I'll be doing some multimedia training at church on Saturday 10 Feb from 9 - 11. The training will cover projector and laptop setup, dual screen setup and use, using powerpoint (single and dual screen) and using opensong. We'll see what we can do to come up with some "best practices" so that this job is fun and not stressful!

The next Connect is at John's place on Thursday, August 10th, looking at a series on the Emerging Church by Brian McLaren. Gavin sent this link saying, "Looking at the proposed topic at hand, for those that would be interested in a biblical counter-view to McClaren and this movement, here is a well-worked response by DA Carson..."

A few thoughts on this:
- Criticism of the emerging church is nothing new; there are plenty anti- sites and articles, but Carson's is the first book
- Carson wrote his book without visiting an emerging church or speaking with a single emerging church leader. Not that he's necessarily wrong in his analysis, but these are questions others have correctly raised.
- A response to Carson's book is here.
- The official Emergent response is here

Comments invited here!

The next Connect meeting is taking place at John's place at 9. I can't make it but would love some feedback, so I've sent an email to everyone who's going to be there asking them to post something on this site. The email serves a 2nd purpose: does anyone from Connect actually visit here?! I'd love for any of you guys to write here - just drop me an email and I'll let you know how (it's easy).

Just a brief intro on what Thursday will be about:
 
“There is no doubt that leadership matters! Good leadership impacts favorably on your ministries effectiveness and poor leadership hampers the effectiveness of your ministry. No doubt you all know this. The problem however is that there is so much written and said concerning leadership that it is difficult to discern the ‘bumf’ from the good stuff. Often we are left with an incomplete picture of what true leadership looks like. On Thursday we will be looking at a practical leadership model that can help you make sense of leadership and also help clarify your priorities and simplify your decision-making.
 
Come prepared to talk leadership…”

Dear Friends

I actually am wanting to use one of the songs on the new Casting
Crowns album as this week's thort. When I heard the album for the
first time, this song jumped out at me as the 'If we are the body'
kind of equivalent in terms of punchy message and gut-grabbing
lyrics... not so much as a written song, but when you link it to the
truth behind it and how many people live lives that are portrayed in
the song, then it really hits home and strikes me deeply.

In Matthew 23 Jesus 'goes off' at the Pharisees in a comprehesive
list of seven woes that is not complimentary to say the least. He
launches an attack on them for various things but the running theme
seems to be hypocracy - appearing to be one thing on the outside and
yet being totally different on the inside.

It is quite a violent and brutal vocal attack and really seems to be
spurred on with great anger, but at the end of it all there is this
verse:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those
sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children
together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were
not willing."

It seems almost as if Jesus has done an about take and as angry as
He is about the hypocracy and double standards and burdens that the
Pharisees have placed upon the people, His true heart comes through.
His heart of compassion. Even worse to Him than the fact that people
are not being real, is the consequence of that. He is unable to help
them.

I think, as the song below suggests, that this kind of mentality is
seriously prevalent in the church today. And not in the prideful,
oppressive way of the Pharisees so much (altho sadly, that does
exist as well in various leaders in the church suffering from
insecurity, pride amongst other things) but just in hurting people
feeling like they are not allowed to show it.

And I believe it hurts God. It definitely hurts those people who are
doing it. And those of us wanting to be there for those doing it:

Technorati Tags: christian, internet, music, newsletter, brettfish

Want to know how what parts to get to set up your own wireless network? The nice people at Simply Youth Ministry have written an article which does exactly that.

Technorati Tags: internet, networking

I was doing multimedia at church last night - which right now means just projecting song words during worship. My software of choice is OpenSong, which is open source software written specifically for churches (plus it imports music directly from CCLI but until they get it working in South Africa we're stuck in the 3rd world). Sarah lent me her laptop for the service, which was great. I had lots of time pressure since we only arrived back from our weekend in the Berg at 5, and church started at 7. I got there at 10 to 7; Merv helped set up the projector (thanks Merv!!!) and Sarah Andrews helped me add in the songs that weren't already there.

Luckily I was working on a PC running Windows XP.

For some reason the PC didn't pick up the projector plugged into it. Weird. Strange. Merv's simple solution was to reboot the PC with the projector plugged in. Simple enough. (Unfortunately the service had already started and I was trying to get this working...as the first worship song started).

So I rebooted. Time was ticking. 2 minutes later I logged in, but dual screen still didn't work. Luckily Frank came up to me and showed me the simple process of getting dual screen working. All I had to do was press Function-F5 (or F3 or F8 - I'm not really sure which) then right-click on the desktop, go to properties, and click on the displays tab. Then I had to select the second screen, click "extend my Windows desktop onto this display" and it'll work. Which it did.

