I love seeing behind the scenes footage.

This is a reel from a studio that shows you just how much is made up in your favourite TV show.

I do need to write something down about the new iPad… which looks cool but not compelling to me yet…

Here’s the thing:

When I heard about the iPhone I wanted it like Nemo wants his dad because I hated the experience I had with other phones.The iPad hasn’t really whispered sweet nothings in my ear simply because I don’t hate using other computers. I like using my Mac Pro at home and iMac at work.

Issues:

1. I am slightly nervous about owning a ‘computer’ like device that has so many limitations on it. With a real Laptop you can install anything you like, mess around under the hood and generally go nuts. I put up with the limitations with the iPhone (only installing apps approved by Apple etc.) because it’s a phone, not a computer.
2. I want to use it at work and print things access the hard drives and although I am pretty sure those things will appear in the future they remain to be announced.

So I am gonna wait to have a go with it down at the Apple store.

My last post was a love letter to my kindle.

So I thought there should be some fruit from all this love. I have read four books this year already without being on holiday which is pretty good for me.

So here are a few thoughts from a couple of them…

The first book I read was – A Hunger for God (John Piper)

This is my first Piper book I have read and I really loved it. The way he sets out his arguments and solutions really resonated with me and made me want to read more! It reminded me of the passion you have as a young person to do something great for God and how much I never want to loose that passion!

Is fasting Christian? It is if it comes from confidence in Christ and is sustained by the power of Christ and aims at the glory of Christ. Over every Christian fast should be written the words, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8).

His Fasting Was Both War and Weapon, Testing and Triumph Now we can see the meaning of Jesus’ fasting more clearly. It was not an arbitrary choice of something to do in the face of Satanic temptation. It was a voluntary act of identification with the people of God in their wilderness deprivation and trial

This is the deepest lesson of Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness. It was a weapon in the war against satanic deception because it was a demonstration that Jesus hungered more for God and God’s will than he did for God’s wonders.

it is possible to do extraordinary fasting and yet not humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and turn from wickedness.

Another book I have been wanting to read for a while is Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Shane Hipps)

This really help form ideas in my brain about exactly the media around is shaping our thinking and especially the minds of our kids.

When we fail to perceive that the things we create are extensions of ourselves, the created things take on god-like characteristics and we become their servants.

We must remember that the Bible is not merely—or even primarily—a collection of objective propositions. It is a grand story told through hundreds of different perspectives and diverse social settings. The message is multilayered, textured, expansive, and complex.

The point is that our theology and practice are deeply informed and shaped by our media and technology. We become what we behold.

Our age has seen the disappearance of childhood.

If God’s chosen medium for his message was the person of Jesus Christ, and the church is the body of Christ, that means God has chosen the church to extend his revelation in a special way. The church exists to embody and proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom. If the medium is the message, the message of the gospel is conveyed by the medium of the church’s life in the world.

The great thing is I simply pasted these snippets from a file on the kindle. They were all highlighted as I read the book, saving all the thoughts that jumped out at me!

For Christmas I got a Kindle.

I stopped buying CD’s a few years ago and really don’t ever want another plastic jewel case filling up my humble abode ever again. Alongside books they were one of the most annoying items of household stuff to move from old place of residence to new place of residence.

I spent thousands of dollars on CD’s over the years and I am old enough to have bought tapes. But since getting an iPod and Apple TV I have been slowly disposing of my collection as I have gone completely digital. That isn’t to say that I am one hundred percent happy. iTunes does not put enough information into it’s track listings. I like to read who the musicians, the producers, where the albums was recorded and lots of extra info that satisfies my insatiable geeky knowledge requirements.

Turning my book collection digital wasn’t a realistic option I thought – maybe it was the admiring looks that people give when you have a book shelf full of books. It says something about you when statistics suggest 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

Maybe it comes from films… every really clever genius in the movies always has a library stocked full of thick tomes about history and architecture and entomology.

Maybe it was because I never had a TV in the house until I was 12 years old that fuelled my love of books and surprisingly… TV (making up for lost time I guess).

