richard Glover (I woke up this morning with a frappachino in my hand…)

If you are an EUer and would like your blog on this list, then let me know. For the rest of you, to read up or subscribe, visit here.