So simple - why didn't I think of that?!

And so we were good to go. My, how I laugh at my friends who use Macs. All they have to do is plug in the projector and it works. They're funny and obviously not as clever as they think they are.

Technorati Tags: christian, multimedia, opensong, windows

Dear Friends

I have just returned from a really amazing weekend at a youth
conference in Johannesburg called the Change Agents conference -
focusing on working with young people who are involved in the
process of being Agents of Change in their communities and schools
and churches. It was a really enjoyable weekend - I emcee'd the
event (Argus Cycle Tour pink tights and all) and presented a
workshop and so really got a chance to meet a lot of the people
there which was great.

There was a huge multi-cultural mix of people attending the
conference and the worship times where people just really expressed
their passion for God in a way I have not been around for a while
was really refreshing. I really felt connected to God and just felt
the freedom of being able to worship God both in a 'going off' and
in a 'reflective/quieter awareness of Him' way and it was amazing!
There are talks in progress lookng at seeing a regional Change
Agents conference happening in Cape Town next year so that is quite
exciting.

I got a lot out of the talks and the workshop that I attended (which
was on mentoring) and I'm sure some of that stuff will be expressed
thru TFTW over the next little while and I hope it will challenge
and encourage you. This week's thort is very similiar to some of the
stuff from last week, but it was some of the key stuff that I was
again challenged about at this conference and so just may be
something God is wanting to stress.

Trust you are doing well and growing in your relationship with God,
whether it is feeling good or bad at the moment. He is there and He
knows!

May God continue to bless you as you are Faithful In Serving Him
love brett FISH anderson and No_bob

"Instead of a bicycle built for two, what about no kinds of bicycles
at all for anybody, anymore? There, are you happy now?"

[Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy - to view more of these inspirational
quotes check out the Jack Handy Link on www.brettfish.com]

From larknews.com for a little bit of Church Growth humour:



    PEORIA, Ill. — The "Bigger Church, Bigger Impact" conference wrapped on Friday, leaving participants feeling drained and dejected.
    "I came here thinking my church was doing all right. Now I see we're so dinky and dumb, it's not even funny," says pastor Steve Irvine of Reno, Nev., who went to his hotel room and cried after each session.
    Several faith-filled conference speakers shared how they grew their churches to tens of thousands of members with various ministry techniques. In the foyer afterward, many participants wore tight grins. Some broke down on the spot.
    After paying $400 to attend the conference, pastor Ryan Delacourt of Eugene, Ore., left feeling "about three tons worse" than when he came.
    "I don't know why I go to these things," he says, noting that his church has been trying to break the 100-member mark for twelve years.
    After the conference some pastors hit the local Cracker Barrel restaurant to commiserate. Some vowed not to return.
    "If I want to be this depressed again, I'll rent Apocalypse Now, or read my e-mails," quipped one.

(thanks to Brett Anderson for posting this in his Thort 4 the week - and letting me use it here)

The fire of belief

The book I am going to quote is called 'Carpe Jugulum' (seize the
throat) by Terry Pratchett and it's naturally a story about vampires. The two
characters in this passage are Granny Weatherwax who is a witch and
Mister Oats who is a young priest of a god called Om - he has just
started out as a priest and is quite nervous and just trying to do
the right thing. This conversation takes place between the two of
them and for me it is one of the strongest commentaries on
Christianity I've ever read:

Justin started off with a picture from the Sunday Times which was going along the "All truth is relative" path. Picture of a kid in a garden, and all of the animals and insects which looked at him only saw a piece of them - "their truth." The snake saw his arm ("Look, a branch!") the bird saw his hair (a birds nest) etc etc. Question: what right does the bird have to tell the snake what the truth is? Or for another human (who sees the whole of the boy) to tell the snake what to believe? (Yes, we've just jumped into religion/truth/modernism vs postmodernism).

Here are my notes from Ed's talk (yes, the laptop is useful for something and no I wasn't playing games). I haven't edited them well as they were written as memory joggers. Hopefully makes a bit of sense still...

Welcome to the ::Connect:: blog! John Abrahamse describes Connect as:

We enjoy a Breakfast together, have a time where different people will each month cover a relevant topic which will also be discussed in small groups. The morning will end at 1pm where you are welcome to stay for lunch and then spend some time in solitude at our training center.

