Mick - OSS

Just thought I would throw up a hello from Sydney where I am “observing” World Youth Day.  Am with a couple of Hundred Thousand people…  Will write more about it when i am back in Melbourne!!!

Formula One…

Is my favourite sport. I watch every single race. I love it!! My message tone is a Mclaren Mercedes MP4-21 roaring into a corner, my room is adorned with a Mercedes flag.

The following is an interview with Martin Whitmarsh (CEO Formula 1, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes) in the clip he is explaining how a team coming together and working tirelessly to create an end product - in this example a Formula 1 team.
If you remove the motorsport references and replace it with NCYC09 it gives some of how we here in the office (Well me at any rate) are feeling about the forth coming convention. Except the bit about walking out into pitlane and the consequences - but hopefully the bit about the media!!

Over the last weekend I went to a place called Ulupna Island just north of Strathmerton (north of Shepparton, on the Murray river)

I went up there for the North East Victoria Christian Youth Convention (NEVCYC) formally known as Goulburn Murray Christian Youth Convention, or The Big Dig. This years theme picked up on the Vic/Tas Youth Ministry dinners theme of The Tap. The weekend was packed with reflections about Drought and Water, small groups looking at images of God, Trivia Night and Amazing Race competition. Once again there was the formal dinner on Saturday night where Mel and I did a NCYC Promo when the technology worked! Then there was a disco in the dining room or the chance to listen to some classics out by the campfire. The night was topped off by waking up the next morning to a very damp ground after over night rain. The weekend finished with a worship service that all the campers had a part in organising. I with a couple of others wrote a prayer of confession that was inspired by the latest Schweppes advertisement

The prayer was:

We contain our lives in small packages and we don’t always open ourselves up to new experiences and new feelings - Pick up a filled water balloon - this is your life or a certain part of it. We are like a water balloon, our external appearnce looks solid and strong but on closer inspection we are fragile. The slightest contact can shatter us.

Think of one part of your life that you have allowed to be contained. Write it on the filled balloon. Now let the balloon go, you may throw it long and hard, you may just want to drop it. Watch it as the water is released and disappears - watch the path the water takes, just like our bodies get led in the way God chooses the direction of your life in the wider world.

Follow the path your balloon has taken, spend a moment contemplating the fragments of your container - pick up the pieces and toss them in the bin!

The other people in the office wouldn’t let advertise Half Price Regos today only!  so they stay the same $499 for Budget (sleeping on classroom floors with others) and Tenting (sleeping in tents), $569 for College.   But today is April 1 or as more recognised April Fools day!

This morning started well at 6.00am on the express train from Bendigo the conductor got and said “this mornings express service to Melbourne has been cancelled. We will be stopping all stations to Melbourne”.  After many groans from passengers and comments about Vline the Conductor laughed and said “April Fools!”

Over the Years many public pranks have been played.  The following are a few. And to stay updated about whats happened this year check out April 1 2008 on Wikipedia

• Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi to the “Biblical value” of 3.0. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest the spaghetti weevil had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was in fact filmed in St Albans.
• Left Handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the “old”, right-handed burger.
• Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to “reduce the country’s debt” and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
• San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), and its leader (General Pica). Intrigued readers were later disappointed to learn that San Serriffe (sans serif) did not exist except as references to typeface terminology. (This comes from a Jorge Luis Borges story.)
• Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial’s success. This hoax was also conducted by the Seven Network in Australia in 2005. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
• Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.
• The Canadian news site bourque.org announced in 2002 that Finance Minister Paul Martin had resigned “in order to breed prize Charolais cattle and handsome Fawn Runner ducks.”
• Annual BMW Innovations see a new “cutting-edge invention” by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year, examples including:
  • Warning against counterfeit BMWs: the blue and white parts of the logo were reversed
  • The “Toot and Calm Horn” (after Tutankhamun), which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,
  • MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,
  • IDS (”Insect Deflector Screen̶ Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive,
  • SHEF (”Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration̶ Technology, which sees the car’s GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home,
  • Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior “BMW” logo coming as standard on all future models,
  • “Uninventing the wheel” to counter the “EU ban” on right-hand drive cars,
  • Zoom Impression Pixels (”ZIP̶ to counter new “Slow Cameras” and,
  • “BMW Instant Messaging” - using Reactive User Sound Electronic (RUSE) particles to display the driver’s words to the car in front on the windscreen.
  • A compact disc available to all BMW owners, which when played over the audio system performed minor service and diagnostic checks; when flipped over it played soothing classical music (Australia).

