Pope vs Spider

New Podcast: The Other Side of Repentence

This week at Red we began a new series entitled the other side of repentance. Our culture has removed any notion of the sacred. There is viritually nothing that cannot be mocked or ridiculed in our culture anymore. How has this effected how we view God? How we worship? How we do Church? How we live as disciples? Has the buddy Jesus image of God prevelant in contemporary Christianity created a lapsadisical approach to faith?  How do we recapture an idea of the sacred in our world? How can a reverance towards God deepen our faith?

Download or subscribe here

You can download or subscribe through itunes here

(Ps lots of people have asked about the powerpoints for these podcasts. Sadly at the moment this is beyond our capabilities in terms of time.)

Pop Culture Podcast: The Life and influence of Walt Disney

 ”Walt Disney helped change the national consciousness. He got people to believe in the power of wish fulfillment–in their own ability to impose their wills on a recalcitrant reality. That’s what Walt Disney did all his life. He managed to replace reality with his illusions–what some people now refer to disparagingly as Disneyfication. He sold us on the idea of control because Walt Disney was himself a master of control. We see the results everywhere–from film to theme parks to virtual reality to virtual politics.”

                                          Media Theorist Neal Gabler

From High School Musical, to Mickey Mouse to the Muppets, it is hard to grasp the all pervasive influence that the Disney corporation has over popular culture today. This morning on the radio I explored the life of Walt Disney. Disney’s life gives us a fascinating insight into both his creative vision and his role as one of our culture’s pre-eminent myth makers. Listen or download here. (11min)

Movements

Someone who I bump into regularly in my local supermarket is Steve Addison. Steve is an expert on movements, and has been researching how movements begin, flourish and eventually change the landscape. Steve has been working for years on a book which communicates what he has learnt. Finally it is now available and has some great lessons for anyone interested in how movements can be used to advance the gospel. Get it here

New Podcast: Do this and live: Discipling the Heart

In this final installment of our series, we look at the heart. That strange life centre of the human being. We examine how we can disciple this mysterious and powerful part of us. We also look at the ethical problem of invisibility, we explore Psalm 1, discuss how the way that we enter a room describes our will and to top things off we confuse actors Elijah Wood and Elliot Gould. Download or listen here.
You can download or subscribe through itunes here

Spiritual Barometer for Young Adults.

If you are in your twenties, the level of anxiety you feel about turning thirty tends to be the most accurate barometer of your spiritual health.

Pop Culture Podcast: James Dean

This morning on my radio spot I spoke about the cultural significance of James Dean, in particular his embodiment of the emerging post-war teen culture, and his shaping of contemporary models of masculinity. You can listen or download here

Kanye West’s fake stage invasion and the death of advertising

Al and Laura Ries note in their book The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of P.R. that the classic mode of advertising (eg TV, Print and Radio spots) has given way to the rise to a new kind of marketing that is the art of publicity generation. Much of this new mode of marketing is surreptitious, involving seemingly real yet orchestrated publicity stunts. These pseudo events, create controversy and online chatter thus ensuring that product gains media exposure. Kayne West’s stage invasion at the VMA’s is a classic case in point. Read more here

CULTIVATE EVENT: REMOVAL OF THE SACRED

This thursday night I will be speaking at YFC’s cultivate event on Gen Y unpacked. In this talk I will be exploring a new line of thought. Secularism is not just the removal of religion from a culture but also the removal of any notions of mystery and the sacred. Therefore what is does it mean for young people to grow up in and come of age in a world which is dis-enchanted, in which notions of worth, meaning and trancendence have been removed? What does it mean to live in a culture which promotes a view of the universe in which actions, words and deeds are deemed inconsequential? How do you do ministry and mission with a culture whose response to faith is ‘Meh’? I will be exploring these questions and discussing ways forward. Might see you there.

Where? One Community Church 7:30pm-9:30pm Thurs 17th Sept.

