Here’s some of my thoughts, likes and dislikes. If anything takes your interest feel free to drop me a line.

Kony 2012 Twitter Profile Image

Do you part in ‘Making Kony Famous’ by using the image below as your Twitter/Facebook profile photo. Simply ‘right click’ and save the image to your desktop.

Where would you be…

In the last few weeks I’ve heard several speakers/leaders ask the question ‘Where would you be today without Jesus’? That’s a tough question and one many Christian choose not to answer. I ignored it at first myself however I can’t anymore.

I don’t believe you can answer that question in 5 minutes so I’m going to take my time over it, but here’s what I do know instantly… ‘I would have wasted the last 10 years of my life’.

A Journey with no Destination

Yesterday something special happened to me. Not my birthday that’s an annual affair, which seems less attractive every year. I had one of those moments were you read something so true, so real, you can do nothing but stop and reflect. This ‘something’ wasn’t a sudden attention to a major theological issue which called me to decide where I stood on the matter. It was simply the realisation that I along with every other Christ Follower is on a journey ‘in this lifetime’ with no destination. I can hear your cries… ‘heaven is our destination’! Chill…. hear me out and step back 6 years with me.

One of the most liberating nights of my life happened in 2004 when head bowed on a church alter/floor I realised an amazing truth…. ‘I was never going to be good enough’. That may seem strange, surly we should strive to be ‘good enough’. However that night I discovered being ‘good enough’ wasn’t a option for me. There was nothing I could do which would make God love me anymore or any less. This wasn’t a license to go and abuse grace but rather an opportunity to glory in it. To glory in the fact that God’s love for me is ‘unconditional’. That’s right ‘unconditional’, freeing me to walk in unending and overflowing grace…. amazing.

Yesterday I was reminded of that experience and it felt as good last night as it did in 2004.

Today as you journey through life, drop the heavy burden of trying to be ‘good enough’ and run in the freedom which says ‘you’re forgiven’.

To God Be The Glory

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.

How would the world look like if every Christ follower 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.

Man of Many Talents

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.

New Look

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

Vision Sunday 2010

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!

66 Books In A Year!

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.

Best Christian Design

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

Stephen Costello [dot] Com

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)!

Mysteries So Bright

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.”

Big Sami Supports Local Charity

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.

Toys R’ Us pays $5m for toys domain

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.

The Eye of God

A new spectacular image has been taken of the Helix nebula – one of the most beautiful objects in the night sky. The photo was taken at the European La Silla Observatory in Chile using a special camera attached to a telescope. The Helix is a sun-like star and is in its final explosion stage before it retires into a white dwarf. Shells of gas are blown off the star’s surface often in intricate patterns that are lit up by the ultra-violet radiation. The nebula is often called the ‘Eye of God’ due to its strong resemblance to a giant eye peering out of space.

Helix nebula is about 700 light years away in the constellation of Aquarius. It has been studied in much more detail than other planetary nebulae due to its relatively close proximity to Earth. Although the shape of the Helix resembles a doughnut, scientists believe it consists of at least two separate discs with outer rings and filaments. The main ring is about two light years across, which equates to about half the distance between the Sun and its nearest star.

Album Cover Game

A friend sent me the follow message on facebook last week. I followed the instructions and posted my album artwork below… give it a go and post your artwork!

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Twestival

It took just four weeks to organise – but thanks to the power of social media, today 20,000 people in 185 cities are hoping to raise £700,000 for charity. Amanda Rose, the founder of Twestival, took time out from her last minute preparations to speak to Sky News Online. “The Twestival is a Twitter festival, put together by volunteers. “It’s bringing people who met on the web together offline, to meet for a social cause, in over 185 cities across the world.” Twitter is a microblogging website that allows its users to communicate with each other in short, snappy text updates.

It has grown from a small network of San Francisco web entrepreneurs in 2006 to a major global network, boasting Barack Obama, Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross among its most popular users. And, through the power of online networking, over 1,000 volunteers across the world from Beijing to Brighton, Dallas to Dhaka will be hosting Twestival events.

The aim is to raise £700,000 for charity: water, which helps bring clean drinking water to people in developing countries. It is an idea Amanda and her co-founders had last September, when a group of Twitter users met in London to socialise and raise money for a local homeless charity. The event was a great success so they decided to have another go, and were blown away by the response.

This Way Up

You will not know their name, you probably do not know their film – but Oscar-nominated British directors Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes are hoping the next 72 hours will change all that.

They describe their animated short film This Way Up – a slapstick tale of father-and-son undertakers on a cursed journey to a funeral – as like “Morecambe and Wise in hell”.

Enough For Now

For those of you still waiting to hear the new ‘The Fray’ album, here’s a little taster! ‘Enough For Now’ is probably going to be the second single realised after ‘You Found Me’. Personally I think this track is the best on the record. Rolling Stones Online gave the album 2 starts, it’s worth at least 3 and possibly more!?

Caught In Your Eyes

Came across this song on GodTV tonight, thought it might be worth sharing with some music/worship folks!

Singalong!

People says there’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world and that may be true but there is such a thing as a free CD. Phil Wickham a young and upcoming worship leader from Cali is giving away his latest live worship album ‘Singalong’ for free!

Just saunter over to philwickham.com fill in your contact details and bingo the album in full is yours! This will be the best spent 2 minutes of your day, trust me!