YAY!! I got through Lent!!! 6 weeks without any caffeine or chocolate. Below is a photo of me early on Sunday morning.

Thanks goes to my family, work colleagues and friends for putting up with the very grumpy and tired Mick. To the Victas Youth ministry staff for eating their way through most of the M&M’s from WA.

Lent begins today - The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations. Lent traditionally was a time to fast, people would fast and particularly not eat meat or dairy (some places still do).

The vice I am going to try and do with out for the 40 days (plus Sunday’s) is Caffeine. Thats right no Coffee, Coke, Diet Coke, Red Bull, V, Red Eye, Bundy & Coke, Scotch & Coke, Chocolate, No-Doze and especially no Chocolate coated Coffee Beans or gurana!!

What i will no doubt need in about a weeks time!!!

The NCYC office is getting busier - Enquiry’s have risen by about 300%.  Meetings have resumed after a short break over Christmas.  If you have any questions about NCYC give us a call on 1300 00 NCYC (6292) and stay tuned to the website stuff will be happening soon!!!

One of my favourite movies is One Perfect Day

The story of One Perfect Day… Tommy Matisse is a gifted musician studying at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he is striving to write a brilliant new operatic song called “One Perfect Day” in conjunction with his girlfriend Alysse back in Australia. When Tommy’s sister Emma dies of a drug overdose after a night of clubbing with Alysse, he returns to Melbourne and breaks up with Alysse when she admits her part in Emma’s death. As Alysse seeks solace in drugs and in the arms of a manipulative nightclub owner Hector Lee, Tommy undertakes an odyssey of self-discovery and tragedy in Melbourne’s dance music scene. Fate brings them together again when Tommy reworks their opera by infusing classical music and sounds of nature with electronic beats, but further tragedy is just around the corner… I don’t want to give the movie away… Hire it, its great for discussion!!

During the movie Hector says about the rave scene - “These my friends are the new cathedrals”. Rave clubs aren’t all that different to the traditional cathedrals that people may be used to. They are large open spaces where music is played, the mood is controlled by one person (the priest/bishop or DJ). They attract a large audience and in Australia usually only one age group. I have been to a number of Raves to watch the passion at which people participate. Its letting oneself go to be taken over by the music, Is this any different to how we should behave with prayer? Shouldn’t we allow God to take over us?

Earlier in the movie Trig - one of Hector’s drug pushers and talent scouts for Hector’s recording studio takes Tommy to play at a nightlong outdoor rave to play the dawn set. When they arrive Trig says “this is my tribe, my people, its where I belong. This is our church, where people enjoy church. ” Where do we belong? With which people and places do we connect with? Is it in the clubs, pubs, churches, homes, streets, and lanes?? Do we connect with others or are we individualistic and find our hearts in solitude? Or do we prefer to be part of a crowd of thousands.
So where is it we as young christians in 2007 belong

Me… I belong with friends sitting with them talking and listening… I belong hearing the cry of the disadvantaged… I belong in open spaces.

Following the photos from Paris more have been sent from England… (You might need to click the links to view the photos)
The Bridge on the Way to Hogwarts (For those Harry Potter fans)

Buckingham Palace

Sherwood Forest

Big Ben

Knight in Shining Armour

Was recently playing around on Youtube and came across a series of videos very similiar to our Norm and NCYC adds and then on further looking I came across a video that humiliates and forces people to read the bible. The video is of a young couple having a meal together and then when the waiter comes and asks about dessert they say they are full and would like the check to leave. The waiter keeps forcing them to have the “dessert” and this then leads to him saying that if they do not take the dessert he will tie a millstone to them and throw them out of the window. On further probing the young couple are made to justify why they can’t have “dessert” and the young man is humiliated into asking his partner to marry him before accepting the dessert which is a Bible topped with cream.

I find this to be a very unchristian message. Surely the waiter should have been upfront about what the special dessert was? Is the bible so scary we have to just spring it on people without notice. Also isn’t it the individual choice of a person whether they accept the bible into their lives. Do we have to force it on them. Can’t we just live out the bible showing people samples of it and giving them free tasters. And also recognise that people may be full… but invite them back for it another time. Make them feel welcome and not forced to accept something!