It’s now Day Two for the Forge Grassroots Mission Festival in Melbourne. Somewhere around 350 to 400 people have gathered from around Australia to catch up with each other and keep the cutting edge of the missional church movement sharp.
Al Hirsch was in full swing on Thursday, providing a bonus day of input for Forge interns and other interested visitors, talking through his book, The Forgotten Ways. Inspired by the early New Testament church experience, and that of the persecuted churches in China, Al talked about hallmarks of strong vital missional movements. Al spent a fair amount of time in the morning setting the scene for why the church needs to get its act together as incarnational and missional (being sent beyond itself). The afternoon was focused on developing common values, beliefs and practices expressed in practical ways.
Al reflected on the dangers of hierarchical approaches to church expressed in high views of ordination, and attempts to reproduce the Old Testament temple approach to worship. At the same time he expressed concern that ‘house church’ models were limited because they lacked the broadness of community found in the extended household models of the New Testament.
Al has spent the last year in the United States, on a speaking tour and working with leaders there. It was interesting to note his concern about the tendency of some emerging church leaders to lose a sense of confidence in the gospel. Moving past faith into doubt, Al suggested, would put the brakes on any sense of healthy movement. I’m not sure I agree with Al here. Yes, when we stop standing for anything positive we often stop looking beyond ourselves. But there is a season for reassessing and deconstructing before redeveloping expressions of faith that can be held with integrity and passion.
More to Come
It’s not too late to turn up at the Forge conference - at 488 Swanston Street, Carlton, Melbourne. I’ll be taking workshops in the afternoon on ‘post liturgical, post charismatic, post alt worship’, working with Cheryl Lawrie in the basement car park of the Uniting Church Centre, 380 Little Collins Street, 1.30 - 4.30 pm, Saturday and Sunday. Cheryl and team have set up a ’sacred space’ art installation with a focus on life in the city. In the same space Adrian Greenwood and the Praxis team have set up a cafe and exhibit focusing on ending sex traffic.
Chicago/Christchurch creative agency TimeZoneOne has launched a viral campaign promoting Spruce Beer, focused on Waitangi Day, New Zealand identity and beer.
A creative experiment focuses on developing a new brand capturing the essence of New Zealand identity. Rejects include All Black Jock Strap Ale (too yeasty), Crowded House Bitter (too bloody Australian), and Ernest Rutherford Lager (unpleasant fall out). Second on the list of accepted beers is Kiwi Bush-Bee Beer (part bumble part killer). First place goes to Captain Cook’s Spruce Beer, first brewed by Captain Cook in 1773, designed to prevent scurvy.
The spot suggests that 8 out of 10 doctors now agree beer solves most health issues.
Spruce Beer, is a New Zealand beer based on Captain Cook’s original recipe and was first made in Dusky Sound, New Zealand, 1773. It is flavored with ’spruce’ (rimu) and tea tree. Spruce Beer is brewed for Heritage Foods (NZ) Ltd. by Wigram Brewing Co. in Christchurch.
Rugby Racing and Beer
A New Zealand folk song recorded by Rod Derrett in 1965
When I was just a little kid,
Knee high to a keg,
My Daddy took me on his knee.
He drained his glass and closed his eyes
And gave me very sound advice
On how to be a good Kiwi.
“Get to know your football sides
And learn to spell from Moore’s race guides
And don’t forget down under over here
Because of your great parentage
You have a national heritage
Of Rugby, Racing and Beer.”
Rugby, Racing and Beer,
Rugby, Racing and Beer,
Down under we’re mad over our
Rugby, Racing and Beer.
Old Uncle Charlie went to see
The Doctor yesterday
He cried, “You’ve got to help me Doc and quick,
I’m seeing spots before my eyes,
My head feels twice its normal size,
And every Sunday morning I feel sick.”
The Doctor took one look at him
And said, “Well Charlie things look grim,
I hate to have to tell ya but I fear,
You’d better write your will tonight,
‘Coz you’ve got kiwi-itis,
That’s Rugby, Racing and Beer.”
Rugby, Racing and Beer,
Rugby, Racing and Beer,
Down under we’re mad over our
Rugby, Racing and
Rugby, Racing and
Rugby, Racing and Beer.
I’ve just published a couple of articles in Journey, the monthly magazine published by the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland.
Jingle All The Way focuses on the role of advertising around Christmas - how do churches respond? I look at ways in which companies have used the Christmas story - what some would call the secularization of Christmas. And then I look at how Christian organisations have used the festive season to develop a connection of good will with the wider community. My concern is that Christians can become possessive of the Christmas celebration rather than seeing an opportunity to build relationships of trust.