I attended the 2nd Connect meeting yesterday at John's farm in Mpumulanga - my sister phoned me just after 1 and I was able to say, "Hey, guess where I am?!" Ed Ramsami and Justin Tamlin presented some thoughts on Modernism and Postmodernism and how they affect ministry today - and I said I'd set up this blog so we can keep the conversation going. Anyone can write comments and if others would like to post, just drop me a line and I'll see to it. As far as the core values of Connect go, they are:

1. Honesty
2. Confidentiality
3. This forum is not a time to 'attack' Pastors, Leadership or other organisations.
4. We have a responsibility to know and understand that there is always two sides to a story.
5. Input is to be valued.
6. Value other people and other ministries.
7. A multicultural, inter-denominational, sexually diverse group.
8. Invite outside speakers.
9. This is a platform to help, not to compete.
10. The facilitator to bring conversation to focus point.

You are invited to attend these sessions and also keep the conversation going by posting thoughts etc here.

The meeting dates for the rest of the year are:

Church growth is arguably the biggest single buzzword in the lives of most churches. There is hardly a church that has no declared a commitment to church growth; although that commitment may be expressed in various ways. However, the most disturbing aspect of these commitments is that almost every one is expressed in a manner that ultimately demonstrates a dependence on human endeavour.

Tonight I'm sitting here and watching the news about the 2nd of 2 major earthquakes to devastate the Malaysian islands and Indian Ocean coastline. I am reminded about many Christian's comments; things like, "I think its God's act of judgment on the Muslims and Hindus on the Continent of Asia. Understand that I'm not saying that God isn't capable of doing that kind of thing... He often does in the scriptures, but when we have the attitude that God is out to punish the rest of the world and we are the ones who are able to sit and enjoy the favor of God no matter what we acting like. Its interesting to note that when God comes and brings His judgment on people in the scriptures it is always against His own people who are living in disobedience. I think we should be looking more at ourselves than anyone to discern God's judgment... but we don't. I didn't hearing anyone suggesting that 9\11 was God's judgment against evils and arrogance of Western Christianity. We place ourselves in a sick position when we suggest we are God's pals and the rest of the world is in trouble. Do we really believe in and fear the power of God? Maybe Christians should read their bibles more and find out what God is really like... just a thought!

I remember when I took the proposal to the guys in the BU to run a camp for young people of all denominations... the reaction I got was quite a shock. The over whelming response was, "How can we let our young people interact with others from different denominations, they will be deceived?" Deceived from what? Your traditional brand of the truth? Your idea of 'the way things should be done'? Your limited view of God... because heaven forbid that these young people are exposed to anyone else's view of God and able to broaden their understanding of Him. They may come back to you with new questions... questions, which your system, your form of truth is unable to answer. Freud was right: the church socializes its young people to only ask the questions that the church can answer. ThatÌs the difference between our form of truth and the Truth; the Truth remains the Truth no matter what the questions posed to it. Any incomplete form of the truth will be shown for just that with a simple, honest question. What would we do if our image of ourselves and our intellect were destroyed, what would we do if we were shown up as less-than-perfect in this modern age of flawless reason and models? That spells death... so lets create a flawless system and brand anyone a heretic who thinks or dares to question outside of it. Love Jesus, not the system. He is the way; Truth and light... stick to Him no matter what it costs you.

A Jewish man:

"I grew up in small town in Indiana. We were the only Jewish family surrounded by Christians. It was a terrible way to grow up. We were never accepted; we were always outsiders. The only contact beyond superficialities was when some of the fundamentalists would tell me I was going to hell; they hoped to convert me. Obviously, they had the opposite effect. I travel a lot, and wherever I go, it seems that Christians are creating in-groups and putting everyone else in out-groups. Of course the Holocaust is the most extreme example of that. ItÌs too bad really, because I've studied Jesus, and I think He was a great Jewish prophet, maybe the greatest who ever lived. But Christianity and Jesus don't seem to have too much in common, as far as I can see."

It always seemed strange to me that whenever I found someone else who was going through the same struggles and questions that I was going through I felt as if I wanted to cry with relief. There is a real in which you feel as if you are crazy; losing your mind when you are the only one questioning in a group of people who seem so sure of something. You keep wondering how people can place their hope and faith in a system that appears to have no integral substance. There have been times of great fear where I have pushed people in conversation to see what I am talking about so I would feel some of that relief but of course in reality they had no idea what I was saying. The fact is there is safety in numbers. I am less afraid of any path I walk if I see at least some walking the same road. There are just times when you need to know you aren't crazy and that there are those who hear you and who resonate with you. Many fears are quieted when you meet when you meet someone on the same road as you...

