Christmas Gift Ideas

We received our first Christmas present today!! From Andrea’s brother and fiancé, it was an Unwrapped Gift from Oxfam which gave education to a child in a devloping nation. The funny thing was Andrea and I were look at the catalogue to buy some gifts like this as well!


The idea is to give gifts that change a future Oxfam points out that when it comes to buying a great present, another pair of novelty socks or more bubble bath just won't do! Instead you can choose from their catalogue of items which lists things from a couple of chickens, to a goat, sending people to school, or training a birth attendant. This means you you’re giving someone living in poverty in the developing world the chance of a better life, while your loved ones will receive a card detailing the present you bought them.

Tearfund offers vouchers as a gift that the recipient is able to donate to certain causes in various parts of the world.

If you are struggling for gift ideas for someone this year, don’t rush down to the Warehouse or $2 on Christmas Eve, consider giving a gift that makes a difference.

Here is some more thoughts on this gift giving from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Italy from Space

This is an image taken from the international Space Station at night. Pretty Cool view of Italy. Our apartment added to lights in the photo! You can read about it at BBC online.

Sacreligious

A song with some interesting thoughts. Apparently Christofer wrote this in reference to when he was kicked out of church for opening up his home to homeless people.

Decisions that Define Us

A video with some great challenges.

Awkward Family Photos

I was trying to work out how to spell awkward the other day and so typed it into the search engine. It usggested this site, Awkward Family Photos. These are a few of my favourites.

Lausanne

I have been following various blogs from people at Lausuanne 2 which have been really interesting. Andrew Jones and Brett Anderson have soem good summaries of the conference.

A story from the conference thats stands out is of a an 18 year old girl from North Korea.

She was born into a wealthy family, her father an assistant to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong II. Eventually her father’s political fortunes shifted, and after being politically persecuted by the North Korean government, he, his wife, and his daughter escaped to China.

In China a relative brought her family to church where her parents came to know Jesus Christ. A few months later, however, her mother died. Her father started to study the Bible with missionaries and eventually the Lord gave him a strong desire to become a missionary to North Korea. But in 2001 he was reported as a Christian, was arrested by the Chinese police, and was returned to North Korea. Forced to leave his daughter behind in China, he spent three years in prison. During this time the girl shared that it only "made my father’s faith stronger” and that he “cried out to God more desperately rather than complain or blame Him.

After three years he was able to return to China where he was briefly reunited with his daughter. Soon after, however, he gathered Bibles having resolved to return to North Korea to share Christ which he did. He was given the opportunity to go to South Korea, but he turned them down.

In 2006 he was discovered by the North Korean government and was arrested. There has since been no word from him. In all probability he has been shot to death publicly for treason.

Now this 18 year old girl is determined to take the love of Christ to her people as well, regardless of the cost.

Like her father, she is not choosing the easy path of comfort and safety.

Those whom God has used to make some of the greatest Kingdom impact have been those who have not made decisions based on "what is best for me?" They made decisions based on an undeniable, unshakable, "illogical", "foolish" passion for Jesus Christ and for His kingdom glory among the lost.

What a challenge for us in a time where comfort and self are king.

You can read this courageous girls story here.

Christian Movies

What does the idea of 'Christian' movies invoke for you? I have to admit I have had some pretty awkward moments sitting though bad movies that I am supposed to appreciate simply because they are 'Christian'.



Here is a great article on the topic from Relevant magazine. One is one quote from the article:
You can have the huge budget, skilled and experienced technical crew and a firmly executed marketing plan, but if you film a pedantic script with summer-stock-reject actors, your better-looking product is simply lipstick on a pig. Throw in Christian film’s inherently agenda-driven plots and dialogue and you have lipstick on a preachy pig.

I love it - How often do we put lipstick on a preach pig and expect everyone to buy into it?

Here is another blog that touches on the unnecesary spiritual/ secular divide that we create, including in film.
another question posed by the group was on the sacred/secular split – the tendency we as christians have to divide life into what we call spiritual and what we call secular when, as one guy pointed out in my group, Jesus would probably be confused if i told Him about “my spiritual life” because to Him everything was spiritual – and so can’t we as Christ followers just start making good movies – when i look at a movie like ‘the blind Side’ with Sandra Bullock in, it was a really strong movie and received critical acclaim in many quarters but was not produced as a ‘christian movie’ – we have the stories, we just need to do better at getting them across

And just for a laugh, here are some of the best Christian Rapture movie posters from Tall Skiiny Kiwi