Cheryl Lawrie, of [Hold] This Space, has an excellent article in The Age, Melbourne’s newspaper, titled “Away with the Manger“, suggesting that churches not try and compete for popularity over Christmas.
My second article for the month told the story of our first Christmas after the death of our daughter Kristen, in 1992. Lloma and Ken Harnett, fellow grievers in Tokoroa, pulled together a team to host a Christmas Day lunch. I’ll post the article here shortly.
Victory Family Church in Decatur, Texas, has hit the news with a billboard with the words, “I Hate Victory Family Church’, Satan”. The church is lapping up the publicity, enjoying the rise in hits to its web site, www.victoryfamilychurch.net.
Associate pastor Chris Bates said the web site has had more than 1,100 hits since the billboard went up. “That’s huge for a small church like us,” he said. Bates said his church isn’t done yet; the next billboard will read, “Victory Family Church stole my kids - Satan.” “It’s a different take on the God sign,” he said. “We just wanted something that didn’t look churchy.”
USA-wide church network Lifechurch TV runs satanhateslife.com, a web site associated with a billboard campaign for Billboards include the words, “I was robbed at lifechurch.tv”, “Lifechurch.tv is killing me”, and “Lifechurch.tv sucks”.
Cedarcreek, Ohio, one of those churches, provides the explanation:
“Satan wants people to be stuck in a meaningless, frustrated whirlwind with no apparent way out. But he knows better. He knows there is a way out and it’s found in a relationship with God, not in a religion. God is willing to forgive and forget your mistakes. Satan wants you to remain in a guilt-ridden state of mind and will constantly remind you of your miserable performance in life. Don’t fall for Satan’s tricks to get you to give up on and hate life. He hates life and hates you. God loves life and loves YOU! To find out more about God’s love, forgiveness and purpose click here.”
So what do you think? Is this an example of a church network with a sense of humour? Is it likely to get people thinking? I guess it depends on whether people believe in the existence of Satan or not. They do risk encouraging a polarisation in their community, unwittingly (or maybe consciously) inviting persecution and resentment.
How about the explanation of the gospel? Framing good news in the context of Satan’s hold on people is an approach used since the church first began - the Christus Victor approach. However the way this is written comes across like a political dirt campaign. It’s not convincing and paints the advertisers as people who believe in two choices - God or Satan. It assumes a common understanding of Satan.
ASB’s campaign to launch pago in New Zealand has received a number of top-ranking awards in Cannes this last week.
The pago campaign has received five honours at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival including a Grand Prix. The Festival is regarded as the most preeminent international advertising festival, this year attracting 25,000 entries received from 80 countries. pago was awarded a Media Grand Prix in the ‘Financial Products & Services’ category; a Bronze Media Lion in the ‘Best Use of Ambient Media: Small Scale’ category; another Bronze Media Lion in the ‘Use of Mixed Media’ category; a Bronze Direct Lion in the ‘Alternative Media’ category for the pago Money Sticker; and a Promo Lion in the ‘Best Integrated Promotional Campaign’ category. The campaign is also shortlisted in the Titanium and Integrated Lions awards.
“We are absolutely rapt”, says Peter Muggleston, Group Manager ASB Online & Info Services, ASB. “This is a massive achievement for our campaign and it’s fantastic to be recognised on the global stage.”
The most striking feature of the “Money Goes Digital” campaign was tiny ads stuck on genuine banknotes as peel-off stickers. The NZ$5 note was stickered and seeded into circulation at the Big Day Out and key youth retailers. Using hypertag and bluetooth technology festival punters could download free money vouchers to their mobile phone. The stickers were attached with permission from the New Zealand Reserve Bank and Sir Edmund Hillary, the NZ icon whose face is on the five dollar note.
The campaign team commissioned NZ artist Maurice Bennett to create a mural at Britomart, the Auckland Central train station, using 30,000 Post-It notes to represent a pixilated five dollar banknote. Commuters were able to help themselves to the post-it notes. Bennett is known as the ‘Toastman’ for his ambient art using pieces of toast.
Launched in New Zealand in November 2006, pago is a new payment service, allowing money to be sent from one person to another using their mobile phones or email. The pago service is available to people with a mobile phone or e-mail address who also have a New Zealand bank account which is accessible online.
The pago campaign was developed at TBWA/Whybin, Auckland, by executive creative director Andy Blood, art director Karen Maurice-O’Leary, copywriter Verity Butt, group account director Sarah Goldring, account manager Tracey Hazelwood.
The Whybin/TBWA team, in their submission to Cannes, describe the ASB project as beginning with a dream brief. ASB demanded and (research supported) non-conventional advertising. The prospect target was defined as ‘Digital Natives’ - a tech savvy youth audience. Although highly cynical of conventional marketing messages, they are captivated by innovation and digital development. The strategy was to capture attention through new technology and media innovation reflective of the Pago brand. The media solution discovers new touch points and embodies genuine media innovation.