Aren't fundamentalists just people who have read the bible through a modern era lense and who have drawn conclusions, deductions and 'reasoned arguments' from a book that was never meant to be used in that fashion? The saddest part for these people is not this monumental mistake but rather that they are unwilling to even see that there may be another way to view the scriptures... and even God. These are people who brand thoe wo disagree with them 'liberals', and then in the same breath need to remind us about how terrible it is to be called a 'liberal'. As I recall Luther's view of the scriptures was considered liberal in the extreme! Palegius' views about the will of God and man were considered Liberal. In fact even Jesus was branded a liberal and a heretic for His views and practices as a God-fearing Jew!! So it seems that we 'liberals' are in good company. If a liberal is merely someone who keeps on questioning the status quo in an honest search for the Truth then I pray I am labeled as such until the day I die... no matter how that means the others perceive me.

How arrogant we are! I sat in the funeral of a dear man today and listened to Christians sit and discuss what is in store for eternity for this man? Does God know and love him? Did he pray the good ol' sinners prayer? Is he in the club? Are we really so sure of ourselves that we can classify all the other coinhabitants on the planet as 'others'? I suppose our 'brand' of Christianity is only useful if we convince ourselves, in good modernistic fashion, that we are right and everyone else is misguided and possibly even in danger of their salvation... but we'll decide that for God before the time 'cause we know Him so well!! Of the people who are honestly seeking God in their own way around the globe right now, eah in their own weird and wonderful way, what gives us the rite to think that we are the saved ones? Do we believe that our outward show of good 'evangelical westernism' will save us or do we really believe that Christ died for all that He is quite capable of deciding for Himself who has sought Him honestly and who has not. In fact if seeking the real God is an essential then those of us comfortable in our 'way of doing things' better check our hearts!!! Don't talk of the dead and where you think they are... shut up, and let God worry about that. Look at your own smug heart and do as much honest scrutiny in there as you are willing to do in everyone else around you!

Something I can't stomach in our day and age is that lies have become acceptable to Christians. Of course they would be outraged that I would suggest this, but its true. We have adopted the business practices of the modern which allow us to be Îpolitically correctÌ and say the things that make us look good instead of attempting to give an honest representation of the way things really are. This became very clear to me after my Interview for Ministerial Recognition last year. I was told that I was sabotaged by a pastor who considered me a threat to his conservative viewpoint. And so to justify the outcome three reasons were fabricated: 1)I haven't attended one church for a long enough period of time, 2)I have poor spiritual leadership qualities and 3)I am emotionally unstable. Now not to say that I am without problem or issues... in fact I often consider myself something of a messed up kid... but these reasons made no sense!

Its all about connection. Those moments of rich and vibrant life that pass between people. It can happen between anyone... all it takes is a step from one side... a show of vulnerability from one party. Most of us walk around extremely guarded to the outside world. We interact with people everyday but we never really see them. We go out to do the things we do and avoid having to say too much to anyone. This is the obvious price we have to pay for the Modernistic world we live in. We have become removed and forgotten that we were made for connection with any and all. A few hundred years ago we weren't plagued by the complex insecurities we are today and it would have been normal for people to interact with each other in a meaningful way. What is wrong with us? How far have we fallen? All we can do now is be the crazy ones... the ones who create those moments by being the first to display some level of vulnerability, some kind of warmth, reality and honest reaching. I want more of what we were meant to be and I intend to live my life trying to create that in my own life and hopefully seeing it spill into the lives of others. I've had enough of the shortfalls of modernity... its time to create something new. No doubt it will prove to be as flawed over time but at least its something for now.

Been reading Robbie Williams biography at the moment and I've been so struck by his 'otherness'. I think itÌs probably easy to create a more out there self when you are famous and people feel the need to keep you appeased. The juxtaposition between his stage self and his other self are startling! When he is on stage it appears that he is the self that he wishes he could be but then the second he steps off a welter of insecurities swarm him like some biblical locust plague. I'm not sure whether the fact that he doesn't seem to attempt to hide who he really is off stage is by design or default (he just doesn't know where to begin). What I do know is that he is in a better place than most of us. I am amazed how much I am drawn to this guyÌs life, and I know I not alone. His magnetism as a performer and as an individual is wrapped up closely in his ability to be honest and real about himself and his insecurities. Perhaps his game is just so elaborate he has duped me too.

