Deep Creek Anglican Church Blog

About two years ago, I bought my first D-SLR camera – a Pentax K10D.  It has started me on a new photography hobby.  Which has then stimulated me to get into graphic design (for sermon slides and website etc) and the odd (?) movie or two.  All of this of course has been stimulated by our visually creative Youth Pastor.

So where does a beginner in digital photography and photoshop turn to?  Well, I simply followed the advice of one of the founders of Deep Creek’s Photographic Club – ‘buy Digital Photo each month’.  And what great advice.  The mag is chock full of useful photography hints, and typically at least four Photoshop tutorials on CD.  In the February edition, there were tips on making borders less boring.

So I tried it out on a shot I took of Volterra, Tuscany, Italy on a very cold January morning a few years ago.  Italy is beckoning again!

Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a reputation as an innovative communicator.

He was recently interviewed in Leadership magazine: Tying the Clouds Together.  Not surprisingly for Rob Bell, there can are numerous thought provoking statements in the interview.

He talks of allowing the biblical text to broaden our horizons (of reality), rather than narrowing them.  Rob comments:

“It may be my own warped sense of humor, but it was always the odd places in the Bible that I found most compelling. It’s God’s inspired Word, and it’s all useful. But to really believe that—that’s when things get interesting. I’d rather trust God, jump into those texts, and discover what God has for us….I always begin with the assumption that there is way more going on in the text than we see on the first reading.”

On the question of the impact of ‘video preaching’ to multiple locations, Bell comments:

“There is something more powerful than simply beaming yourself into other locations, and that is raising up disciples. Over time that will go farther and faster, but right now it will be more work and slower. With technology today it’s easy to spend all of your energies reproducing your own voice, but there is a longer view that says, what if instead of beaming video to those ten locations, we train ten people who can go there and lead? That’s a very basic question that should be in the mix somewhere.”

He gives some great words of wisdom on the spiritual side of preaching:

“…the public nature of preaching exposes you to a wide spectrum of feedback—from the really good compliments to really venomous criticism. Both can be dangerous because they lead to either pride or pain. We need to work at becoming the kind of person who is so deeply grounded in who we are, the work we are called to do, and the words we are called to speak, that the ambient hype that surrounds the preaching event doesn’t get the best of us.”

And then on what the journey of preaching involves, Rob observes:

“Some pastors think about how to survive the next five years. The better question to ask is, how are we going to thrive? How do we construct a rhythm and pace of life that ensures five years from now we’ll have more passion, more energy, and we will be filled with new and fresh ideas about life in God’s world?”

These words in fact apply to ALL followers of the Lord Jesus.  The issue for each of us should not be: ‘How can I survive the next x months / years?’  But ‘How can I thrive, living for God in His world?’

See New York Times live blog of the Apple announcement of the much anticipated iPad.

What has iPad got to do with the Gospel?  Well, I could self-rationalise and wax lyrical about mobile offices, with your iPad loaded with vast quantities of biblical texts.

But, but the answer for me is more likely covetousness!
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Jim Wilson / The New York Times

Today Deep Creek enters the blogosphere, following on from the recent re-launch of the Deep Creek Anglican Church website.  The new website, designed by red cow designs and one of our young adults, Leigh Jackson, is recording lots of hits and an encouraging number of sermon downloads.  We are especially thankful to the good folk at S3STAT for providing us with fantastic software that gives web statistics in easily understandable formats, including the number of sermon downloads.

This blog is our next step, as a community of God’s people, in communicating the Gospel and building up Christ’s Body via online technology.

Posts will appear at least weekly. Topics will span church life, local and overseas mission, current sermon series, living as a follower of Jesus, helpful resources (both books and other blogs) and other relevant issues.  A blog roll, with links to other sites, is available on the right hand side.

We trust and pray that you will benefit from these posts!