The team at OMD New Zealand, responsible for media buying, included business director Rebecca Houston, media planner/buyer, Will Douglas and media buyer Chloe Hardy.
Mark Driscoll, pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has hit the emerging church blogosphere this week, with a video clip he provided for the National New Church Conference Church Planting conference in Miami last week. Mark wasn’t able to get to the conference and so sent a videotape of him speaking.
Mark focuses on 2 Timothy 2, the passage in which church planter Timothy is encouraged to be focused, hardworking and able to endure hardship.
“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs�he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”
Mark delivers his rant from a military cemetery, with a video closeup to the firm-wristed gun-toting soldier statue. He paints the church planting scene in terms of battleground and body count. He believes that selecting the ‘right man’ is critical to the success of a church plant. He suggests that the core mission is to find men to serve, put them through boot camp, instruct them, and through God’s grace force them to be people who will live as God’s people. “If you want to win a war you have to get the men.” The message, Driscoll says, is Jesus the warrior, king and hero who has fulfilled his mission: leaving his throne in heaven to live a life without sin, dying for our sin, rising from the dead triumphant over Satan, sin and death, and ascending into heaven. The message, Driscoll says, is not about some marginalised Gallilean peasant hippie in a dress rocking out to the Spice Girls in a cabriolet hoping to meet nice people to do aromatherapy with while drinking herbal tea. The snapshot from John in Revelation is of Jesus in his glory returned home as a triumphant warrior and victor.
Interestingly Mark’s video was just before Bill Hybels presented the closing address for the conference. Hybels simply suggested that church planting needed women in leadership before proceeding on to his talk.
Clearly the soldier image does it for some men. And some women. However the writer of 2 Timothy goes on to use the image of athlete and farmer as well. The early church would have had a healthy percentage of pacifists for whom the military connotations would have been repugnant.
I don’t agree with Mark’s commitment to use only men in church leadership roles. But I can sympathise with his efforts to develop a concept of church that will equip and inspire people with the Y chromosome. So are there models and metaphors that provide the sense of challenge and focus needed by men today?
Denny Weaver, in his book, Nonviolent Atonement, works with the Christus Victor concept in a way that clearly portrays Jesus as an alternative to the stereotypes of ‘macho marine’ and ‘gay hippie’. I’ve written a brief review of his Nonviolent Atonement at GodPost this week.
If we want to talk about being focused, hard working and enduring hardship we can learn from sportswear companies like Adidas. I’m aware of the questionable work practices of these companies, but we can learn from their advertising agencies!
Adidas, in its latest ‘Impossible is Nothing’ campaign, invites sports and adventure role models to talk about the toughest times of their lives, using art, animation and gritty honesty. They’ve interviewed women and men, young and old, and enabled each to cross the artificial boundary between creativity and gutsiness. Adidas doesn’t need to ignore women to attract male customers.
Xianz.com, the faith based alternative to Myspace, has now launched it’s own video service. Xianz Watch will now enable members to view, upload and share videos. Although just launched, Xianz Watch has hundreds of videos already uploaded. Being called a family friendly alternative to YouTube, Xianz Watch supports over 20 video formats. Other features include a video messaging system that allows easy communication and the ability to add video sharing buddies.
“By the end of February, we hope to have several thousand videos”, says Robbie Davidson, founder of Xianz.com. “We are very excited and a bit surprised to see how quickly our members are embracing Xianz Watch and adding content to it daily.”
Xianz, pronounced ‘Zanz”, is shorthand for Christians. The ‘X” is from the Greek letter, Chi, the first letter of Christ.
Here’s one of the videos recently uploaded on Xianz Watch - a ‘Get A Mac’ spoof featuring Christian and Christ Follower (rather than PC and Mac), part of ‘Christian No More’ from Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois. Ironically the four videos uploaded by Danny Z question the whole premise of Xianz. Is being a follower of Jesus really about developing a parallel universe distinguished by bumper stickers, good Evangelical reading, JPod Contemporary Christian music, and best Sunday clothes? Is it really about living in an environment populated only by family-friendly Christians?
It’s good to see the series is up on YouTube as well:
The series is available to purchase in high resolution MPEG2, MPEG4, and low resolution Windows Media Video formats from the CCC Estore.
I’ve just sent out an update for Duncan’s TV Ad Land. It’s a monthly post of what should have been four weekly posts. Never mind.
Duncans TV Site Development
Posts now have words rather than numbers in the permalinks. It took a few days to get this right. I discovered that I really do need to have a date in the title to avoid mucking up RSS feeds.
