Fast Food Nation

I’m confident that Richard Linklater's latest film ‘Fast Food Nation’ will be described in all sorts of ways. It is difficult, eye-opening, challenging yet still obvious, loose, sluggish and lacks character development. It is based on the novel by Eric Schlosser, ‘Fast Food Nation’ and even with it’s flaws is does an excellent job at exploring the social, nutritional and environmental realities of the fast food industry.
The audience weaves together the stories of three employees of 'Mickeys' - a fast food chain who is doing the normal capitalistic things big business do…The messages this film gives shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, however for some it serves as a timely reminder and hopefully challenges some common consumer actions…(dreaming)

Go on, click it and read it...

Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell

Recently a good friend lent me a book, encouraging me that it was a worthy read. I had never heard of it, however had heard of the author - Rob Bell - and was keen to read his thoughts. Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, plus well known for his work with NOOMA.

Velvet Elvis is his first book (the second – Sex God is due for release in 2007) The subtitle, Repainting the Christian Faith, gives more than a hint of its direction.
Rob wrestles with the Christian faith in a way that navigates historical, orthodox, Jewish, Postmodern and cultural Christianity. He encourages readers to begin a life devoted to following Christ in a rich, meaningful and relevant manner.

Personally I found his historical Jewish perspective to be an eye-opener. Being somewhat ignorant about traditional Jewish practices – a better grasping of this culture has enriched my understanding of several Gospel stories and teachings.
Bell deeply wants the reader to go on wrestling, to go on deeper exploring the faith and its application today. Definitely worth reading – plus its short & easy!

An Inconvenient Truth

Definitely worthy of all the praise it’s received.
You should most definitely see it, and then head to Carbon Neutral
My most recent trip cost me 6 tree's - a bargain really - $30 added on to the total cost is perhaps the best $30 spent...

Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture (post 2)

Finally it’s finished, it’s been a slow and painful read!!!
The book paints a clear picture of emerging generation’s worldviews. It claims the postmodern culture has little or no regard for Christ and that established church has failed to connect in meaningful and relevant ways.
Some of this I can readily agree with, however my opinions are rather location/cultural/socio-economic specific. I do see the established church missing the mark too frequently, and do see the need to overcome cultural differences to communicate the Gospel (words + action) relevantly and without compromise, however sadly this book does little in better equipping me for this.
This is less a problem with the content, and more an issue of the specific issues I face in regards to location/cultural/socio-economic differences in the youth I am involved in…
Still a good book to stir up some thinking, but not the best for specific applications.

Sydney/Canberra Tour

I had hoped for funny stories to share, however 39 year 9’s on a bus in Sydney/Canberra for 6 days just isn’t that funny. Infact the only things that are funny are too incriminating if I want to keep my job – which I do.
We did see and go to some cool places, but we also wasted at least 8 hours of our lives on useless boring stuff. The highlight was definitely the Australian War Museum, fantastic! Followed by the dinners, not too many school camps feed you endless prawns and oysters.

Canoemup

I've just got back from another SU vacation camp, this time Canoemup.
Twas brillant, 20 campers - year 8,9 and 10's - 6 days white water kayaking on the Murray River with Geoff Westlake sharing an excellent devo session each day.
Sure the river was WAY low, but you can't have everything you want.
Geoff’s message considered life – birth, living, suffering and death and how ultimately all these find both meaning and purpose when structured under and focused upon Jesus. I’m not in the mood to look at all this in detail, rather just to say the campers/leaders had an excellent chance to hear the Gospel, and wrestle with its application to life.
I also had a small chance to chat with Geoff about church stuff…. Obviously it would not come as any surprise to people who read this blog, that I’m interested and wrestling with church/youth/community stuff. So we talked about ekklesia, now I’m sure everyone knows what the word means etc etc, however what was interesting was the way Geoff spoke of this as an action/plan/ carried out by a few at the city gates and the corresponding changes in the host community… interesting.
So in a nutshell canoemup was great.