Archive | Media RSS feed for this section

Lead a double life…

September 8, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Tourism Victoria send a strange message of what Daylesford is like. One one hand it appears to be a place to enjoy pure, unpolluted and refreshing goodness of the day, while on the other hand you can indulge in the decadecet and licentiousness of the night.

I found it fascinating that the advertisement leaves us with the baptism of the girl. I guess you can get the best of both worlds, as suggested by Tourism Victoria’s :

There are two sides to every holiday in Daylesford. On one hand you can cleanse and rejuvenate in Daylesford’s famous spa waters. Then when you want to indulge, try decadent local food and wine, luxurious accommodation and shopping galore…

Creative Use of this Ad for our churches…
Illustrations for biblical truth

You cannot live a double life…

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature… So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions. Galatians 5:13-20

Live as children of light…

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)  and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,  making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:8-18

Belong to the day…

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Romans 13:12-14


Arts, Culture, Jesus, Media

True stories of an active God…

September 1, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Picture 4

Media, Movies, People, Resources

Gospel Translations

August 26, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Gospel-centered books and articles freely accessible in as many languages.

Evangelism, Media, Resources, Technology

Neil Postman could be right…

August 17, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Neil Postman wrote a book: Amusing ourselves to death. And although Neil writes on his perspective on the way media is infultrating our culture and socitey 30 years ago… I think Neil Postman could be right about a few things.

I read his book 3 years ago and it has been helpful to guide my thoughts when deciding how to do church in ways that engage? Whether we do things at church because we give into the laziness & distractedness of our generation!

We sit in church singing praise to God while checking facebook on our iPhones. We listen to the sermon while writing our shopping list. We read our bibles while we eat our breakfast, comb our hair and brush our teeth, all the while we are listening to a new album we bought.

I don’t think we should make life impossible for our generation to be engage with the gospel at church. We should strive to be creative and relevant. However I do sometimes think less frills and whistles means people will have to think about their faith… and we allow the power of the gospel to transform.

It is sad that so many Christians I come into contact are so shy of their faith, haven’t thought deep about some of the issues of life that are effecting them or are just not confident knowing their way around their bibles – even after decades of being a Christian. I find this disturbing after all this is also the we are also living in an age where a high percentage of the western world are university educated. We can think but we choose to entertain ourselves to death and fill our minds with rubbish instead of the soothing and refreshing words of the gospel.

Sometimes churches perhaps try too hard to be engaging and make church more and more like a performance. Not in terms of lighting & production design but in the way the humble service leader just guides the night as though an MC at a wedding. Peoples hearts aren’t guided, peoples hearts are not engaged although they may be slightly entertained?

What do we need to do to grab people’s attention with the good news of Jesus?

Is the news of Jesus riveting enough?

If you plan worship meetings, service lead or find it sad to see church attendees leave church unaffected>>> read more on The Necessity of Boredom @ Neue Ministry.

Jesus, Media

Review :: Gospel Websites & Applications

July 16, 2009 by hayleyneal 5 Comments

There are plenty more sites and applications but these are the best I found. If you are a Christian and a web developer… consider this a prompting to design a website for non-Christians that is engaging, modern, relevant and true. Jesus is worthy of a good website to explain who he is and the life he has on offer to all.  If you have the technical know-how, I’d be happy to consider putting a team together to develop the content…

Let’s be like Jesus go hang where the sinners are: in our generation its on on the web!

……………………………………………………………….

Christianity.net.au
Website for those trying to make sense of God by Anglican Media Sydney

This website has helpful information to help you Make Sense of God. This bit of the site is good.
Yet other pages become a mouse click maze on the Does This Make Sense to You page… I found I had to keep clicking on numerous link to get to the answer. I kept clicking Who is Jesus? and just got a list of more questions… then realised that the question was further down the another list of questions and all I needed to do was scroll down. Still not the cleanest navigation.

There are some old links on the page to Christians you might like to meet (Fiona, Matt & Sam) – all of which are out of date and seem unattended by the page owners. This is pretty poor form I think for a website that has such old content on it, epecially when it is specifically targeted for use by non-Christians.

Good reminder to us bloggers that we should keep our sites up to date, redirect traffic from your old sites or make sure it is stated on your old blog that you have moved on and provide the link.

