Delta Goodrem "Sitting On Top of the World"

"Grounded" Play

   Looking for a creative event to take a group of young people to... read about this play in today's hot chip wrapper... sorry the Newcastle Herald!! The play explores some typical adolescent themes about identity, choices, growing up and standing up for yourself against the backdrop of the 'Pasha Bulker' coal ship grounding in Newcastle.

"Grounded will be performed by the young people of Newcastle not only for a local audience at the Playhouse but will also travel to Sydney for a second season at the atyp Wharf Theatre.

Written by Alana Valentine
Directed by Toni Main
In association with atyp (australian theatre for young people)
Running time: 90mins no interval
Performances:
Thur 10 May 11am & 7pm
Fri 11 May 11am & 7pm
Sat 12 May 2pm & 7pm
Wed 16 May 7pm
Thur 17 May 11am & 7pm
Fri 18 May 11am & 7pm
Sat 19 May 11am & 7pm

Tickets*Adult $30
Subscriber $20 (Subscribe to 4 or more Inspirations Subsription Season shows and save!)
Group 8+ $20
Conc $25"

It's on a limited season at Newcastle's Civic Playhouse and you can explore May dates and tix here
For those who need to know I suspect PG to M would be a fair rating based on the precis I read!!

"Meet Me in the Middle of the Air"

Paul Kelly's brilliant rendering connected with Psalm 23

Anzac Day 2012

Respect,remembering but also knowing that war and violence are not a win, whatever side you're on... there are deep questions around care for the weak, spirit and soul!!

"The Last of the Diggers" Midnight Oil
Who will march for peace
Now that the last of the diggers has gone?
All those who were released
From Sulva Bay and from the Somme

The Mallee is whipped by sand
A great new silence blankets the land
We sure need the Stone Age
In the coming century

Who will feed the poor
Now that the Saint of the gutters is gone?
Who will hear the call?
You lately come or native born

For the touch of the Master's hand
The eye of the Master still watches the lamb
We sure need the Stone Age
In the coming century

The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers has won

Who gets sent to war?
Who'll lose a child to a foreign coast?
Who will leave our shore
And come home rattling like a ghost?

This country can be cruel
It'll leave you with scars that never heal
We sure need the Stone Age in the coming century
Still gonna need some Stone Age in the coming century

The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers
The last of the diggers has won

"The Avengers" Opens April 25 in Oz

I hope it's as good as it should be... 2hours+ or escapist fun and action!!

'Dynamo' E News

   I'm just about to send out the second of the monthly e news I've started distributing in my Youth Ministry Development Worker role in the UCA Hunter with resource ideas, connections, web stuff etc... begged, borrowed and stolen from lots of you...

Dynamo, from the same greek  root word as dynamic and dynamite!!
Happy to add others to the e list in case you'd find it helpful around the Hunter and beyond!!

"The Way" Bible

Space for questions, doubt, hope... this is the goal of a new Bible project called 'The Way' and using a 'New Living Translation' curated with additional black and white images, peoples stories, divided into sections reflecting our engagement with the story and faith.

I haven't read it and no translation serves all purposes but I am intrigued to see how this develops, with codes to draw you into an online community and opportunity to add your questions or stories to the space!!

The community you jojn may be US centric or end up being global...

It's curated by Mark Oestreicher and I'm familiar with some of the other writers and photographers and you can view videos, download a preview Chapter and join in here

"Somebody That I Used to Know" Another Go

This is a powerful interpretation of the Goyte/Kimbra duet now number one on the US Billboard Charts [first aussies since Savage Garden]. Not bad for an annoyingly catchy tune from a very talented nerd!! It's gone mad on FB today here in Oz anyhow!!

"Dr Seuss' The Lorax" rated G 1hr 26

"A 12-year-old boy searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world." imdb.com
   Danny DeVito, Zac Effron & Taylor Swift are handed a great story which takes a little while to warm up but seemed to capture the kids we took to the Heddon Greta Drive In a couple of weeks ago!!
   As an aside the Drive In is one of two which survive here in NSW, Oz [the other being at Blacktown in Sydney]. Apart from only being able to tune in via your FM radio... which had just started 30 years ago when I used to go there... the place is much the same!!
   The owners are wrestling with the cost of a digital projector as fi;m prints are not available as much now but it's been very popular the three recent times we have visited!!
  
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not."
So begins this conversation where the Dr Seuss quote ends it onscreen. The film is heartwarming, clever and has a clear message not just about the fate of the last tree in Thneed-ville but of all things.
   I think "Unless.." opens up the possibility of a brilliant youth or family camp theme... using the film as a Saturday night hinge for the whole weekend.
   Theologically this is a discipleship story. It's a story of 'community' and of making the choice to do 'the different thing' because UNLESS someone does... nothing will change... GREED and disregard for the created world are the challenges as Thneed-ville lives on 'bottled' air and is caught in a Matrix like artificial existence maintained in the interests of profiteering O'Hare.

The Story of Bottled Water clip, Blue King Brown's song, Junk Sculptures and wide games with an environmental/diehard styled theme could work well on this weekend adventure. This could lend itself to a creative engagement with Genesis and some eco worship options across the event... let's do it!!

"A tree falls the way it leans, Be careful which way you lean" The Lorax

"Jump Into the Fog" Easter 24 AM

Here's What Might have Happened in the All Together AM Session at "24"

It's probably time to share the ideas!!

