The Age (Melbourne’s broadsheet, respectable newspaper), has an article by Religious Editor Barney Zwartz. Seems to give a pretty accurate depiction of where emerging forms of church are at in Australia. Found via Gerrymander
Entries by Geoff
Christina tagged me for a meme, which for non-geek readers means that I’m going to disregard my normal penchant for seeking original inspiration for blog posts and I’m instead outsourcing mine to some unknown originator. This particular meme centres around obsessions, specifically listing (and briefly explaining) 5 of them. So here it is – five of Geoff’s obsessions.
1. Statistics. It’s a running joke in the office that my favourite part of any workday is when I get asked a specific query about the number users signing into the web application that I help to manage. And I’ve signed up for way too many statistic services (recently even a “pay for” one) so that I can spend hours poring over the details of the 20 or so people that visit this site. I’m sure it’s bi-product of having two maths teachers (albeit one a former maths teacher nowadays) as parents, but give me some numbers to analyze and I’m a happy little chappy.
2. Sport. This one became fairly obvious last night as I was walking along the road and managed to catch a TV on in the bar we were walking past, and saw that it was a footy game from what must have been the early nineties. Sadly, I still tried to catch what the score was. There are a few things like that which have been racking up for a while now. Every year I’ll get up at 2pm to watch the FA Cup final, despite rarely even really wanting either of the two teams to win and the almost inevitable truth that the FA Cup final will be a boring match (although Stephen Gerrard and Liverpool’s win last year certainly changed that). Like so many other Australian males, I’m a sport fanatic
3. Patterns. This is one that I keep a little bit quieter on because it becomes one of those things which gets you funny sideways glances when you do it. If something is layed out, I like it to make a pattern. I don’t do it as much now but when I’m walking on tiles I’ll often walk as if there’s a chess-board and I’m only allowed to walk on the black squares. There’s just something inherently nice about having things work in a pattern. It’s not something I’ll get aggressive about, it’s usually only sub-conscious. So there you go – I’m a freak.
4. Stacking. It’s to Rebecca’s dismay and embarrassment, if given too much spare time on a dinner table, or even in a restaurant, it’s my natural instinct to start seeing if I can balance one thing on top of another. And after the first, it’s always worth trying another. I’ve had serviettes holding in toothpicks holding up bottles that are balancing plates which have forks holding…. well, you get the idea.
5. Foreign accents. This has become much more of a thing recently – but I’ve got a thing for foreign accents, specifically trying to use them. French in particular, but I’ve almost got a decent Russian accent (my Russian “hello” sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev himself), my German is still there from learning German, and I’ve been putting in some work into my Spanish. Doesn’t make any sense, but it sure is fun.
So there you are. In maintaining my policy of encouraging original thought in the blogosphere, I’m not going to tag anyone, so I’m finished. Hope you enjoyed that one.
Had a few queries regarding the relative nakedness of the site yesterday. For those of you who didn’t visit – I was participating in “CSS Naked Day“, an annual event in which you take away the CSS Stylesheet from your website in order to prove that you’ve got a site that is well structured and beautiful. See the CSS Naked site for more details. You’ve missed it for this year, but you might at least get an idea of what I’m talking about.
Just thought that I couldn’t really let today get past without wishing a very happy 21st birthday to the very lovely Rebecca whom I love very much. Go visit her and say happy birthday, you’ll make her very happy. (and similar, perhaps slightly less enthusiastic birthday wishes to Lu Lu (warning – midwife blog complete with details) who happens to share Bec’s birthday on account of them being twins. I’m sure she’d appreciate the birthday wishes too.
Left the poll up for long enough, so the new blogroll link is through to The Dilbert Blog. And it’s fitting, because I had a great laugh at this quote from today’s post:
”Yesterday I was thinking about President Bush’s Secret Service detail. Their job is to protect the president against would-be assassins. That sounds like an important job until you ask yourself this question: “What kind of assassin would prefer Dick Cheney as president?”
Well, my tips are already in trouble (2 for the week) – congratulations to Sam (Meika) and Rodney who are in the lead on 5. Must admit, I thought that I’d tipped the Magpies and I really should have picked the Saints. And I’m a fool for being surprised that the Tiges got done by filthy Carlton – looks like one of my predictions has come true already.
With the dawn of a new AFL Season approaching, I thought it appropriate (given that the old man and I have got a membership this year) to take some time out to pass on some valuable predictions on what the season 2007 might look like for the Mighty yeller and black.
Richo (Matthew Richardson) to spend half the season on the sidelines. The big, dumb and ugly one is just losing the fight against retirement. I love him, and hope he’s got a couple more seasons in that tired old body. But I can’t see him gracing the field for more than 10 or 11 games this year.
Shane Tuck to win Richmond’s Best and Fairest. He’s quickly becoming the sole representative of consistency in a violently inconsistent midfield. As long as Patrick Bowden stops feeding brother Joel exhorbitant amounts of leather, Tucky should take it this year.
Terry Wallace to write off a thrashing as a “learning experience” and “good for the team”. Don’t get me wrong. I love Wally. But sometimes the crap that spouts from the senior coach’s mouth just makes you want to collapse in incredulity. For the past 3 years we’ve been allowing the Tiges to get off with pathetic efforts because we’re “such a young list”. And given that it seems to be working well for Tiger Terry, I can’t see the line changing just yet.
A big win against a team much better than us. It seems that every year the Tiges manage to get up over some pretty tough opposition including last year’s shock win over (then premiership favourites) the Crows.
A big loss over a team we are much better than. The inevitable baggage that goes with being giant killers is that you then end up getting beaten by a team who shouldn’t be able to make your reserves. So Round 1 against the navy blues is probably a danger game for us.
All in all, the prediction you’re really waiting for……. the Tiges will probably finish
9th.
It’s footy season again. And it’s the time to startup footy tipping comps, and as always I’m definitely one to blindly follow an emerging trend. So here’s your opportunity to tip against the other regular readers on here. Join up at footytips.com.au and join TheGeoffRe(y)port competition by following this link, and you can tip against as many people as join. You never know, as long as I win, there’ll probably even be a prize.
Regular GeoffRe(y)porter Matt alerted me to this post from Church Marketing Sucks. From the post:
- “Fight truth decay”
- “Come in for a free faith lift.”
- “Chxxch — Have you guessed what’s missing. UR!”
And then I simply had to throw in this beauty from (blogroll contender) Indexed found here.
And just so you know, I’m house-sitting for the next couple of weeks; leaving me without regular personal internet time. So the blog posts will come, but perhaps not as regularly.
I think I’ve mentioned his blog once or twice before, but there’s an amazing post over on Paul Mayers’ blog “One for the road” discussing what it really means to live in an other-centred community, particularly in relation to sexuality and more specifically homosexuality and celibacy. From the post:
“would you change your views on homosexuality if it meant you being prepared to surrender your own sex life and live with them as a friend and companion who together shared a life of celibacy and its related struggles?”
If there’s a better, more honest look at what Christian sexuality is really all about, then I certainly haven’t found it.