Memorise Your Sunday School Lesson

Sunday School needs a higher priority in our thinking.

Recently I have been reading a book called “The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School” by Aaron Reynolds. One of the key ideas that he states is that Sunday School lessons should be memorised.

Now this isn’t just the story/talk that could be memorised, but the whole thing! From what games you play, to any dramas or craft that you may want to use.

This is a big task.

The reason for memorising the lesson is so that what you teach will be as excellent as possible. If you are ready to say your next word instead of looking at a sheet, then you will probably be able to react to the situations that are before you.

I really like this big challenge.

I think that any step towards excellence in Sunday School is a good step to take, and I believe that Sunday School needs to have a high priority in our churches.

I believe that this extra effort of memorising lessons is a worthwhile investment.

To see more about the importance of Children’s Ministry then read “The importance of children in mission” or “Making Youth Evangelism Obsolete”.

Some fun: Twitpocalypse

Recently, we experienced the Twitpocalypse!

Be very afraid…

Well not really, the only negative outcome of the Twitpocalypse was that some people couldn’t send Tweets through Twitteriffic for about a day.

The Twitpocalypse happened due to the fact that Twitter reached 2,147,483,647 Tweets, which meant that the unique identification number associated with Twitter started going into negative numbers which freaked out some third part applications such as Twitterific. All is better now though.

What does this mean? Well, Twitter is reaching a point where so much is happening on it! The Iranian elections have famously been broadcast using Twitter, and well, a lot of people are getting onto Twitter. Maybe you should to.

(This also  means that some people care too much about Twitter to call this the “Twitpocalypse“)

Maybe you would like to read other things that I have written about Twitter if you have read this far…

• 5 Reasons to Tweet
• How to use Twitter
• 4 benefits of 3rd party Twitter application

And if you would like to, you can follow me @calumhenderson

Online Reflection at Uni

The semester has started and for me, I have been greeted by a number of courses that are doing weekly online reflections.

This has excited me a bit for 2 reasons

1. I enjoy the content (Primary school maths and a subject based around my prac).
2. I enjoy reflecting about life online.

Each week I am asked to write a few hundred words about what I have learnt and also to comment on what other people have posted. I am looking forward to this as I believe that it will really help me to learn the content, which will be very useful for me when I go to teach.

It is interesting to see that University’s are so readily using reflection online before many churches are. I would be interested to see if many churches are using online forums to discuss the content from Sunday’s service. Would we be able to grow through an online forum?

I think that communication in our age is getting easier and easier, and I hope that churches will stay up to date with effective communication techniques.

Public vs Private #5 | Lunchtime Group

A school Christian lunchtime group is a great place for Christian students to invite their friends to hear about the gospel.

One of the catches with a school lunchtime group at a public school is that a teacher of the school is required to sign off on the group. This means that if their isn’t a teacher to sign off on the group, then a lunchtime group cannot exist.

So for lunchtime Christian groups to exist, then Christian teachers must be present in public schools. Their would also be opportunities for a Christian teacher to run the group.

This doesn’t mean that a Christian teacher couldn’t be involved with a lunchtime group at a private school, but there are most likely chaplains or youth workers to run these groups.

Lunchtime groups are a great place for students to hear the gospel, as well as receiving leadership training, so it would be sad if they weren’t able to run.

You can learn more about lunchtime groups at the Scripture Union website.

If you have any thoughts on anything that I have said, please share below in the comments section.

Twouble with Twitter

So this is a pretty funny video, and I think it (sarcastically) does a pretty good job of explaining what Twitter is all about. Hope you can laugh and learn…

Delicious

delicious.com is an online bookmarking website (Wikipedia entry). So you can save website bookmarks for viewing at a later date, and you can also share your bookmarks. The site has a few main purposes, here are some reasons why I use delicious.

• I can bookmark what I like and easily view it later on, where ever I am.
• I can share my bookmarks on this blog (on the right under “I’ve been reading…”
• I can receive my bookmarks as an RSS feed (Why use RSS?) which can then be shared on other sites such as automatically on Twitter through Twitterfeed (Although I don’t currently do this)

Delicious bookmarks are easily sharable and many blogs and articles will have this symbol at the bottom of the page which will allow you to easily share to delicious.

If you like sharing internet sites with people, then delicious is definitely a good thing, and if you have a blog, then it is even easier.

Share the great things you find with others!

Study Camp Videos | 2008

After sharing the videos from this years study camp, I thought I’d share with you some extreme videos from Study Camp in 2008. These ones are a lot more extreme and a lot more stupid, but oh so fun!

P.S. Study Camps are truely awesome, you should go on one if you’re in Yr 12, and you should lead on one if your not. Check them out here.

From the Bible this week: Philippians 3

Philippians is my favourite book of the Bible.

Philippians 3 has some great encouragements concerning the new creation.

In the first half of the chapter, Paul slams down anyone who thinks that what they can do can save themselves. Paul says that he above anyone else has reason for this (Phil 3:4-6), but then he says

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord

Phil 3:7-8

Paul then goes on, arguing that it is only through what Jesus has done that we can be right with God.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Phil 3:12

Paul then finishes with what I see to be an excellent eternal perspective. He says “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). We do not belong to this world, we belong to God. And this is not through anything that we can do, but only through what God has already done for us. Whatever we can do here is a loss compared to knowing Christ.

So let’s set our hearts on what we cannot see, and look forward to the day when Jesus returns.

Some Fun: Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up

Here’s a great mash up of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It’s pretty awesome.

Study Camp Videos

One of the things that I did on Study Camp was to edit 7 videos together to show at lunch. These videos included highlights of camp, as well as introducing free time activities such as Warbalz (see video below).

I have been honing my quick video editing skills for a while, and I am pretty happy with how these videos turned out.

I edited each one in iMovie 09, and each one took about 30 minutes to 1 hour to edit.

Videos can be great for a camp, especially for building excitment and community. A lot of people mentioned how much fun the videos were, and let’s face it, the leaders on the camp enjoyed it just as much.

The videos are below for your viewing pleasure (watch out for “in jokes”). Or if you like, you can view the playlist on youtube here.