Tony Campolo is a gifted communicator. He had some great things to say in his two talks. However, I fear that his gospel is different from the Biblical gospel. I believe in doing justice and feeding the poor and I'm thankful to God for Christians who are doing something about it. It seems that for Campolo the gospel is 'being Jesus to people'. Campolo rightly affirms that the gospel is about the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15) but neglected to mention that people need to 'repent and believe the good news'. At one point he said that "teenagers don't need to be saved from sin, but given a deep passion".

At the 2006 Reform and Resurge Conference, Tim Keller did a marvellous job at both explaining the gospel and doing justice. It's not one or the other. Preach the gospel of Jesus' death for sins AND do justice.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving, #6 - Josh Griffin Podcast, #7 - Tim Hawkins and trusting God, #8 – The danger of assumptions, #9 – Forge and the emerging church, #10 – The Skit Guys, #11 – Duffy Robbins.

Duffy Robbins spoke at general sessions 2 and 5. In his first talk he spoke from Philippians 2:5-11 on Authentic Passion. Jesus' passion was a little bit irrational (v6), excessive (v7) and costly (v8). Youth Pastor's are called to authentic passion and Jesus is the model of that passion.

In his final talk he spoke from Psalm 46: Be still and know that I am God. He helpfully showed the violent context of the Psalm, and yet the response of being still and knowing that God is in control. It was a great passage with which to finish the conference.

Duffy is a gifted communicator. Unlike some others at the conference, Duffy opened the Bible, and spent time explaining the Bible. His insights were refreshing and stories amusing.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving, #6 - Josh Griffin Podcast, #7 - Tim Hawkins and trusting God, #8 – The danger of assumptions, #9 – Forge and the emerging church, #10 – The Skit Guys.

The Skit Guys are funny. Understatement. The skit guys are very very funny. They have done some hilarious skits at each of the main sessions. On Thursday morning I went to their workshop on using drama and skits in youth group. It was very helpful in thinking how to do it well.

Last night they did a show from 930-11pm. It was awesome! I literally fell off my chair at one point. We had sore stomachs by the end of the show. They do a great job of having lots of fun on-stage, but they still manage to illustrate stories or themes from the Bible as well as encouraging youth ministers in their work.

Before last nights main session I recorded a special episode of On the Poddy with them. It was fun. Check it out here.

Are you an Aussie? Do you use skits and drama much in your youth ministry?

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving, #6 - Josh Griffin Podcast, #7 - Tim Hawkins and trusting God, #8 – The danger of assumptions, #9 – Forge and the emerging church.

This afternoon I went to a seminar on the emerging missional church. It was run by Tim Hein from the Forge network in Melbourne. I'm quite well read on the emerging church in the US but need to do more work in thinking through what it looks like in the Australian context.

While I disagreed with a number of things that were said, I was heartened to hear that Forge aren't at the extreme left of the emerging church. I don't think that Tim has sold out on the gospel. I would like to continue to interact with them on how to best engage with culture.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving, #6 - Josh Griffin Podcast, #7 - Tim Hawkins and trusting God, #8 – The danger of assumptions.

The cross of Jesus is the central point of Christian theology. The cross of Jesus is central to the gospel. Jesus dead, buried, risen and appeared is a summary of the gospel that Paul preached from 1 Corinthians 15.

While I don’t think that a pastor’s conference is the forum for an evangelistic rally, I feel disappointed how often I’ve heard the gospel of Jesus’ death for sins articulated. The cross of Christ is the starting point for everything in Christian life, theology and ministry.

The music has focused more on the doctrine of God than the doctrine of Christ. I want to sing and affirm the marvellous truths about God that we’ve sung, but feel that the conference has been lacking in cross-centred, Christ-exalting songs.

There is an incredible danger in assuming the gospel. The gospel is only ever one generation from being lost if we continue to assume it and not effectively pass it on. A pastor's conference is the place where the gospel needs to keep being clearly proclaimed in order for our ministries to continue to keep the main thing the main thing.

"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel..." 2 Tim 2:8

Yesterday Tim Hawkins spoke in the main session in the morning and in a workshop on the youth worker and marriage in the arvo. Both were very helpful.

The morning talk was very challenging. We looked at Jeremiah 17 and reflected on trusting in God vs trusting in ourselves and the consequences of each. A check point that Tim had was "do you spend more time planning your programs for the teenagers you're trying to reach or praying for the teenagers you are trying to reach."

I have been convicted on day one and two on trusting not in myself and my own strength but to trust in God. This is shown in my prayerlessness.