Five year Contractual Relationships

Put simply, Xers and Ys prefer contract relationships, which are not unlike a property lease: five years with an option for five more.

Demographer Bernard Salt

Youth Decide

The guys at World Vision have created a new initiative that encourages youth and young people to engage with the issue of climate change, check it out here

New Pop Culture Podcast – Andy Warhol

In this weeks radio spot we looked at the life of artist Andy Warhol and touch on what we can learn from his life about media, celebrity and the idea of the sacred. Listen or download here

I am an important person

…only 12 per cent of students in the 1950s agreed with the statement ”I am an important person”; by the late 1980s that percentage had climbed to 80

Read full article here

How to Enter a Church in Style

God takes a back seat

Figures just released by the Bureau of Statistics show that registered marriages are at a 20-year high, and weddings officiated by civil celebrants are increasingly popular. In 2008, civil celebrants performed 65 per cent of marriages.

“This is part of a wider trend towards secularisation in Australia,” says Lixia Qu, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. “Not only do more people today identify themselves as being of no religion (21 per cent compared to 18 per cent in 1996) but the percentage of people who call themselves Christian has declined 78 to 72 per cent from 1969 to 2006.”

These changes are easy to take for granted and yet they represent a significant re-ordering of moral priorities, according to demographer Bernard Salt.

From SMH Read Full Article Here

New Podcast: Do this and live 3. Mastering your feelings

This week is part three of our current series. This week we look at our guts, that is our feelings, emotions and sensations. Our culture has idolised ‘feelings’, we expect a life of positive emotions and amazing experiences. But what is the right way of ordering our feelings? What is a biblical perspective on emotions? How do we deal with the negative feelings that sometimes run our lives? All this and more in this weeks podcast.

Listen, subscribe or download here.

You can download or subscribe through itunes here

Gatehouse Fund Raiser

Gatehouse is a fantastic ministry to street sex workers that sprang out of our church a number of years ago. Please support what they do by coming along to this fundraising dinner.  Tickets: $50 Book Here

For more information: info@stkildagatehouse.org.au or ring 03 9534 2500
RSVP by 2nd October 2009

Pop Culture Podcast – The Life of Marilyn Monroe

Here is a radio spot that I did in which I discussed the cultural meaning of Marilyn Monroe’s life. You can listen or download here. We are going to be doing more throughout September, in which we look at the lives of cultural icons.

Lead a Double Life

In the Vertical Self one of the issues that I tackle is the whole concept of people leading double or triple or even quadruple lives. The technical term for this phenomenon Multiphrenia was coined by Kenneth Gergen in the 1980’s as a response to the way that people were developing multiple separate personalities and identities. We have our workplace identity, our home identity, our recreational identity and so on. However the internet has sped this process up, as we learn that online, identity creation becomes even more pliable.

As I researched for The Vertical Self  I was particularly fascinated with how this process was affecting Christians. I discovered that leading two lives was now pretty much standard behaviour for most Christians and for a large percentage of young leaders. I found that Christians, particularly those under forty had become incredibly skilled in leading double or triple lives. The fascinating thing was that many seemed unfazed by the fact that the behaviours in one of their lives conflicted or was at odds with their Christian beliefs.

So the other night when I saw this Tourism ad for the Victorian town of Daylsford entitled “lead a double life” and starring ‘it girl’ Isabel Lucas, I was completely stunned. The amount of deliberate Christian imagery and symbolism in this video is incredible. The way that it recreates a small Australian Latte-town into some kind of Southern Gothic mystery world is pure hyperreality. I could take the next year off just to take this advertisement apart. But what is most amazing about this video is the way that it encourages the leading of a double life. Check it out for yourself.

 

Pre Order the Vertical Self

My new book The Vertical Self is up on Amazon and selling for a special reduced rate if you pre-order now!

Amazon     Amazon UK      Amazon Canada 

(Cheapest option for Aussies and Kiwis is Amazon US)