Crazy BMX

This is a pretty cool bmx video. Have a look.

Clever Church Ideas

I'm a big fan of creche in church. But it has many minor teething problems. For instance if a baby is asleep and then starts crying- what happens? If the mum is there full time then there isn't much point-better to have a soundproof room. Or does the creche person leave the kids and go get the mum?
I saw a clever solution used at my brother's church in the netherlands (attendance of 800 or so). They have a Baby sleep room next to creche area and every child/parent is assigned a number. When the baby starts crying the number is flashed in the bottom corner of the big screen and mum or dad knows to come collect/soothe/feed the baby. Simple little trick that helps parents get more out of the sermon/service.
What little tricks does your church use?

How great is our God- World edition

I'm a sucker for songs i know sung in other people's languages. I love when a show like Les Mis has a anniversary special and they get Jean Valjeans from all over the world to sing a verse from all their languages. I love hearing church songs in other languages. It is a great reminder of how Christianity isn't just my language or country/ethnic group.

This song is one of my favourites. And to hear it sung with Chris Tomlin AND people from all around the world: I find it revitalizes me. It encourages me. And gives that great people of every nation, every tongue worshiping God.

WARNING: Presbyterians there is much hand raising and repeating that happens :-)

I'm sick of it...

Veggie Tales: “Morality, not Christianity”

Found a fascinating article on Facebook. It is about Veggie tales creator Phil Vischer from 2011. He says some fascinating things about the whole Christian morality that we teach children. So often without having Jesus/Christianity Centrally in the story.

  I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, ‘Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,’ or, ‘Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!’ But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality. American Christian[s]… are drinking a cocktail that’s a mix of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream, and the gospel. And we’ve intertwined them so completely that we can’t tell them apart anymore.
Our gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good so God will make all your dreams come true. It’s the Oprah god… We’ve completely taken this Disney notion of ‘when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true’ and melded that with faith and come up with something completely different. 
There’s something wrong in a culture that preaches nothing is more sacred than your dream. I mean, we walk away from marriages to follow our dreams. We abandon children to follow our dreams. We hurt people in the name of our dreams, which as a Christian is just preposterous. ["It's Not About the Dream," WORLD magazine, Sep 24, 2011, 57-58]
  Have a read here
I guess in my role as chaplain it is a massive trap which I have fallen into and am looking to find that balance. How about you. I'd love to hear about your traps and more importantly how you overcome them.

Final Countdown & Phantom of the Opera - orchestra version with Waldemar...

What is Your Role in Bible Translation? (Higher Definition)

Fishing Commercial Blooper Reel

Well I thought I had seen it all but I hadn't. Here are the bloopers from a fishing advertising guy. Gold. Now Aaran Johnstone how many of these have you done? ;-)

The Axis of Awesome: How to Write a Love Song

An Unexpected Briefing #airnzhobbit

First World Problems Anthem

Chuck Norris hears his own facts...

Newsboys - The League of Incredible Vegetables

What you get when you cross the newsboys with VegieTales

MacGyver and the new Mercedes-Benz Citan

He's needed again! MacGyver may have retired from life as a secret agent to go it alone as a handyman, but he cannot escape his past. In the action-packed advert and three brand-new MacGyver episodes, the hero of the 1980s and 1990s has once again found himself caught up in the struggle between good and evil.

Train - 50 Ways To Say Goodbye

Quick question: Does anyone else hear "Past the point of no return" from Phantom in the verses?

How to dance to dubstep -Whilest being slain in the Spirit

Covers better than the original.

I love covers that are better (in my opinion) than the original, or if the artist isn't afraid to try something new with the song. Recently I was introduced to Alex Boye who is a singer in the Mormon Tabanacle Choir. Here are 2 covers which I think are pretty cool. Both done with other people. What covers do you like better than the original?

The Avengers Intro - Firefly Style

A call to Man up.