It would have been helpful to talk about the cross and trusting in the work of Jesus on the cross more specifically than Tim did. 1) It ought to be central to all that we do. 2) It's a distinctive of evangelical theology. 3) Tim is an evangelical in a context where there are people who aren't.
---
Tim and Karen spoke in the arvo about marriage and their context. It was encouraging. Everyone has difficulties in their marriage. Christian workers have unique difficulties. While men and women are different and sinners (therefore there will always be struggles), I need to make sure that I'm married to my wife and not my ministry.

Tim Launched a new book yesterday: Disciples who will last

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving, #6 - Josh Griffin Podcast.

CCECYOUTH has a weekly Podcast. I did a special interview on the Gold Coast with Internet Superstar: JOSH GRIFFIN. He has a blog, podcast, myspace page and youtube channel. We talk about safety on the internet and other stuff. Good times.

www.simplyjosh.com
www.simplyyouthministry.com
www.myspace.com/griffinjosh
www.youtube.com/joshgriffin

www.ccecyouth.com
ccecyouth@gmail.com

RSS address: http://ccecyouth.podomatic.com/rss2.xml (subscribe with iTunes)

Download

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace, #5 - Thanksgiving.

Observation: Americans are good at giving thanks. Culturally they have a day set aside each year to express thanksgiving and it seems that they are much better at acknowledging people in ministry than we are in Australia. Josh Griffin and The Skit Guys are both good at simply saying 'thank you' to youth pastors and volunteers for the work they do in loving teenagers and loving Jesus.

Is it trite? I don't think so. I think we have much to learn from the Americans in how to show our thankfulness to people for their work - and ultimately God for his work.

Shout out to CCECYOUTH leaders. Thanks for your work with Central Coast teenagers - I am truly thankful to God for the way you share the gospel of Jesus and your lives with them.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin, #4 - My Place on MySpace.

New record for September: 7.5 hours of sleep!! Glorious! This morning Josh Griffin ran a seminar on the internet, social networking and teenagers. I'm running some similar things early next year - so it's good to rip his ideas! Here's some:

To protect yourself on line you must…

1. Stranger-protect your profile
2. Limit the use of personal information online
3. Open up to parents and accountability
4. Regularly clean-up your profile
5. Only befriend real-life friends
6. Don’t talk to strangers
7. Report red flags to the proper channels
8. Take a few minutes and clean it up
9. Move the computer to a public space

6 Key to remember

1. What you post is like a billboard along the information superhighway
2. It is quite possible you are being lied to
3. People say things online they would never say in real life
4. What you post is permanent
5. Don’t be afraid of “shoulder surfing”
6. The internet is as safe as you want it to be

To get people to your website

• Content
• Community
• Current

Stay tuned for a special episode of On the Poddy with Josh.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here, #3 - Josh Griffin.

Today was a professional development day. I spent the day with Josh Griffin. He's a good guy (and famous blogger). The workshop was called: Your first two years in youth ministry. While I was familiar with lots of the ideas he presented, having read lots of the gear that has come from Doug Fields and the Simply Youth Ministry crew, it was a very encouraging day.

It was good fun. I won a prize with an sms competition (yesssss!). Three statements stood out to me and were very timely:

• A healthy youth ministry requires leaders to depend on God’s power
• A healthy youth ministry requires leaders who recognise they can never do enough… but God can.
• Ministry never ends… believe you can’t do it all

It was also good to chat to Josh over some Seafood noodles at lunch about some specific questions to do with our ministry.

Good times. Thanks Josh.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging; #2 - Getting here.

I like to think of myself as a city-slicker. Let's be honest. I'm really just a country-bumpkin! Here are two sms' I sent to Row on my way here:

• Conversation #1. "Excuse me sir you seem to look a little lost"...."Um can you tell me how I check in".
• I'm on the bus. I thought we were going the wrong way until I realised the ocean was on the right hand side

I made it to the Gold Coast. I made it alive. And I even made it on time! However... I came without having booked any accommodation. God provided. Thanks to Andy, Cameron, Ron, Chris and James for letting me bunk in with them. Good times.

NYMC Live Blog: #1 - Live Blogging

I'm at the National Youth Ministry Convention 2007. If I get a chance I'll do some 'live-blogging' of some of the gear. (Click here for some live blogging I did at a youth convention at the start of the year)

Below is part of an email I just sent to a friend asking some questions about youth and what makes them tick.