Well something has changed.

I used to have to order books from local book stores and wait weeks for delivery because the somewhat obscure titles I like to imbibe were not always readily available in quaint Australia… and  by upon receiving them my passion for the topic may have waned and it will sit on a shelf for awhile waiting for such a time as… whenever.

I used to have to spend an inordinate amount of time finding stats/quotes/research that I just knew were around there somewhere if I could only just find them…

I used to love the smell and feel of a new book…

I now no longer want to buy another hardback, paperback, magazine, physical type book for the rest of my life.

The book store browsing is over, my book store is in my Amazon wish list. Every book I am remotely interested to read is on that list, and should at some point make it’s way to my Kindle.

I only just last week decided not to buy a book simply because it wasn’t available in digital form. I wrote an email to the publisher explaining why this is not a good business decision.

If I like a quote, or read a great statistic… I push a button and it saves it for me in a clippings file that I can search later.

If I want to read a book, it will most likely be available to read in 30 seconds from any where in cell phone coverage (and if not, probably by the end of 2010 – my prediction… listen up publishers).

I will have to live without the admiring envious glances at my collection of books as one day soon they will all be given away to new homes.

P.S. ALTHOUGH I need to point out this… books will never go away. They will always have a place. Perhaps one day in 2047 I shall sit down with my grand kids and pull out a magnificent illustrated hardback copy of the Chronicles of Narnia, and before I get to read a word they will marvel, and ask of me… “What were the dinosaurs like Grandfather?”

P.P.S. This Christmas was the first time that Amazon sold more digital books than physical books.

The mountain our kids are going to climb.

Their working lives/jobs are going to be radically different to ours. How can we help prepare them as the Church?

We have some comedians who read this blog. Just have a read of the comments from the previous post.

I decided against the ‘Top 10 things stolen from other people’s top 10 lists’ from Jonathon Clifforama

So I present to you:

The Top Ten Kids Music Resources.

So the rules for this little list… I am not including any of Hillsong Kids music resources. And will focus on any kind of resource that helps with creating/using/developing/producing/accompanying/pickling/whatevering music for use with kids and ministry.

This is stuff that we have used/loved and found valuable.

10. WDTV – Not the usual subject of such lists, this little device is absolutely brilliant for our multi-campus church. You put all your media… video MPEG files or a range of other formats onto any USB flash drive or an external hard drive and plug it where your DVD player used to be. The WDTV can then be used to playback all your backing tracks for Praise and Worship or curriculum in HD quality. There are a lot of generic brand units around that are similar, but I would trust the Western Digital brand any day.
I simply save an exact copy of our media flash drive on my computer, that way if it ever got lost… 20 bucks later I would simply drag the files over to a new 8/16Gb flash drive. We have this device in locations all over Sydney. It even has a seemingly well trafficked user community online. I paid around $200AU each for ours, but you can find them on special everywhere.

9. iTunes – It used to be that you needed to order CD’s and wait for them to arrive in the mail… I would be happy if I never had to buy another CD for the rest of my life. For a recent conference we needed a backing track for a Hannah Montana song. One search and click later and boom, the track is burnt to CD ready to use for the event! There are a bunch of music stores out there, iTunes is the largest and most available all over the world so it gets the number 9 slot.

That being said, there will always be a place for the humble CD, just like there is a place for vinyl records today!

8. New Wine – Ahh, the Motherland. My Dad is English and I have a British Passport so I thought I should add a nod to my ancestral roots. My connection with New Wine is Simon Parry who we wrote a song with last year called More Than Enough which is on this album right here. The New Wine team, a network of churches and believers across all denominations (from the website) do a great job releasing awesome music for all ages.

There seems to be a strength in the UK for networks connecting lots of churches together, another similar movement Spring Harvest does some great music for kids (and a few Hillsong Kids covers).