I was tired today of having the kids write out dictionary words for me overtime they did something they knew they shouldn't be doing and so I decided they needed something different that would take them longer and ultimately do them some more good. I got them each to write out a story of some kind every time they broke the rules. Suhail came back to me with a story about the day he had had and I struck by his honesty. Today was the schools swimming gala and he recalled how he was supposed to be shouting with the rest cheering the school on but he had no inclination to do so and so he simply mouthed along with the rest in order to avoid the comments of others who would criticize him for a lack of commitment or loyalty... reminds me of other situations in which we so often shoot down those who don't say and do the right tings to back up our little 'social clubs', especially the religious ones. Don't most people just end up spending their lives mouthing the words without any conviction of the heart to simply avoid the accusations and social ostracism they will inevitably receive from others?

Started reading 'A New Kind of Christian' today and was struck the fact that so much more can be communicated through an everyday dialogue than cannot be communicated through the same amount of cold hard prose! Maybe this should be my outlet?

Thanks Andy - some excellent suggestions there! Especially the one about the electric drum kit - they produce absolutely no "stage sound."

Hi again

Been a while i know but still settling down here in Stellies so hopefully one day I'll get more organised with this and more regular, but for now just titbits every now and then...

This last Sunday evening at the Stellenbosch Vineyard we tried something a little different - was the night we were going to be promoting our home groups (slash cell groups slash fellowship slash life groups - whatever you call them!) and so we gave the service a bit of a small group feel - asked 7 or 8 of the students to make sure they bring their Bibles and then when the service started we firstly got everyone into a huge circle (not the hugest church service - maybe 40 to 60 people of which the majority but not all are students) and then did announcements and explained proceedings then - then got the various people leading the small groups to share a little bit about their group and what they do and when they meet and who it's for and stuff so everyone got to see them - then we passed around clipboards for people who wanted to be involved in a group and if they'd seen something specifically they liked they could indicate that otherwise we phone them during the week and help get them into a group that will suit them.

Then I gave each of the students that I'd asked some sheets of paper and got everyone else to break into groups around one of them and we divided into smaller circles of 6 to 9 people - each group was given a different Psalm (made a few copies per group) and some guiding questions and the idea was to read through the Psalm once or twice and then look for things like:

[*] What is the Psalm saying about God?

[*] What does it say about the relationship between God and man?

[*] What promises does it contain?

Then when they had finished that, each group had to pick one aspect from their Psalm (theme, characteristic of God) and meditate/pray/reflect on that and see what God was saying to them as a group about that aspect.

Then we got back into big group formation - as in loosely in rows facing the front as per normal and one person from each group shared their aspect and something about it and then we went into a time of worship and prayer which was really just compounded/enriched by the fact of us looking at different aspects of God's character beforehand.

Worked very, very well... more experimentation to follow... I think it was largely successful because we were introducing the small groups and used small groups during the service so that everyone could at least get a taste of some aspect of small group interaction - also hopefully gave people a chance to meet new people and get introduced to a handful of people in the church - and then the worship singing time at the end became a lot more focused cos it was based on and led from everything we'd been looking at.

And my friend Mandy and her mom took me out for a steak afterwards so it can't have been TOO bad...

More later
God bless you
love brett FISH anderson

www.brettfish.com

This article is being written out of a deep concern for the nature of leadership that appears to be developing within many Christian communities. It would probably be correct to suggest that the same trend is developing in all Christian denominations, religious groupings and general business.

In terms of software we need to purchase - one big consideration would be - do we want a database of all songs (in which case all we do is pick the song from a list and the lyrics appear on the screen) - or do we want to use powerpoint (which would be cheaper but all of the lyrics of all the songs would need to be typed in)? Question: are we a part of CCLI?

Earlier on I mentioned the website - when I first heard about the donation it was in the context of "multimedia" and I'd definitely view the website as multimedia. To use it properly we need to not just view as "oh, this is just an extra something we do because we think it's a good idea" but really look in to how to use it properly.

We probably also need to think along the lines of what else we could use the laptop for. It would seem quite a waste to purchase a laptop which we'd use once a week on Sundays and it would sit gather dust (and rather expensive dust) on a shelf for most of the week. I'm sure we could come up with more ideas - but the first one that pops into my head is to use the laptop for making videos - which are actually rather easy to do.

An idea would be to record all of the sermons, mp3 them and put them online on our website.

I have just moved to Stellenbosch and am employed at the Stellenbosch Vineyard church with a job description that has something to do with youth and students and one of the things that has been given to me is the Sunday evening church services.

Ü