Interesting song I found promoting a Conference in the US which is to encourage young men- especially those into Hip hop to "Man up". Quite an interesting song and good to hear. My favourite verse from the song is sung by Andy Mineo

Being a man got nothing to do with age. You can be a boy till the day you
Lay in your grave. None of us behave like the image of who were made, cause
We've fallen away it's better known as depraved. Running from
Responsibility really we crave the easy way out of places that call us to
Pull our weight. Man there going through everyday decisions are made, 
Responding to the call God's giving em from the... 


Quite insightful and something we see all around us...
Full Lyrics below


All:
MAN UP! 

Lecrae:
Momma want some more Obama in me the hood want PAC hip hop wanna see the
Common in me. And since this a senseless contradiction I end up a misfit tryina fit In. This ends when I stand up and see the hands of the standard: holy is
The lamb huh(holy is the lamb) Now we holding you to man up cause we were made
In his image start looking at what you came from. 

KB:
Right after Adam every atom in our anatomy had to make adamant after what
Adonai is against. Let me take you back to the tree in Eden, if you read it you'll see that eve was deceived but Adam is the one who let it in.(Man up) Standing Leading no, we ain't leading we (Bump that) Basically little boys with
Muscles and a mustache! The femininity, we need a remedy, the God-Man, a
100 percent (strength) masculinity 

Trip Lee:
Where the men at, seems like they all lost, none of them are on the scene, 
Seems like they died off. They extinct but my dream is to rise up, we
Chasing the prize of the King the divine boss, but we fell away, now we
UnGodly  we lose and we really got the blues like Navi, I wanna celebrate the dudes that's beside me fellas lets elevate we through with the lobby
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/0-9/116_clique/man_up_anthem.html ]
Tedashii:
Go ahead I say boy Get your shine on. and if a sucker try to block you get your 9 home and
What I heard you gotta do to be a man now, stand up for yourself so I took
It in my hands now. And that's the problem man we busy trying to solve it
All the while we walking dead man somebody bring the coffin, voice drop
Peach fuzz now you think that your a man cause you feeling yourself you
Need to man up!  

Sho Baraka:
Sex and models, and tipping bottles back a pile of excuses right next to
Your bottle caps. A rolodex filled with names that you aim to
Please next to the stack of money, building up a heart of greed. Ice on his
Neck give the jokers a cold shoulder, you drunk off pride plus you loving
The hangover. You gotta whole lotta stuff that won't amount to gain life
Will never make sense cause you never made change

PRo:
You got it Twisted sick like a fever, little man live to stack dough
Keebler. Man up! Get up out of the treehouse leave the cookies alone it's
Time to eat meat now. Trying to show you a new way to live now, no charge
You can call it a freestyle. without Christ you know how your man is, you
A boy in a mans body like Tom Hanks in BIG.

Andy Mineo:
Being a man got nothing to do with age. You can be a boy till the day you
Lay in your grave. None of us behave like the image of who were made, cause
We've fallen away it's better known as depraved. Running from
Responsibility really we crave the easy way out of places that call us to
Pull our weight. Man there going through everyday decisions are made, 
Responding to the call God's giving em from the... 

All:
Man Up! 
Andy:
Let the process begin, separate the boys from the men
All:
Man Up! 
Andy:
It-it-it don't matter how you started, partner, it's about how you end
All:
Man Up! 
Andy:
Jesus is the model follow us we gon' follow him
All:
Man Up!  
Andy:
We-we the last of a dying breed it's time that we 

All:
MAN UP!  

Time consuming.

I've enjoyed reading "The song of Ice and Fire" book series. In case you haven't heard HBO has turned the books into a TV series called "A game of thrones" This has taken off massively with the second season going now. I can't really recommend the series as it has lot of nudity and sex and many other wrong things with it (fastforward button is key) but the opening sequence is awesome. Every episode it sets the scene for where everything happens in the episode. So it changes every week depending on where the action is. Some one had a guess what the season two opening scene would be and made a lego stop motion attempt at this. It is very cool though the Nintendo style music annoys me





Note: probably one of the things I do enjoy most about the original is the music so Aaran watch this at home where you can enjoy the sound- not at work ;-)