Decorations onstage/band in place before 10am Actor in place before start

Images on loop then "24" Digital Clock

Actor 'frozen' onstage

People bring guitar, plectrum, stand etc and muso becomes active

Plays and eventually band joins with 'Blues Brothers' R&B play on for MCs

MC/s enter and sit on comfy lounge

Welcome people to the space Make a few INTROs tbc

Then lead into…

Suggest they didn’t quite know what to expect and what today was going to be like… 

Carlsberg Bikers clip [2mins]

Milk Crate Drama [4] characters including a biblical time traveller

Communal Worship Songs:

One Lord/A Voice is Heard/Let Me Go Down to the River

Activity Energiser: 'Magic Fountain' Art v Science

Movie Collage [5mins]

Setting the Scene/Acknowledgement Indigenous History [Synod Banners]

Didge Music or Gurrumul Clip

Newsreader Live onstage updating the events in Jerusalem

MCs Interview Leaders about Key Aspects of the Day

Communal Worship Songs:

Keeping My Eyes on You/We Will Love

Group Building Activity including 'Clusters'/Music and Questions

Movie Clip "Pillow Fight"

Prayer Response Activity with Flags

MCs explain LUNCH

Communal Worship Songs:

Faith Hope & Love

EXIT band play off

Insight '19' on SBS on Oz TV

   Great program tonight on SBS TV catching up with a set of guests and studio audience of young people aged 19 who have been on the program at 13 and 16. They are a great mixed bunch of Aussie kids from a variety of cultural and contextual backgrounds.
   Honest, thoughtful, informative and inspiring!! Nothing is so informative as the longitudinal stuff where different ones are looking back at old clips and reflecting on similarities and changes.
Check out the background here
   I'm not going to make observations here, I'm 'practicing what I preach' and just listening...

Easter Monday...

Two songs for today...

Easter Sunday!!!

When in coming days I post what 'would have been' our teams contribution to Easter "24" had it gone ahead, you would see that it was a U2 free zone [as that is about creating an experience for a group of young people and leaders using contemporary tunes].

As my Easter has largely been a self created space [with some great conversations, Sunrise and space thrown in]I have broken open the gates and simply chosen what I wanted to hear!!
The above is a fans eye view, not unlike the first night I experienced [and introduced friend Rah to on U2s last Oz visit] before venturing down to the inncer circle onground with Darren 2 nights later!! An amazing show and an amazing song for it's vision of a world lived differently!!

And then there is the original and perhaps most amazing version of all when the U2 'Rattle & Hum' movie doco changes from
black and white to colour at Sun DEvil Stadium Tempe Arizona!!


And here's the thrust of my opportunity to share a Reflection at Warners Bay Foreshore this morning at Sunrise Easter Ecumenical happening!!

Mark 16:1-8
16When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

THE THING ABOUT GRIEF IS….
It’s JUST LIKE the song OF THAT NAME by the Australian singer Claire Bowditch

It’s like a bundle or a fragment of memories,
Of things you did and didn’t say…
Put back together and held onto with string and old rubber bands…
It’s in that frame of mind that MARY MAGDALENE,
MARY THE MOTHER OF JAMES And SALOME,
Bought spices and went to Jesus tomb…
I take the time to remind us BECAUSE , it’s so RARE we know the WOMEN’S names
The writer of MARK’S gospel, crafts a deliberate and unique story
In more ways than one...
They find the STONE they were concerned about, rolled back…
And instead of finding Jesus body, they encounter a YOUNG PERSON
WHO TELLS THEM HE HAS BEEN RAISED, HE IS NOT HERE…

What happens reminds me of the Ethiopean pratice On Easter Sunday morning,
OF moving around their cities and towns, asking:
“HAVE YOU SEEN THE BODY”? Have you seen the body?

On hearing this news, they fled the tomb,
They were asked to go and tell Peter and those around him
In TERROR and AMAZEMENT,
OR it would be true to say, a mix of TRAUMATISED and ECSTATIC...
AND as one writer puts it, AT THE END OF THE STORY,
You can hear THE SILENCE…
BUT the silence didn’t last too long, Perhaps hundreds of years
before a longer ending or two were added…
One of my peers reminded me of another possibility,
with this abrupt ending to the story,
That it was in fact the YOUNG PERSON whose inspired passion
Saw them telling others…

Either way, It didn’t end there,
Here we stand, In the [warming rays] of the early morning sun,
Caught up in the hope, that Jesus Christ is alive,
Captured by the story of one who stood for grace, justice, love and truth
And who calls us to live out that story, everyday…
We are asked, where we locate ourselves in this story?

Over 2000 years later,
We join with people all across the southern and the northern hemisphere
Repeating the ancient words…

Christ is Risen,
He is Risen Indeed…

I’m talking about HOPE,
That sees what might be, that stands against falsehoods
And knows…ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE,

This is what those who followed Jesus seemed attracted to,
What Occupy Wall St [and perhaps Occupy Jerusalem] were all about
And a summary of who we are called to be in community today,
[I cut out examples of those from the edges we could/should be most able to 'be with' in living out a world of another possibility... indigenous people, those who arrive on boats, the poor, friends and neighbours in pain...]

If we have faith to believe…

Easter Saturday...

Hear the silence...

'Good Friday'

Easter is... Love

Both our UCA QLD and SA Synods have over recent years produced some great video clip resources for a variety of purposes. This one features a 'call to worship' in creative fashion from the QLD Moderator but would be suitable for any place and especially on Easter Sunday!!
Play it on youtube, copy and save the web address, paste that into www.keepvid.com, right click on the highest resolution version in the list and click 'save target' or equivalent and choose a folder on your computer and it'll download.
Churches with net connection could play it from youtube directly [play it through once first to prevent stoppage]!!

The New Youth Minister

The US youth ministry culture is a very different context... isn't it?