Two Ways to Live
Online Gospel Tract by Matthias Media

Simple and Clean site. Good presentation of the gospel. With six languages to choose from, including children’s presentation. ‘Investigate Thoroughly’ page has a list to books you can purchase and some free pdf’s. The end of the presentation could link again to this page, as once you’ve read all the content you end up on a contact page but no links to other web content. You have to click back through the presentation to see the ‘Investigate Thoroughly’ page again if you want some more online resources. This could do with some tidying for easier navigation.

Steps To Peace
Online Gospel Tract by Billy Graham

Simple and Clean gospel presentation in four steps… bit American cheese (especially graphics) but it is neat enough and up to date. You can even pray with Billy Graham at the end of the presentation.

Graffiti – Bridge to Life
Video Gospel Presentation by Billy Graham

Good quality & funky gospel presentation (targeted at youth)
Would be fun to embed this on your own church or youth group website.
Billy Graham do some other great videos check them out here.

XEE
Online Gospel Tract by Christianity Explosion

In seven easy steps the gospel is presented. Its clean, modern and up to date. However it is teamed with sharing your faith training video, so makes me wonder who the targeted audience for this site is really for. Perhaps it really is just for Christians to use with their friends?

Also, the organisation seems pretty anonymous… if you are not in the know it would be hard to detect who XEE is and where you could find more information about them from the website. You can give them feedback but still seems unclear as to who you are giving your information to.

Steps2Peace with God
iPhone Gospel Presentation Application by Billy Graham

At the start of this iPhone tract you get the choice of the presentation being in English or Spanish.
Graphics are modern and look quite good and seems to use the iPhone technology well – you can be followed up by getting in contact with them by phone call or website contact form, with a link at the end of the presentation.

Wordless Book
Colour Presentation of the Gospel Application by Planetshakers International Ministries Inc.

If you know the wordless book and know how to use it this is just a iPhone version so you have the colours handy. (Green – creation, black – sin, red – Christ’s death, white – forgiveness, yellow – heaven)

Jesus, Media, Technology

Internal Churning

July 16, 2009 by hayleyneal 5 Comments

If you have been around me much and had the pleasure of hearing my pet-hates about Christian Community, you would perhaps have heard me complain about our tendency to be so preoccupied with ourselves… something I like to call “internal churning”.

We give the appearance that we are making great leaps forward for the gospel but all we are doing is sitting around whinging about things that shouldn’t take the priority of our thoughts, energy and actions. I confess… I complain too but I really want to set myself and you a challenge that instead of the internal churning lets look out beyond ourselves, look for opportunities to serve others… perhaps even the lost!

This quote  by C. T. Studd seems to sum up my sentiment of internal churning:

“Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell,
I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell”

Where I see internal churning:

  • Compare the vast majority of products and resources in our Christian bookshops… majority of products are ‘pep talk’ material for Christians. How good would it be if more people put increased energy into truly evangelistic and accessible products for the unchurched / unbeliever?
  • Christian Websites are mainly for the Christian too… The amount of quality websites or blogs dedicated to the sharing the gospel is low compared to the tech-savvy, clean and funky sites for Christian leadership, outreach, ideas, church planting etc.  It’s rare for Christian blogs to address the non–Christian who may stumble across their site. (Bloggers take note from DMDC who regularly addresses: Not Christian? Read this.)
  • Our churches’ budgets and their support of mission and evangelism.
  • Complaints about sermons, lack on inter-congregational events, or just the pure lack of social events at church.

Don’t get me wrong… I think we need to encourage each other all the more as the day approaches (Hebrews 10:25) and Christian friendship is vital for survival but sometimes encouragement comes when we serve alongside each other and focus on something else than ourselves.
START today… instead of having just socialising with church friends this week, why not invite some one on the fringe of church along or some mates from work… cross pollinate your social circles. You get to kill two birds with one stone: social activity with church people and bring near some light to the yard of hell.

Not Christian: CHECK THIS OUT!

Church, Evangelism, Jesus, Media, Technology

Free Music

June 17, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Picture 2

Click Here

Jesus, Media, Music
Newer Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 376 other followers