All RSS subscriptions now are channeled through my Feedburner account, which gives users capacity to email, add to del.icio.us and submit to Digg. At last count there are 133 RSS subscribers.
I’ve added a favicon to the site - which means that in most browsers there’s a little television beside the title of each page.
I’ve started adding Technorati tags - though they’re invisible in the posts.
I’ve added a page of links to advertising agencies, under ‘About This Site’. More to come on production, edting, post production and sound/music companies.
You’ll notice that more recently every third ad has been connected with the FIFA World Cup. I’ve placed an asterisk beside those spots. The top search engine on Duncan’s TV works perfectly if you want to find these spots.
April
Mercedes Sound of Summer
Adidas Hello Tomorrow
Nicorette No Gary No (AU)
Subaru Impreza Numbers (AU)
Budweiser Stadium Wave
May
Duncan Yo Yos - Throw Duncan
Global Warming - Tick, Train
Inghams Chicken - Swearing Mum (AU)
Carlsberg - Old Lions *
Ford Courier -� Barbecue (AU)
Virgin Mobile Russell (AU)
Finnish Finishing Sauce (AU & NZ)
Starburst - Party (AU & NZ)
Assistance Dogs - Pick up the Phone (AU)
TLC - Life Lessons
Toyota Prado - Ice Sculptures (AU)
Quit Smoking - Gangrene Amputation (AU)
Amoisonic Mobile - Phone Reincarnation
Red Meat - Evolution with Sam Neill (AU)
Adidas Adicolor Pink
Lamb Fragrance (AU)
Adidas Adicolor Green
Jaguar - Gorgeous
Bud Light - Secret Fridge
Nike Football - Joga Bonito *
Sydney Anglicans - Challenging the Da Vinci Code (AU)
Honda Fit
Virgin Mobile Exciting Ad with Russell (AU)
Squeezy Marmite - Man with broken Arm & Mother with Baby sick of Marmite-flavoured milk
Adidas +50 TUNIT Modular Man *
Suncorp Bank/Insurance sponsors Skin Cancer research with Aint No Sunshine (AU)
BNZ - Piggy Banks (NZ)
Adidas -� Football Recruitment *
Peugeot 207 - Ladybird and Firefly
March of the Penguins and too spoofs
Coca Cola Argentina Football stop motion ads *
Libra Tampon - The Comparison (AU)
Burger King - Kiwis Love Eggs (NZ)
Sure Deodorant - Wild Animals *
Apple - Get a Mac with John Hodgson and Justin Long
IKEA - Moo Cow Milker
ESPN World Cup Soccer - C�te d’Ivoire, Tartan Army, Sick Days, Anthem *
Pineapple Lumps - Sweet As (NZ)
Absolut - Cut the Crap (AU)
BBC - FIFA World Cup Imagination *
Boots Sun Shop - Summer Rush
June
American Express - Kate Winslet
Nike - Juggle Chain *
Geico Gecko - New Voiceover
National Bank Student Life (AU)
Christ Jesus - What A Ripper combination (AU)
Subaru Impreza Accelerated (AU)
Carlton Draught - Worth It and Deep Cleansing Formula (AU)
Dictators Wearing Fur
Adidas Oliver Kahn Bridge
Today I’ve joined up with Amazon UK’s Beta advertising program, Self-Optimizing Links. That’s the feature at the top of each page, with three items ranging from iPods through to books. The theory is that the script in the page template will find the most appropriate products to go with the contents of the page. After the page has been loaded four to five times the ads do start to provide relevant material.
So that explains the the prominence of Highlander movies on the main page of Pacific Highlander. Put ‘Duncan Macleod’ and ‘Pacific Highlander’ together and that’s what you get. But hopefully there will be some useful connections for readers, particularly for those living in the UK. I have an account at both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, for the sake of some products that just can’t be obtained through the American base.
The Amazon contextual ads can’t be used on pages that have Google Adsense contextual ads. So I’ve kept the Google ads on Duncan’s TV and am putting Amazon on other sites where appropriate.
Interested in your feedback on how this is working for you…
Driving from the Gold Coast to Brisbane I see a billboard placed strategically across from the Beenleigh Tavern by local Christians. The sign says “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Read Your Bible”. This last month the sign has been supplemented by another billboard, advertising clothes. What do you think?
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Associate pastor Chris Bates said the web site has had more than 1,100 hits since the billboard went up. “That’s huge for a small church like us,” he said. Bates said his church isn’t done yet; the next billboard will read, “Victory Family Church stole my kids - Satan.” “It’s a different take on the God sign,” he said. “We just wanted something that didn’t look churchy.”
