here... (beware of PG material... and don't go here or here)

Busy times.  Currently finishing J-Walk (it will be a must read/listen issue), a wedding sermon for Saturday, and a Philippians sermon for Sunday night.  Listened/watched this sermon yesterday by Mark Driscoll.  He spoke about how IDOLATRY and RELIGION are the biggest enemies of the gospel.  IDOLATRY: for the non-Christian.  RELIGION: for the "Christian".  Good stuff.

Just finished meeting with Rhett and I'm now doing some work at a nice cafe in Wamberal (with free internet) and have just noticed some Central Coast Mariners arrive.

5 warm fuzzies for the name of player 1 (closest)
5 warm fuzzies for the name of player 2
5 warm fuzzies for the name of the Wamberal cafe

15 warm fuzzies up for grabs.
No more than 5 warm fuzzies per person.

(h/t Plunkenator)

Check out the latest episode of On the Poddy. Good times with Dan and Lachlan Soper in Lachlan's plunge pool on Saturday. We recorded an hour long Podcast last night that will be launched this Friday night as part of j-walk issue 4. Stay tuned. It's a great podcast and j-walk issue. We've dropped to 89 in iTunes... so go and download some episodes in there!

Dan is my homeboy - some may think he once blogged... but it looks like he really is now... we'll see... Go check out his blog. Some good reflections on music and church. He seems to have some purpose and direction to his blog. Keep it going Dan!

What do you think of his header? I took it and made it for him... on my phone!

These homeboys are live-blogging the new attitude conference

Here's the rest of the action from The Gospel Coalition:

EDIT: Gospel Coalition Documents (correct link)
Epistemology 101: The Gospel Coalition's Theology of Ministry
Piper: The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth
Carson: What Is the Gospel Coaltion?
Willson: Christ and Culture in Light of the Gospel
Loritts: Passing on the Gospel

This site will be updated in a couple of weeks with ALL the action.

>Family wedding next week
>Wedding sermon prep
>Philippians sermon prep
>Bring a friend night at youth tonight

NEWS FLASH: eternal weight of glory has had 15,000 hits... wow!

What do you think?


3 warm fuzzies if you can name the two streets of this intersection...
3 warm fuzzies if you can name the 2 schools near it...
3 warm fuzzies if you can name the petrol station and fast food join over the road...
no more than 3 warm fuzzies per person

Keller: Gospel-Centred Ministry

Carson: What Is the Gospel?

Conference is about to start.  Driscoll says pray for Piper in the finishing of his new book.

Hey that last post (sent by email) was post 300... that makes this one 301!! Awesome. Congrats eternal weight of glory

MySpace. MySpace is ugly (you'd know that if you'd seen my MySpace). I think it's PostModern ugliness at its best! But I'm happy to have a page (particularly for youth group) cos there are lots of teenagers hanging out there.

Facebook. Facebook isn't ugly. It's sleek. It's clean. It's smarterer than MySpace. My guess is that at the moment MySpace is getting 15-23y/o and Facebook is a bit older (23+). I know of youth groups in the US that have a page... but I'm not sure if (m)any of our youth group dudes are on there.

Are you Christian? Don't get addicted to these things... rather use them to point people to JESUS.

...are the two latest posts from Dan.  He wants his blog to be a tool to help our nite church music team think through music ministry.  If you're not from CCEC - I'm sure it will be of a help to you too (that's if he posts more than once every 2.5 months!)

...Benny and Robyn

2nite 730-830 @ church office. tell others...

Here is a few pages from The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson. It's a small book but very helpful. I particularly like the way that Carson holds together different passages of scripture. This means that he can say that Jesus died for all but also died in a special way for the elect.

Here's a snippet:

I argue, then, that both Arminians and Calvinists should rightly affirm that Christ died for all, in the sense that Christ’s death was sufficient for all and that Scripture portrays God as inviting, commanding, and desiring the salvation of all, out of love (in the third sense developed in the first chapter). Further, all Christians ought also to confess that, in a slightly different sense, Christ Jesus, in the intent of God, died effectively for the elect alone, in line with the way the Bible speaks of God’s special selecting love for the elect (in the fourth sense developed in the first chapter).

Read the rest of the section here.

Never heard of 'atonement' or Jesus?? Find out more here...

Guessing comp: 12 warm fuzzies to the first person to guess the famous Australia location where this pic was taken...

Check out my thoughts on Hillsong Youth Ministry over at The Youth Vanguard (it's back baby!). It's in response to an article in yesterday's smh. I'd be interested to hear your reflections.

Thanks for praying


Have a great weekend.

This looks very exciting.  I look forward to reading through the material after the conference.

The Youth Vanguard is back.  We have a new writer and are promising to write more often!  If you interested in reading, interacting and thinking about youth ministry leave a comment here

Stunning:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26

Last night we look at the 2nd half of Philippians 1. Andrew spoke about Paul's obsession with Jesus. I've been thinking about obsessions. I don't want to live a balanced life. I want to live a Philippians 1:21 life.

