[Kid Inspiration]

Stole this quote from somewhere… just can’t quite remember.

“Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.” – Dave Barry, comedian (1947-)

I am a massive Nerd.

There is not much about the internets I don’t know.

So bcause of this bias I am hesitant to over hype the potential of the internet to engage kids… I just don’t want to pump resources into developing tools for ministering to kids if they won’t show much fruit.

But we are starting a new pre-teen age group next year and so are developing a log-in website for them (Stole the idea from the Group Publishing Curriculum Grapple).

But this article makes for compelling reading about the potential for online social networks for kids!

Virtual worlds for kids take off

While much media and analyst attention has been paid to the growth in social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, the rapid growth in games sites and virtual worlds targeted at younger children has largely slipped beneath the radar.

Yet sites like Webkinz and interactive dressing-up sites aimed primarily at young girls are proving very popular. Cartoon Doll Emporium, for example, aimed at children between six and 16, now has around 3 million visitors a month, while Stardoll, aimed at children aged between seven and 17, claims 8.8 million members.

And Disney is just the latest of the big media groups to get into the pre-teen market. In 2005, Viacom – owner of MTV and Nickelodeon – bought Neopets, an interactive cartoon gaming site that claims to have 143 million Neopet “owners”,for $150m.

So Phillip Pullman is getting a bad rap at the moment, a lot of Christian blogs warning everyone that the Golden Compass movie, based on some of his books is leading children to atheism… which is his goal of course — being an Atheist, that would be obvious.

So I thought I would try to post something positive about Phil…

I found an interview with Phil about how he writes, and as I am fascinated with how people work and create I though I would post an excerpt here:

Full Interview

Q: Where and when do you write?

A: I write in my shed, at the bottom of the garden. It’s quite comfortable in there, but because of my superstition about not tidying it during the course of a book, it’s now an abominable tip. I write by hand, using a ballpoint pen on narrow lined A4 paper (with two holes, not four). I sit at a table covered with an old kilim rug, on a vastly expensive Danish orthopaedic chair, which has made a lot of difference to my back. The table is raised on wooden blocks so it’s a bit higher than normal.

I write three pages every day (one side of the paper only). That’s about 1100 words. Then I stop, having made sure to write the first sentence on the next page, so I never have a blank page facing me in the morning.

After lunch I always watch Neighbours. Soap operas are interesting because there’s no limit to the length a story can have it can go on for months, if it’s got some life in it. I like watching the script editors losing interest in one story-line and promoting another instead, and it’s fascinating to watch some characters gaining story-potency as others lose it, and to try and work out why it’s happening. Neighbours is better than EastEnders or Coronation Street for this, because there’s no distracting social comment. It’s all pure story: one thing following another.

Pastor of CityLife church in Brisbane Mark Conner has a blog you should check out. Latest post is about speaking in the Kidshaper Conference, in Melbourne.

I’m excited — click below to find out why:

Hillsong Kids BIG

Hey,

Quick update about Kids album 07 –

Tell The World by Julia A’Bell
Message from Hillsong’s Children’s Pastor about the project

Pre-Order Site
Now updated with a couple of downloadble items – Music video preview and ‘My Number One’ preview. You can also download the mp3 and mpegs! Check it out!

You’re the Answer – Video Preview
My Number One – Audio Preview

Enjoy.

P.S. Oh it seems the release date is the 8th of Dec, but I heard whispers it might even be quicker than that!

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

Who knew Sesame Street was so R-rated back in the day?

Great article — read on here: Sweeping the Clouds Away

This article via Ryan at Brewing Culture (a blog you should read).

I wasn’t allowed to watch the Simpsons back in the day (around ‘93/’94… which was back in the day for me). I gues my parents thought the show taught insolence instead of respect for parents? I suddenly realised one day (could have been an article I was reading) that in the whole of TV, here was the Simpson family who actually attend church together… and quite regularly! A vary rare Hollywood occurance.

So from the Times Online:
There’s nobody like him… except you, me, everyone

He has a distinguished ancestry. There was Shakespeare’s fat, lying but ultimately fabulous drunkard Sir John Falstaff. There was Sancho Panza, another fat, worldly character, the foil to Cervantes’s crazed Don Quixote. And there was Wilkins Micawber, the hopeless but hopeful spendthrift in Dickens’s David Copperfield. Every age needs its great, consoling failure, its lovable, pretension-free mediocrity. And we have ours in Homer Simpson, the greatest comic creation of our time.

There is nothing like pressure to bring out the real person inside.

All it takes is a couple more tasks added to your plate to make you realise that this ‘ministry thing’ you have devoted your life to is far too big for a one man band.

Ministry is an orchestra. Each member playing their part. Each instrument singing the praise of God with every note.

I have a BIG project on at the moment and it is consuming my working week and schedule… which is the GREATEST thing that could happen to me. We all go through seasons of busyness, and this season is one of those seasons… BIG time.

So here’s what I am forced to do with this ‘opportunity’ (which often come in the form of more work).

TRUST THE ORCHESTRA.

You see:

“I don’t have to do all the work, I just have to make sure the work gets done!”

The best thing that could happen to you is a season of busyness…

Nothing else on this earth helps you develop people is the prospect of you not getting through all the ‘work’. My role/Your role as a ministry leader is to enable people to ‘do the work of the ministry’.

GIVE AWAY THE MINISTRY.

My senior pastor has given away the ministry to children to my pastor, who has in turn given it away to me. WHY would I stop this chain of love????

I need to give it away to others, who in turn give it away to… (wait for it)… the KIDS!

My passion and reason for existing is to see the children that God has entrusted to me minister to their world!!

On holiday in New Zealand for the week!

But here is link to great post about questions to ask your kids!!

Questions for Kids