7. Doug Horley – Back in the day (which was a Wednesday), we rocked out hard for many months, perhaps years to ‘Put Your Hands in the Sky‘. It was a huge hit with our kids right around the time we started work on Jesus is my Superhero. He also pulls out some very surreal and hilarious puppet tracks on his CD’s between songs that really make me laugh.

6. Radio Disney – Millions of dollars are spent by the House of Mouse to figure out what kids like to listen to, so why not take that research, and make sure that money gets put to good use. Cultural trends are found all over this site, although in a fast paced Google world, Disney is unlikely to be ahead of the curve. They have always found their sweet spot right in the safe, profitable middle zone… not quite pushing the envelope but rarely behind.

There are fascinating discussions that can happen when you talk about lyrics with kids (especially preteens). Actually taking a song apart and dissecting it to see if those lyrics reflect the truth or are contrary to a Christ centred world view is very powerful.

5. Propellerhead Software – Creators of the popular Reason, ReBirth, ReCycle software packages. Now there are a LOT of options when it comes to creating music… on the Mac you have Garageband and Soundtrack Pro and for the Pro’s, Logic. There are a bunch of options for PC as well, but audio production is an industry dominated by Mac’s.

There are SO many options available to you but let me explain why I went with Reason + Pro Tools. The music I record is either creating demos or maybe music mixes for using in our programs. If I am recording a track at home, it is highly unlikely that it will just be left like that due to my limited recording abilities. So I chose Reason for the simple fact it has a HUGE library of Refills (sounds and loops etc) for just about every genre. So I can put something together pretty quick. It integrates tightly into Pro Tools via rewire (I just lost some of you) so I can take to our Church studio (who use Pro Tools) and continue working on it with the fancy gear.

4. Integrity Music – Integrity is a simply massive record label, they distribute all our Hillsong Albums in the U.S. and have a huge library of music! Check out the Kids link for the online store here. There is simply a heap of music here to inspire you and your kids!

3. CitiKidz – Go the Aussies! I love seeing churches rise up and put emphasis, value and effort into ministering to kids, so I have been so pumped to see Luke Harris and the Citipointe church team produce live Praise and Worship for kids! They have two albums out and you should get them for your church. In the U.S. they have partnered with Kidmo, so check out their site to order!

2. Yancy and Amber Sky Records – Yancy is a champion in music for all ages of kids and serves as director of Amber Sky Records which is part of the The rethink Group. She is a great friend and makes fantastic music AND my 4 year old has a big crush on her, although his girlfriend is now Zara and not Yancy he tells me. There are not too many artists from locals churches making music for kids, and hardly any making GREAT music, so give it up for Yancy. I am excited to see the resources coming out of Amber Sky as well!

1. Your Local Church – I have said it before and I will say it again, in terms of teaching, music, any creative endeavour, just roll with your pastor. Take your cues, direction and leading from your senior pastor/leadership team. So many of our themes and songs have come out of messages and teaching of Hillsong Church. Timing is everything… It took over 20 years for Hillsong Church to produce a kids album. I can tell you over the years plenty of people would have wanted to see music for kids produced, but I can tell you, in God’s timing he will make a way and the resources and backing will take it far above anything you could have hoped or dreamed.

P.S. Congratulations JavaJ, I will be sending you a copy of Hillsong Kids Ultimate Collection when it becomes available! (Matt, you were close).

P.S. Of course Jesus/the Bible/God etc. are all a part of this list, but like God’s thoughts are higher than yours and His ways barely comprehensible to your finite mind so is his position on this list.

Here is part two of my little series on using media with kids. Part one is here.

I have seen many moments of beauty and love often perpetrated by apparent pre-followers of Jesus (‘pre’ as in God desires that all should receive salvation).

Now how can someone show compassion and love but yet not be a ‘Christian’. The truth is that love is not exclusively the domain of the follower of Jesus, BUT God IS love and so all acts of love emanate from God.

All beauty comes from God. There is no beauty that does not come from the Father through Christ, Himself the embodiment of all beauty. St Augustine, Confessions

I firmly believe that all beauty comes from God. There is no second source for kindness and goodness, so no matter who is doing the act they are, and can only be inspired by God. That goes for the depiction of the loving sacrifice of a father for a son, the compassion of a warrior for an enemy, the integrity of a businessman in the face of corruption.