Soccer used to be my obsession. It's not any more. What's your obsession? Do you get more passionate about mac vs pc; holden vs ford; nescafe vs gourmet coffee; league vs union; Labour vs Liberal or about JESUS!

Get passionate about JESUS. Talk about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. He died. He rose. He's coming back. Don't waste your life.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

... from 268blog (then read this)

This vid from GodTube is very good!


(h/t Josh - can't see it? Click here)

PRAYER FRIDAY:

>Thank God for opportunity to reflect on Cross. Wow! Gal 6:14
>Pray that I'd be humbled in preparing talks on the cross
>Pray that many would come to Life to the Full
>Pray that Row would get more rest.

Let me know how to pray for you

It was on May 10 AD2006 that eternalweightofglory went public. In 2002 I had a blog named slightmomentaryaffliction - but didn't really use it. So in 2004 I made a new one with the positive side of 2 Cor 4:16-18 as the title - but I didn't really use it either. So in May 2006 after some umming and arring - this blog went public.

Here are the early posts from May AD2006. The memories.

In this cat-out-of-the-bag post, I outlined four objectives for eternalweightofglory:

Here's a few ground rules for my blog:
>>> Concise - I don't like blogs where the post goes for a few pages
>>> Colourful - put pictures in so it isn't boring and those who can't read will still enjoy the site
>>> Original - I'll try not to just post to other news stories all the time
>>> Insightful - Among other things, I'm keen to talk about youth ministry

How do you think I've gone on all 4 of these rules? Leave a rating for each (Concise, Colourful, Original, Insightful) out of 10 in the comments...

My aim over the next year is to talk about Jesus more.

Loyal reader. Thank you.

Joost is the latest thing. I think. It's from the makers of skype (I think). Joost is Free internet TV when you want it where you want it (or something like that). It's still in beta phase - and I think you need to be invited to use it. (I have an account and can invite you if you want - just email me or leave your email address in the comments).

There are stacks of channels. Lots of fighting channels. Guinness World Records type thing. Ummm. Here's a channel list. Maybe 100 channels? They have whole seasons that you can watch at your own pace. Row and I have found one to watch: Bridezillas. It follows some rich New York brides-to-be in the lead up to their wedding. Haven't seen much yet.

I'm not a huge TV fan (we don't have one)... I don't think this will change me. But I think it's a good concept. You don't have to watch ads etc... and you don't have to adhere to the TV Network's timing schedule. This is web 2.0 and the future of television.

Hey Christians in the Media crew - maybe try and get your new show on there??? What do you think?

The pic is a screen shot of 'the cold war kids' live in concert.
Just quickly looked @ the wikipedia entry. here.

Check out www.dontwasteyourlife.com. They have a podcast (downloadable in iTunes too) and a blog that are updated at least once a week. The videos are short and super-challenging.

John Piper talks about how in the bible Jesus talks more about money than he does heaven and hell. It IS difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God! But what is impossible with man is possible with God.

From age 15/16 to 19/20ish I was quite frivolous with the way that I spent money. CDs. Clothes. Junk food. Praise God that he has changed me - but I pray that he would keep changing me. To my ccecyouth readers: don't be frivolous with your money!!! Older readers who have greater access to $$$ need to hear this just as much: don't be frivolous with your money!!!

Invest in that which will last forever. 2 Cor 4:16-18

How are you tempted to waste your life? How are you frivolous with money, time & your life? What steps are you taking to invest in eternity?

Here is our latest J-Walk magazine. There is also a short podcast on the same page.

After 3 issues, the magazine has been a lot more successful than I imagined. All of our ccecyouth crew have hooked straight in and are lapping it up.

If you are a youth minister or youth leader, feel free to use our material with your teens... but even better... make your own!! It's really not that hard. Get a few people to write short articles... find someone with artistic talents to make a cover and giddy up! Feel free to pass on a link to our j-walk site to people who might be interested. j-walk.ccecyouth.com

Have you had a read? What do you think?

Thanks for praying.

Thank God for those who started following Jesus on phat007
Thank God for sweet holidays
Ask God that he would keep being at work this term at ccecyouth
Pray that I'd have a productive and godly term

Question: What worldwide super famous band are these people dancing to? Big prizes on offer...

In our attempt to ‘go global’, On the Poddy has been featured in the May edition of Southern Cross. If you’ve missed all the ‘Poddy Royale’ episodes - go and listen now! (Have you played our game?)

Below is the first part of the article:

One of the top rating internet radio shows amongst Australian teenagers was born in the toilet of Central Coast Evangelical Church’s youth minister.

The low-budget, low-effort weekly chat show is regularly ranked in the Top 50 Australian iTunes downloads. On occassion it has peaked in the Top 10 with nearly 1,000 subscribers.

“And sometimes this even happens when we don’t rig the number of downloads!” laughs youth minister and radio show host, Dave Miers.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

Read more about Mark Driscoll's banned church planting video here.