2010 April | Calum Henderson

Archive - April, 2010

Tweets from SWED Faculty Weekend Away

April 30, 2010 in Life with 1 Comment

Once again I am going away this weekend. This time on an SUEU weekend away with the faculty that I lead. That is the amazing social work and education faculty. There are a few of us on the weekend that will be tweeting away, so check all of these tweets out in the nifty little box below.

This weekend we’re going to be learning about Justice, and these talks will be brought to us by Jeremy Smith, check out his blog here.

Hope you enjoy the Tweeting action!

Also, below the jump is a video I made telling people why they should come on the weekend. (o, and get ready for a stack of new videos here, I have a few more made that I need to upload.)
Continue Reading…

KYCK 2010 Reflections

April 29, 2010 in Bible, Kids/Youth with 1 Comment

So last weekend I went on KYCK with the youth group at Willoughby. Twas a great weekend for all, and somewhere around 100 teenagers committed their lives to Christ over the weekend! Partay in heaven! Here are some reflections from each other the talks (which were on Ecclesiastes), also, check out Nathan Lee’s reflections from the weekend, he’s a smart dude.

Talk 1: I’m a creature, not the creator. Life is but a breath and I need to stop, remember God and bring him glory.

Talk 2: Thank God for the gifts that he has given us. Stop and do that now.

Talk 3: Enjoy the season that you are in, and thank God for those moments that he gives you.

Talk 4: Our God is good, and his grace is enough! Jesus will fix the world.

Talk 5: Stop making excuses. Stop putting it off. Trust Jesus. Have a go. Serve God.

Talk 6: Remember your creator in the days of your youth. (How good was the end of the talk, where he just walked out!)

These have mostly come from my Twitter stream, just incase you thought you had seen them before.

A great weekend overall, and it was great to see God working.

Teachers Teach Ethics

April 28, 2010 in Life with 0 Comments

As an Christian Education student at University, I have been watching the recent debate over ethics classes in place of SRE (Special Religious Education) very closely, so closely in fact that I did a research assignment on the issue last term. This was a media analysis of the debate, and I have decided to break my blogging silence on the issue (thanks to a push from Dave Miers and the heat that surrounds the issue at the moment). This post is not directly related to my paper, although I will blog a series directly from the paper. This post is about the fact that Teachers should be teaching ethics.

One point that has not really be raised in this discussion is the fact that ethics should be part of the hidden curriculum, what is the hidden curriculum I hear you say. The hidden curriculum is the part of the curriculum that is not explicit, but that teachers teach anyway. Students know not to lie, and should learn that from their teachers. Students know to respect their teachers, and this is not directly in the curriculum. Same with ethics, students should be learning how to think critically and should be learning how to live in regular class time.

My fear is that if ethics classes become mainstream then ethics will no longer have any place whatsoever in the regular classroom. What about the students in SRE, ethics isn’t explicitly taught in SRE, the truth is. At least I hope the truth is, especially in Protestant SRE. Will these students miss out on critical thinking about how to live?

Stay tuned for a barrage of further thoughts on the issue… It has been on my mind for a while.

Song Leading #2

April 27, 2010 in Music with 0 Comments

After my last rant I have 1 coherent thought to present to you now.

I think that a large part of song leading is enhancing emotions.

This means trying to make the emotional highs higher, and making the mellow times more mellow.

When singing praises to our great God, it is inevitable that emotions will come into it, we as humans have been made as emotional beings, and our love for God has an emotional aspect. And as a song leader, part of your job is to help enhance emotional connections, help lead the congregation, not just in singing, but lead them emotionally.

For example, if your congregation (and by your congregation, I do not mean a congregation that you own) is standing there barely singing with their hands in their pockets. Then you should not be jumping around stage clapping your hands. You should be smiling and engaging with eye contact so as to lift them emotionally. The people with their hands in their pocket are telling you that they do not want to participate right now, and you have to level them up if you want them clapping.

However, if you are in the middle of “Mighty to Save” and most of your congregation is engrossed in the song, then join them in this, slow the song down, add a few extra bars before you sing the chorus again, go. acapella. Enhance their emotions.

So there’s a thought. Less coherent than I thought it would be. Please let me know if you disagree or agree with these thoughts. And maybe something coherent can come out of it.

As a side thought, a song leader does not “control” the congregation as I have alluded to, but a song leader does have the power to enhance emotions.

PPT Tip #3 | Don’t Read

April 26, 2010 in Technology with 0 Comments

Your powerpoint is their to visually assist your audience. It is not their to replace you. So don’t read directly from your slides.

You can stop yourself from reading by not putting lots of words on your slides, if you don’t have words on your slide then you can’t read from them. I once had a lecturer who said no more than 6 words per slide, I think that’s quite extreme. In reality, 3-4 bullet points with a line of text in each is more than enough.

Your audience is there to see you present your information, if you are just reading from your slides then you may as well have just handed them an essay and sat down for 20 minutes.

For funny PPT Tips, including the one above, watch this video.

At KYCK

April 24, 2010 in Kids/Youth with 3 Comments

(Written on my phone)

I’m currently sitting in the loungeroom of the house in which my youth group is staying. It’s started raining which is disappointing for the 4 people in our group who just went for a bush walk, also disappointing for the person in that group who left their sunroof open, but all is good, some of our youth group girls are covering the hole with glad wrap. All around good times.

There have been some great lessons so far on KYCK. We have been encouraged to remember that we are creatures, not creators. We have also learnt that there are different seasons in life, and we shouldn’t wish those seasons away, instead, we should thank God for the good things we are given.

Dave Miers is speaking in the next session tonight and will be challenging everyone to put their faith in Christ if they have not done so already. Tonight is hopefully going to be one of the most important nights in a number of lives. I’m praying that tonight, God will be working in the hearts of the youth so that many may be saved. Will you join me in this prayer?

KYCK This Weekend

April 23, 2010 in Kids/Youth with 2 Comments

This weekend is the final weekend of KYCK, and I’m going with a bunch of youth to Katoomba for the weekend to hear some talks on Ecclesiastes. I’m really looking forward to the weekend, it’ll be sweet!

I’m going to be Tweeting throughout the weekend and might even put up a blog post from my phone, but we’ll see how we go. If you want to follow my Tweets then you can here. Also, if you want to see all of the Tweets from KYCK, then go to this post by Dave Miers to see a list of all Tweets coming from KYCK.

Below is the advertising video for KYCK this year, and below that is a video I made reviewing KYCK from our youth group a few years ago.

KYCK is always a great weekend when thousands of young people are challenged by the gospel, the Christian message. Please join us in prayer, and if you haven’t been challenged yet, then read this.

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