Hello and welcome to stephencostello.com, the home of everything you need to know about me. Here you'll find a collection of my recent work and some thoughts from my blog. If you'd like to know more about me, the work or my services feel free to drop from the contact page.
Every now and again you see or hear something which totally blows your mind in every way. A few days ago (thanks to John Piper) I came across the story of Zac Smith, a 33 year old full time church worker from America. I sat (with almost tears in my eyes) listening to Zac’s story and was truly touched and inspired by his faith in our God.
What would the world look like if every Christian lived with this mindset…
If God chooses to heal me, then God is God, and God is good
If God chooses not to heal me and allows me to die, then God is still God, and God is still good
To God be the Glory
The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.
Below is an essay wrote by an NYU applicant on his entrance papers. This is possibly the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. The best part however is the fact Hugh Gallagher (the author) was accepted into the college.
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear.
I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy.
I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.
I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
As you may have noticed this week I updated the layout stephencostello [dot] com. The new style is a lot cleaner, simpler, and less cluttered than previous versions. In recent years I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with how this site should look. Many times I’ve tried to make it busy, informative and colourful but here’s the funny thing that isn’t me. Looking at my work you quickly realise I’m into clean cut, shape edges, and minimalism, so why was I trying to do the exact opposite with my own site? Who knows! Thankfully however I have returned to my roots and created a simple, clean and striped down portfolio site.
Enjoy
This weekend at Hillsong we launched our vision for 2010. There’s some cool plans for the year ahead…. A new church in Moscow, Reaching out to the needy at the World Cup in South Africa and probably the most exciting news, a new church in New York City!
For more info check out this video. If you aren’t interested in our vision watch the video anyways, the videography is amazing!
Vision Sunday 2010 from Hillsong Church on Vimeo.
29 days ago I started out on an adventure to read the complete Bible in one year. Sounds quite simple really, start in Genesis finish in Revelation, right? Well…. yes I could do that but one of my key objectives is to gain a better feel of how the 66 separate books slot together in terms of time.
The best way to fully understand events, people, places, prophecies and how they link together in a timescale is to take a chronological approach at reading the Bible.
The website YouVersion.com recently launched a ‘Reading Plans’ feature. Their superb range of studies differ in length and cover a wide range of Biblical subjects. You can image my excitement then when I discovered a chronological study which lasted 365 days.
29 days into my reading plan I have read almost all of Genesis and all of Job. Interestingly Job slotted in between Genesis 11 & 12 (who would have thought it?).
I’m really enjoying this plan so far and I look forward to learning more and more in the coming months. I’d also like blog my way through this journey if for no other reason than personal reference.
A few weeks ago I was having lunch with Phil (our new placement student) when we started talking about web galliers, such as ‘bestwebgalley’ and ‘cssremix’. We both visited these sites often and found lots of inspiration in them however we noticed there was a massive lack of designs related to Christianity.
In terms of religion (i sadly have to use that word) or global movements Christianity is light years ahead of the rest when it comes to volumn and quality of our sites. So why shouldn’t there be a site deadicated to promoting the very best Christian websites from around the world. Well after some more chatting we decided to give it a go and create such a site.
Over the last few weeks BestChristianDesign has been branded and coded behind the scenes and is really taking shape. This is a very exciting time as we’re hoping this site will have a big impact in promoting our faith to a whole new group of people within the design industry.
BestChristianDesign.com is due to launch on Wednesday 22nd July 2009
I’m pretty excited today over something most of you will not find interesting in the slightest but for me its a cool moment. stephencostello.com has finally made it onto a web gallery. it basically means someone actually thought my site was good enough to allow onto their gallery.
I’m hoping this will the site known throughout designer circles. The ultimate would be getting onto devinecss.com or even bestwebgallery.com but that will come in time folks for now you can view my site at the wpcount.com gallery. Check it out and givme a rating (a good one)!
Sometimes its so hard to see God from a different point of view. We so often think of Him as being single sided, but the truth is God is filled with mystery and none of us can truly understand it. Here’s a litte paragraph from a Matt Redman book which helps us understand the many sides of God and His personality.
“The God we worship is clothed in mystery. He reveals and He conceals. He invites and He hides. He confounds and He confides. The God who rests but never sleeps, who thunders and whispers, terrifies and befriends; whose anger lasts only a moment, but whose favour lasts a lifetime. All-consuming, yet kind. All-knowing, yet capable of forgetting the sins He forgives. The God who wounds and binds up, who injures and heals. The King whose footstool is the earth, yet who humbly washed the earth from the feet of those He discipled. Who reigns in righteousness, yet carried our shamefulness. Who walked in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day, yet sweated drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane one agonising night. The God of the smallest detail and the grandest design, who issued ornate designs for an extravagant temple, yet found pleasure in the humblest offering of a widow‘s two tiny coins there. The suffering servant who commands the universe. The sinless friend of sinners. The Saviour who hung in agony on beams of wood He Himself had called into being. Fearsome yet welcoming. Unfathomable, yet knowable. The God of kings and beggars, presidents and paupers. Who fathers the fatherless and works through our weakness. Burning with holiness, yet refreshingly graceful. This is the God we worship – the God of all mystery.”
Sami Hyypia has stumped up almost £23,000 to rescue a Merseyside hospital charity appeal. The Kop veteran stepped in to make up the shortfall for a playroom at a new Arrowe Park children’s accommodation complex, which is being named after the late broadcaster Phil Easton.
The 35-year-old heard about Radio City’s Cash for Charity appeal to help fund a seven-room £850,000 Ronald McDonald House in Wirral. Hyypia said: “My youngest boy was born in Arrowe Park and from my own experience I know the fantastic work that the staff do. “As a parent myself I realise how difficult it must be if a child is being treated in hospital for a serious illness and I wanted to make some contribution to enable this facility to be built.”
After hearing about the appeal, Sami rang the radio station and promised to meet any shortfall needed to reach the £50,000 target. Radio City breakfast DJ Simon Ross said: “This is incredibly generous of Sami. We can’t thank him enough. “His kindness will help families across Merseyside – regardless of what football team they support!”
Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez and defender Jamie Carragher got behind the appeal by recording messages of support. And Reds captain Steven Gerrard is set to donate his shirt from next week’s Real Madrid Champions League clash at Anfield. The Ronald McDonald House is due to be built at the Wirral hospital later this year giving parents and families of sick youngster’s a free place to stay.
Toy retailer ToysRUs has paid $5.1m (£3.6m) for the Toys.com domain name. The amount has surprised onlookers and hints at a deeper commitment to online retailing for the toy giant. It is believed to be the biggest payout for a domain this year but has some way to go to beat the $14m paid for sex.com in 2007 or the $9.5m paid for porn.com. UK domain name seller Sedo said it had seen prices halved for .co.uk domain names since the economic downturn started to take hold.