Here are some posts of mine that quickly come to mind reflecting on something of youth culture:

• Tim's Take on Terrigal Teenagers
• What the Central Coast needs
• Erina Fair & Central Coast Culture
• Engaging with culture
• Gen Y SMS
• The Gospel and Teenage Culture (this links to a talk)
• Teenagers and Sex - smh (there's a 15 year old dude who summarises the 3 big issues for teenagers: relationships, alcohol and technology - I tend to agree with him... They are very good observations.)
  

I'm sure there's more posts that are relevant... But that's a good start.

I think that it would be profitable to spend some time just observing your local youth culture. You can do this by simply watching them at the shopping centres, skateparks or where ever they are hanging out. It's also profitable to ask them what makes them tick, what they care about, who they are etc...

Saddleback do the whole 'Saddleback Sam' thing - basically they draw (and describe) a picture of the typical person in their culture and context. We've done this before and it's very helpful! In the end the observations you make will be generalisations - but nonetheless a helpful activity in understanding the culture you're reaching.

Here's a couple of websites that might be helpful:

• http://www.ypulse.com/ - "Ypulse is an independent blog for teen/youth media and marketing professionals providing news, commentary and resources on commercial teen media for teens (teen magazines, websites), entertainment for teens (movies, games, television, music), technology used by teens (cell phones, instant messaging, SMS), the news media's desire to attract teens (newspapers, cable news), marketing and advertising (targeting the teen market) and civic youth media (highlighting organizations' efforts at promoting youth voices in media)."
• http://www.youthfacts.com.au/ - "This site provides facts and statistics about Australia's youth - how many there are, what they do and what they're like. The site is for anyone needing quick access to data about young people."

I just found a whole bunch of my youth posts that I compiled into the one place.

If you've read this far - please leave a comment with your favourite Australian animal.

Guessing comp - name the famous person in the above pic... warm fuzzy to the first correct answer.

This gold nugget is from John Anderson's final Parliamentary speech:

Dawkins and Hitchins et al would have us believe that the problem is that we have not been secular enough. They would say that we ought to be more secular. As I see it, we gave secularism a great run in the 20th century. We tried atheistic communism and got 60 million dead in Russia and we got the killing fields of Pol Pot—and goodness only knows how many dead in China. We tried atheistic right-wing fascism in Germany and beyond and got the gas chambers and another 60 million dead. Today we are not so arrogant; we are beginning to question again. But I would urge that we learn the lessons of history when we seek out and respond to the truth. When we do not sit on the fence, we in fact will find that truth is available to us. I deeply and sincerely believe that. I think if Wilberforce were here today he would say, ‘Your society is not so different to the one that I have been active in, and the great truth remains,’—challenging us that the central figure in history said to us: ‘There is such a thing as the truth, and I am it and the way to God is through me.’ I put that challenge there. We are free to respond either way, but I say that as a society we should no longer go on ignoring it. We can no longer go on skirting around it, either as individuals or collectively.

(h/t craigS)

Zenhabits identifies 3 main problems with exercise habits: too difficult; too many goals; not enough motivation. So here are the 4 simple steps:

1. Set one easy, specific, measurable goal
2. Log it daily
3. Report to others
4. Add motivation as needed

Check out the full article. (h/t lifehacker)

Check out Sam's ideas on running an evangelistic youth event at the youth vanguard.

Another sweet intro video from mars hill.

Breakie?
Brekky?
Breaky?
Brekkie?
Breky?
Breci?

HAPPY TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!!! Avast, me hearties!

Aaron has some good stuff to say.

www.jimcollins.com is a fantastic resource. Jim's book Good to great leadership is very good - and this site has some great tools to think through leadership.

One of Jim's observations of great business (and social sector) leaders is not only a will and drive for the cause but a character of humility. A level 5 leader:

"Builds enduring greatness through a blend of greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will."

This is pretty sweet.

Sarti Design have just released volume 4 of their backgrounds. Go buy them... or download the 15 free samples that they offer. I haven't yet bought any background packs (although a set have been bought for our nitechurch and youth group) but I have close to 300 backgrounds that have been legitimately downloaded for free.

There's some more freebies here, here and here. Got any more?

This is from the sun-herald. (Coasties might recognise one of the students in the photo). The strategy doesn't seem to work for non-Christian teenagers - and for Christian teenagers the pledge to sexual purity ought to be driven by obedience to God and trusting that He knows what's best rather than the dangers of premarital sex. Only the gospel of Jesus' death & resurrection can bring lasting change.