But no matter how brilliant movies are and how beautiful the moment, it is often in the context of a lifestyle contrary to the word of God — opposite to His Kingdom.

So the sacrifice of a father is surrounded by revenge, or unfaithfulness. The love of a couple results in immorality and adultery. No matter how moving the story lines and how teachable the moments the world view of the story teller is important and affects the story.

As a parent you would most likely be wary of movies promoting a Hindu or Muslim view of the world, but we are used to watching media that represents the family unit as dysfunctional and completely incompetent. Or enjoying with our family a movie about High School Students obsessed with relationships and being ‘fabulous’.

Could you imagine a world where the media we watch reinforces the teachings of Jesus and sets up ideals that our kids aspire to… and… doesn’t… suck.

It is a rare movie that accomplishes this without being preachy and cringe-worthy.

Find the song, the movie, the media that does this well and show your kids!

P.S. One of the most important skills the 21st Century kid needs is to be able to recognise and filter out this media (I did enjoy High School Musical), so I am not saying get rid of the TV and move into an Amish community, but what a blessing it is to consume media that doesn’t give you heartburn and indigestion on the way down.

P.P.S. The Church stopped creating culture and started consuming culture many decades/centuries ago. I have great hope this is the generation that will reverse this!

Every few months a new version of the famous “Shift Happens” video is released, with startling stats and eye opening facts, and bowel moving predictions… here is the latest:

The latest version of the “Shift happens” videos updated for autumn 2009, developed by XPLANE in partnership with The Economist. This Did You Know video focuses on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

Youtube Link: Shift Happens

I had read about this service in all the cool blogs and now I get a chance to try it out. Wireless Internet in the air with a wi-fi enabled plane.

We are flying across the states right now on the way to a connecting flight in L.A. To finish our remarkable three week hoilday in USAmerica.

Remarkable as I will need a break just to recover from it all. With Disney and NY throwing us some serious mileage in the walking department.

And dropping some major coin at the feet of Spongebob, Mickey and Broadway my account looks like the stock market chart of a US bank right now. But what a sensational time we had.

So while I read responses to some tweets and facebook comments all while sitting 15,000 feet in the air, I ponder if I really want to be this connected when the last great excuse for not knowing what is happening in the world was ’sorry about that, I was on a flight’. Although I won’t miss the approximately $320 for 17 seconds of talk time on those in seat phones where you swiped your credit card and wiped your bank account (is it just me or am I funnier in the air), maybe it’s the sensational US medication I just took when feel like I do right now hoping that I can recover from some late nights in NY watching jazz in the places I had only previously heard about on the recordings I have listened to.

(example above of a way to long sentence without purpose)

I love America and her diversity.

I honestly think we should plant some more cities in Aus.

Peace.

Here’s what I twittered today.

• The Church used to be great with technology. We nailed it with the printing press. Why are we so slow to see the potential of technology? Link
• twttr still seems lk the latest thing in the Church but old news 2 the world? Link
• So 746 Tweets about #hillsong this week. Not bad. 1,097 about #swineflu and 22,309 about @iranelection Link

(In reverse order just like twitter presents them)

Check out this great Time Mag Article: How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live

This is what I ultimately find most inspiring about the Twitter phenomenon. We are living through the worst economic crisis in generations, with apocalyptic headlines threatening the end of capitalism as we know it, and yet in the middle of this chaos, the engineers at Twitter headquarters are scrambling to keep the servers up, application developers are releasing their latest builds, and ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways to put these tools to use. There’s a kind of resilience here that is worth savoring. The weather reports keep announcing that the sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.

If your question is: So do you think twitter/facebook/whatever is a useful tool? You are asking the wrong question and have completely missed the point.

It’s not about the specific tool, whether it’s Facebook/Twitter it’s about the technology and the way it changes society and the way we interact/get news/connect/etc. etc.