2009 July | Calum Henderson

Archive - July, 2009

Churches using Twitter

July 8, 2009 in Technology with 8 Comments

Should churches have active Twitter accounts?

Over at communicatejesus.com, Steve Kryger and I have been chatting about which churches use Twitter.

This was started by his blog post, 15 WAYS FOR CHURCHES TO USE TWITTER. It’s a great list inspired by 17 ways to use Twitter – a Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business owners, and has some great ideas for personal Twitter accounts as well. You should go check it out now.

I had the question afterwards, is it worth churches investing time into a Twitter stream?

Australia’s Twitter penetration is not that great, yet. And the majority of people don’t have a Twitter account, yet. But it does still appear to be on the rise, and Twitter poses some unique advantages over Facebook (5 Reasons to Tweet).

So how many churches use Twitter? Here is a short list of the ones I am following

Church By The Bridge, Kirribilli (@cbtbkirribilli)
Christ Church Inner West (@cciw)
Grace Point Sydney (@gracepointsyd)
Hillsong (@hillsong)

Do you know of any other churches that use Twitter?

O Breath of Life

July 7, 2009 in Music with 0 Comments

Ancon band pre-session

UPDATE: O Breath of Life is now available to listen to and download at noisetrade.com/TrevorHodge.

On Ancon, we had a visit from singer/songwriter Trevor Hodge. He came to teach us the song “O Breath of Life”. This song went off so much at Ancon that we recorded it, and it is online now at kirkplace.org.au.

It’s a live recording with the Ancon band, it almost feels like you’re within the congregation.

Trevor has also provided the words and sheet music for download for use with your own music teams.

If you would like to hear more from Trevor, you can buy his album “Bring You Praise” from iTunes or from his own website. I’ve listened to it and really enjoyed it.

But whatever you do, make sure you go to kirkplace.org.au and listen to “O Breath of Life”!

Replay – Ancon09 #2

July 6, 2009 in Bible with 0 Comments

Australia people A Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling inside them.

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16

It’s not like the Spirit is there for a short amount of time either, God’s Spirit is inside us for good.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,

Ephesians 1:13

As Christians, we have the Spirit of God living inside us!

God’s Spirit has done some amazing things in the past. Throughout Acts we see incredible numbers of people coming into faith. In East Africa from 1933-1960, thousands of Africans came into belief. And in Melbourne, in 1902, 8642 people came into a relationship with Christ in 4 weeks.

If we have the Spirit of God inside us, then what cant we do within God’s will?

I believe that God is almighty, and if he dwells within us, then I believe that he can do amazing things through our weak bodies.

I have been convicted to pray for God to do great things, and I look forward to him using my weak body to serve him!

Replay – Ancon09 #1

July 4, 2009 in Bible with 0 Comments

Ancon square The start of another recurring segment of my blog.

Replay.

With this I hope to reflect on past experiences and learn more from what I have already learnt. I do think reflection is awesome (See Reflection in Ministry).

First thing to look back at… Ancon09!

In this past week, me and 600 other people have been learning about the Holy Spirit. It was an amazing week and many people on Facebook have apparently caught “Ancon fever” (which refers both to an excitement and a sickness).

One thing that I did learn on Ancon was that the Holy Spirit is a great teacher! Jesus said

All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 14:25-26

He teaches us through the very words of God. He is a great teacher, and the fact that we have the very words of God with us today is amazing!

I just looked up the above passage on biblegateway.com in about 10 seconds. How incredible is it that the very words of God are so easily available to us!

But will I hear these words and write them on my heart, something I would like to do (which was suggested on Ancon) is to write down a verse to memorise each day, so that I can overflow with the words of God.

God’s word is amazing, and we have it today!