Gotye is one of my favourite artists at the moment. You can listen to his gear here. Watch his Live at the Wireless performances on JTV - incredible!

The above film-clip was shot on a digital stills camera taking over 10,000 stills to make it. Very cool.

Do you dig it?

www.youthministry.com have recently relaunched their site. It's much better looking and more usable.

Also over on The Youth Vanguard we have a new feature in the right column. I've set up an RSS feed with youth ministry websites that I stumble upon. Here is the feed if you want to subscribe.

Got any good youth ministry links? Either for youth or youth leaders?

Check out saturdayEV.com for a great answer to the above question.

Adoption. We who were once not a people have been adopted by the creator of the universe. Christians are now sons of God and Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. John Piper talks about adoption being at the heart of the gospel and his church are loud advocates theologically, politically and practically in the realm of human adoption. Their stance on adoption makes sense considering their stance on abortion. I can't remember where I read it or heard it (it was in one of the sermons or articles on desiringGod.org), but there are some 80 families that have adopted Children in the church that Piper pastors. That's exciting.

I'm the youth ministry champion in our church. I wonder if part of championing youth ministry and reaching out to teenagers on the Central Coast involves adopting teenagers. Teenagers are the hardest children to find families willing to adopt... there are many issues with adopting teenagers... and from what I understand it's more likely for them to be fostered as opposed to adopted.

It would be important that the teenager being fostered is younger than the youngest child in that family. I also think that the fail rate is high in fostering teenagers. So expectations and difficulties would need to be realistically communicated to potential families. It would take special parents to pull this off. I would love to see this start happening in our church. It would be great way to love teenagers who need to be loved and God-willing we'd see teenagers come to know Jesus who has loved them supremely in his death for their sins.

Do you know of any churches that are actively involved in encouraging families to adopt/foster teenagers? Any other thoughts?

PRAYER FRIDAY:

• Pray that lost Central Coast teenagers would be found.
  
• Thank God for 11 years of CCEC. Big party tonight!
  
• Working on a 5 year plan for ccecyouth. Pray that lives will keep being changed by the goodnews of Jesus.
  

Well known J-walk writer Jackson Stace, has begun a new blog. Check out the Grafted Branch.

His new album has just come out. It's the feature album on the j's this week. I like his music, but Kanye could be the captain of "Team Talk It Up"!

I'm excited. I think I've found a book that will probably make it into my top 10 books to give to teenagers. It's called Battles Christians Face and it's written by Vaughan Roberts. I love Roberts' writing. He writes profound truths in an incredibly readable way. His books are suitable for all Christians but are very accessible to teenagers.

I've only skimmed it so far... and might write a short blurb after each chapter. The 8 chapters are:

• Image
• Lust
• Guilt
• Doubt
• Depression
• Pride
• Homosexuality
• Keeping Spiritually Fresh

There are large chunks of scripture and many Bible references throughout. Stay tuned for more...

Can't wait... find it here or here

The Harry Potter Issue

Click here to download simple format (viewable on screen)

Click here to download fancy booklet (not for the faint hearted)

Click here to view and discuss articles online - more will be added over the next week

Guest Authors include: Graeme Goldsworthy, Rowena Miers, Daniel Godden

+ New j-walk team writer: Michelle Watt

"This site provides facts and statistics about Australia's youth - how many there are, what they do and what they're like. The site is for anyone needing quick access to data about young people."

#1, #2, #3, #4 and now #5. Here are some of the latest search terms to find eternalweightofglory. If you've come here looking for Paul Potts nude... sorry to disappoint! Jesus won't. Check him out. Note to the people looking for clip art... don't!

• eternal weight of glory blogspot
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From CreativeYMK. Looks good. Clever name.

Lifehacker is a website that helps with life hacks and productivity. I subscribe to the RSS feed. They have up to 20 new items per day. It wouldn't be productive for me to read them all! I scan the titles of each post... and every couple of days I may read one or two of interest. Here are two that I've read recently:

• How and Why to Power Nap
• Give Constructive Criticism

Good times over the weekend. Above is a short video from the first session. Stay tuned for more revolution* content.

Thanks for praying. Pray for our conference this weekend - coast youth REVOLUTION

• Thank God for so many people willing to serve
  
• Pray for the speakers (Paul, Andrew and me)
• Pray that Christian teenagers will be challenged to live radically in response to the good news of Jesus
• Pray that non-Christian teenagers will turn and put their trust in Jesus.

If you've got a bunch of teenagers and want to bring them to the conference for a day... feel free.

... start to the season by the Mariners!

