Scott Yang's Playground

I was uploading last Sunday’s sermon MP3 onto church’s website this morning, and had a little fun plotting this graph: It is the length of Joshua’s Sunday sermons in number of seconds, since February this year when he started preaching the Proverbs mini-series. The big dip on 5 March was when the talks changed from [...]

Since my hard disk died more than a month ago, I have been trying to rescue that dead Western Digit drive using various methods — but so far they all appear to be in vain. Currently I am trying to copy the dead disk to another flesh one using dd_rescue in hope that I can [...]

Came back from FOCUS Church Camp 2006 “Spirit Driven Life” this evening, and I was tired. Four days has gone so quickly, and I’ll need to face work again tomorrow. :( One thing that is different this year is — I actually don’t think I have anything worthwhile to report! Oh, the Missionary Sims is [...]

Went to a FOCUS wedding last Saturday. It was Marcus and Polly’s, and it was great. Why FOCUS weddings are so good? Great testimonyThose got married were the ones that you have known for years at church, and their growth in Christian life and commitment in marriage are great encouragement. Great teachingIt seems the line [...]

Via Simon, Andrew Lim wrote in Sydney Anglicans on buzzing your church using a well-designed, well-optimised, well-marketed, and get this — well-monetized church website. If done right, Internet can be a very good ally of Christian churches. With marketer’s cap on, Andrew listed out 3 points.

SMH: the religion-lite today — prosperity Gospel, charismatic churches, cheap grace, etc. “Why are they attracting so many followers?” First, they make people feel good. Second, there is an energy and buzz to most of the services that are totally lacking from most traditional churches. Third, they are optimistic — you won’t hear much talk [...]

As December draws closer, it is again the time of the year weaving good-bye and singing sayonara. In a high turnover church like FOCUS, it is not uncommon to see people coming and leaving. People come to church for various reasons, and sometimes these motivations change over time. At the same time, people depart for [...]

Last Sunday was Mandarin Bible Fellowship‘s annual review. It has been something that we are trying to run every year — just before students catch their plane home. I did not recall whether we have managed to run the review last year, but anyway, it has been an interesting review this year.

5 E’s that has been part of Unichurch’s mission statement for as far as I can remember. Evangelise Edify Equip Export Expand In yesterday’s Unichurch Together, where each congregation reported their progress on one of these 5 E’s. Praise to the Lord when there has been growth in almost all dimensions!

I had a great weekend a few days ago, at the Copacabana beach near the Gosford (no, not the one in Brazil), almost two hours drive from Sydney Eastern suburbs. The weather is nice, the beach is very nice, and the houses we rent are very very nice. It is almost a glimpse of heaven.

This name should have been named “Grimmo’s Induction”, but too bad Thomas has already chosen that :) At the same time I guess the fact that Paul has been induced as the new Rector of the University Churches, as well the new Chaplain of UNSW, should conclude my previously written blog entries on ordinance. (part [...]

Via Neil: Hillsong coughs up, Sydney Morning Herald reported Hillsong’s Houstons’ 1 million dollar plus “business”, Leadership Ministries Inc. Just by looking at the article on how each entities related to each other, it sounds like accountants and lawyers were working hard on structure finance there. More like a “business” than “ministry” to me… I [...]

It has been under my todo list for at least a year, and the development has gone through multiple iterations of trial, error and completely re-work. Yesterday morning I have finally decided to switch our church website, FOCUS-UNSW.org, from my old home-build content management system to the new Drupal based site. Not just switching the [...]

SMH: Chris McGillion commented about whether Peter Jensen will be the next Anglican Primate, and the effects if he is indeed elected. Interesting article from two sides of the coin. I did not really know what was going on in the Australia-wide Anglican scene (as I am rightly stereo-typed as an arrogant Sydney Anglican), but [...]

A solution to church finance or exhaustion of leaders in a student church is trying to keep the graduates. As Arie has commented on Sui’s blog, comparing with university students, a recent grad (with a job) has significantly better financial advantage, generally more mature than younger students, and will not be burdened by family matters [...]