Yesterday, I wrote about how many of our favourite hymns are really just mashups, matching lyrics with melodies sometime after each was composed. I noted that some people have tried to modernise the lyrics of older hymns. Some of the attempts are pretty decent, but they haven’t managed to gain much widespread acceptance. What should we do?

Back in the day, Contrafactum was a thing with church music. Contr-whatta-what? Yeah, you heard me. Contrafactum. Basically, it’s where you get a well-known melody and then slip in your own lyrics. And guess what: as a result, many of your favourite old-school banger hymns did it. Contrafactum.

In the early 1980s, a member of my family was rostered on to give the Old Testament Bible Reading at St Mark’s, Yagoona. The scheduled reading: Genesis 5. This reading went down in history—at least from this person’s perspective—as the worst Bible reading of all time. The reader simply could not compose herself. And if you read it, you can understand why. So, so repetitive.

Ever wondered how you can view all of the different volunteers at your church in one report on Elvanto? A report that shows the people listed by department, but in a mildly readable way? This is something we’ve been working on recently.

Tonight I discovered a hack that will save me many hours in the future. And maybe it will save time for you too. This evening, with the children in bed and my beloved watching her Gilmore Girls, I set upon the cumbersome task of entering all of the volunteers for our upcoming Holiday Kids’ Club into Elvanto, the database our church uses. Nine different categories of volunteers. Just short of a hundred volunteers needed to be added to these nine categories.

Ever worked for an organisation where you often need to claim receipts for work-related expenses? I have. People often complain about how laborious and slow the process is. I disagree. I think it can be fun. Today I created a new game: the receipt processing time trial challenge. This is how the game works.

As much as I like cannons, this article is not about cannons. It’s about canon. "Canon" originates from the Greek term kanōn, meaning “rule”. When talking about the Bible, “canon” means an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture.

Last Friday night at Hope Youth, we looked at 1 Corinthians 11. It’s a pretty controversial passage and I expected lots of questions, especially from our older youth. What got me really excited—some of our senior girls were asking about verse 3 and what it means for our doctrine of the Trinity.

Many Christians deliberate over the bar for ordination. Some feel that their denomination demands too much of their clergy. Too much training, too much screening, too much theological alignment, too many interviews. Others feel that the bar is too low. There should be more of these things. After all, these people are going to be pastoring flocks of God’s people. We want to ensure that they are fit for the task.

Over the years I’ve seen several people experience what might be described as “burnout”. That thing where someone is mentally and even physically fried and feels that they cannot keep going. There are usually various factors at play. Perhaps mental health stuff, physical health stuff, work stuff, marriage stuff, family stuff, friendship stuff, community stuff. And it’s really hard. A person has been going hard and then all of a sudden has to stop.

Today, I have COVID. This will be one of my shorter blogs.

1 Corinthians 10:31 says, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." This verse is part of a larger discussion by Paul about Christian freedom and responsibility. Particularly regarding eating food that has been offered to idols. It’s also just a great memory verse.

When a church member does something, perhaps something we ask them to do, perhaps something we didn’t ask them to do, but it was super helpful: should we thank them?

I’ve just done some calculations and determined that over the past 20 years, I have sung around 7,300 songs in church, heard over 2000 sermons, and had … some … conversations about transgenderism.

Today, I’ve convoyed with the Hope Staff team (those without COVID) to Erina on the Central Coast for the Reach Australia Conference. If you look at their website, you’ll see that “Reach Australia is a church network of over 260+ churches and church plants working together to see Australia reached with the gospel.“ After day one, I’m pretty pooped, physically and intellectually. But here are some highlights.

Sometimes, when I’m reading a book of the Bible, I don’t necessarily want a full commentary detailing every thing that could be known about that book. Sometimes, I just want some basic pointers. Especially for me personal Bible reading. The big idea. The main points. The main application. That kind of stuff.

When I started as Hope Anglican Church, part of my job was to get our junior leaders (we call them “Leaders in Training” or “LiTs”) up to date with their safe ministry training (aka safegarding training). Safe Ministry training is so, so important. In Mark 10:14, Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

On Tuesday 6th May 2003, everything changed. I was sitting in a year 8 maths class. We were learning how to balance equations. One of the office administrators came to the door, requesting I come to the front office. I thought this seemed a bit odd. Not entirely sure why this was necessary. But I willingly obliged.

Have you every noticed what Paul says about the frequency with which he prays? Check out Romans 1:9–10: “God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.”

I’ve recently just joined a Bible study group with a team of legend senior high youths. On Sunday, one of these said legends asked, “How old will I be in heaven?” I decided that instead of answer the question then and there, I’d answer it in an article.