Rd3 Queensland Roar 0 Central Coast Mariners 1
Rd2 Central Coast Mariners 3 Wellington Phoenix 0
Rd1 Sydney FC 0 Central Coast Mariners 1

Coast Youth Radio is incredible!! Check it out here...

We tackle the Big Issues in Big Ways.

• Casual jobs
• Alcohol
• Music
• Boredom.

...challenge for young Christians in the next 10 years. (Taken from the Jan_Feb_07 print issue of relevant magazine)

There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are become more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.

Find out more about Mark Driscoll here and here.

Below is some info about a conference we are hosting this coming weekend. You are more that welcome to attend! coast youth REVOLUTION is all about living radically in response to the good news of Jesus.

You don't have to be from the Central Coast to attend! If you're planning on coming - come! If you're bringing a group that needs somewhere to sleep on the Friday (and Saturday if need be) contact ccecyouth@gmail.com and we'll organise billets.

haven't read it yet... but look forward to it

CCECYOUTH has a 5 pronged evangelism strategy. I'm currently re-working some of our strategy material. But at the moment, here's a quick sketch of the gear:

• 1) FRIENDSHIP EVANGELISM - We want our teenagers to know the gospel, seek to live the gospel and share the gospel with their friends in whatever way they can. We equip them in at least 3 ways: Two Ways to Live, The Jesus Bridge, Telling your Jesus Story. The first two tools are more about understanding the gospel than how to share the gospel. The 3rd is about giving your testimony.
  
• 2) FRIDAY'S ARE FRIENDLY - We want any week of youth group to be a good week to bring a friend. We recognise that outsiders are present each week - we want to present the good news of Jesus every week. We also don't want to use insider language and jokes all the time - we want to speak about Jesus often and clearly and in a way that's not boring. Friday's should be fun!
  
• 3) DOUBLE UP ONCE A TERM - While any week is a good week to bring a friend - one night a term we have a night where the talk is specifically geared toward someone who doesn't know Jesus. The aim is to double our numbers on this night. We haven't yet done that, but this year there have been many non-Christian teens come on those nights.
  
• 4) FOLLOW-UP SMALL GROUP - We've got 2 follow-up courses called simplyJESUS. The junior youth material is similar to Tim Hawkin's Discovering Jesus (God, Man, Jesus, Jesus' death, Our response). The senior youth material is based around the two ways to live structure.
  
• 5) WEEK LONG MISSION - Currently we run a week long program in January - this is a heightened period of bringing friends along to events that we put on for juniors and seniors. The juniors program runs closely with our family mission in the mornings. Seniors runs a bit more independently in the evenings at a local hip youth centre (very cool space!).
  

What do you think? Would love to hear some feedback as I rework all this stuff.

In the end - we want our teenagers captured by Jesus. That honours him. And they are going to be far more effective at evangelising their peers than I can be by handing out flyers in the local high schools. (Note to self - get rid of Christian school so there are more Christians in gov't schools!)

If you don't know what I mean by the gospel... check out this.

I'm growing in my conviction that it's all about Jesus. I've been thinking lately about what it means to have a cross-centred life and to run a cross-centred ministry. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 speaks of what is of first importance. What? Jesus died for our sins. He was definitely dead. He rose again. He definitely rose again.

Jesus and his death on the cross is central to what Christians believe and ought to be central to what we proclaim, central to who we are and what we do.

I've recently discovered Of First Importance (h/t JT). Each day they post a quote that is "to help you live in the good of the gospel". (Get it on RSS, get it via email.)

More info on Jesus here and here.

In case you didn't realise - the pic is a still I took while checking out the moon the other night. It compliments my video quite well (by the way it's now had more than 1700 hits on youtube!) Email me for a better quality print...

Joshua Harris has said some great things about Humble Orthodoxy. Here's his latest. Not sure on what Humble Orthodoxy is? Listen or watch to find out more.

I think about the truth often and reflect on the need to tell the truth in love. Humble Orthodoxy is a message that Sydney Evangelicalism (of which as part of the greater metro region - I consider myself a part) desperately needs to hear. If God has graciously revealed the truth to you, don't be arrogant with it... but in humility speak the truth in love.

Desiring God had a major overhaul a year ago. They've just posted some of the stats from the past year: it includes 6.5 million page views per month and 600,000 sermons downloaded or streamed. John Piper is growing in his influence in evangelicalism. 1) His theology is gold! He seeks to exalt Jesus in his life and ministry. 2) He has 27 years worth of sermons freely available.