For the he- and/or she-brew students among my readers…i’ve found this to be a great resource. Have been meaning to blog it for a while…better late than never!

Animated Hebrew Resources

Animated Hebrew Lectures following Ross’ ‘Basics of Biblical Hebrew’.

The Jonah comic is fun too…

I’ve been enjoying ABC TV’s ‘Whatever! The Science of Teens’. If you haven’t seen it, check it out! (episodes online at the link) The Ep on risk got me thinking of an application to evangelism:

they replicated a much larger studies on a small scale…in this case the study had to do with physical vs social risks.

A girl was asked whether she would do something physically dangerous (like ride a bike down a steep hill) – for progressively increasing amounts. She said would do it for something like $200…then she was asked about a socially risky thing, like having her mobile taken away for 2 months. She said she’d do it for something like $2000. It was an order of magnitude bigger…

Here’s what I’m thinking:

I’m placing evangelism in the social risk category. In Australia it’s not really going to present a physical risk (usually)…And being in the social risk category to the teen mind it is perceived to be an incredibly costly activity.

Maybe knowing this helps with uni ministry. Assuming you want teens to actually take the risk of evangelising thier friends or others, you will have to deal with this perceived cost:

It seems in theory that you either need to decrease the cost or increase the value to get a teen on board for evangelism.

Decreasing the cost is a tough one. You can tell them that it won’t be as bad as they think but it’s hard to believe this could be true without testing it out. I can say with great confidence that it is not anywhere near as socially risky as many people think… but we’re not talking about true and false here as though you can argue someone into doing evangelism!

Increase the value would seem to me to be preferable. Jesus is the creator of and lord of every thing, plant, animal and person on the planet. They (mostly the people) need to recognise him as such. It’s what he deserves! And it is what is best for them…He’s a great master and a loving God.

The more a teen (or anyone else for that matter) knows this to be true and desires to act upon it, evangelism increases in value for them. It becomes more important than the potential loss of face and friendship.

Had a great time at the ‘confess or die‘ conference this weekend just gone. MC Shamrock has blogged a good roundup of it…

I’ll post some thoughts of my own in time! was good stuff and has given me plenty to think through.

Unfortunately i’m going to be on blogging go-slow for a bit longer…Hebrew exam in two and a bit weeks and greek the week after. plus a few short essays in there somewhere.