Relevant Podcast

If any of you know me I am an avid reader of Relevant Magazine, as well as a dedicated listener to their podcast. How fascinating? Every week on the podcast they have a segment called Editorial question of the week. On the May 23rd episode they asked for people to write in about past movies that would be great to have another sequel for, so I wrote in and if you want to hear what I emailed in listen to the May 30th Podcast at about 49:40 into the podcast, or 7:12 left in the podcast. Enjoy. If you don't have iTunes you could listen at Relevant's website.

Peace by way of war...

We had a great Memorial Day weekend. We were able to head up to Holland, MI and spend some time with family, relax, Steph shopped of course, and we also went to a wedding of a good friend. While we were there we of course went to church and of course this is exactly what this post is about...would you expect anything else from me?

First off before I say anything else let me say this. I am in full support of our troops even though I don't completely agree with what is going on overseas. Nonetheless I support them, I have many friends in the service, a best friend from high school, a cousin, and my father was in the Navy. I have no problem with caring for, supporting through prayer and helping our troops in any way that I could. Some people might mark me as a pacifist wimp, and a few years ago I would have told them to come and say it to my face, but things have changed inside of me. Although I still have a fighting streak in me.

...Back to church.

Whenever we are up there we attend my wife's former home church, Central Wesleyan. I almost always enjoy this churches services it is a great time for me to relax go to church and actually worship without having to work. Well this time it was even harder than usual for me to sit through service. It of course was Memorial day weekend and as with 99% of churches in America they honored the veterans and prayed for the deceased soldiers of past and present wars. I really like that, especially being that both of my grandfathers were in WWII, and my father and uncles in Vietnam.

What I don't like is what happened next. After honoring the soldiers and veterans the service moved right in to Praise and Worship. The very first song that we sang was about God's Love and Mercy for us and the world. Next was a song that I don't remember the name, but the song was about God's strength and how He is coming with a Sword and shield with Judgment. Now I realize that God ordained wars in this world during the time of Moses, Joshua, David and many other leaders of Israel. I have a problem with us singing songs like this especially on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, this has the problem of conjuring up the ideas that the Wesleyan Church supports war and destruction, when in reality and historically we were peaceful and passive. If we weren't then likely there would have been a lot of killing during the years when we fought against slavery and then even more during the prohibition.

I really struggle with our Christianity especially when it comes down to God, love and war. How much of a misunderstand of Christ's mission is this. We are to be a community of believers dedicated to love. Biblically the word Christ used in John 15:10 while speaking about love was the word Agape, many other times Christ uses the word Agapao when speaking to the disciples about love of each other. More importantly is the meaning of Agape, it is not only love, but one of sacrifice, not only out of charity; while agapao is a deeper and more radical love. SO...what are we supposed to do about this, we come to church and pray and support our troops which is all great and lovely (something of which I wonder how became a tradition?!), but when we walk our Christian lives with two faces, speaking of love and charity of mankind willing to give everything we have because we love to help people but then, we feel it necessary to go and blow someones head off. Out of Love? Derek Webb has a song on his Mockingbird Album, My Enemies are men Like me. There is a great couple of lines in this song, words that really should make you think.

Peace by way of war
Is like purity by way of fornication
It’s like telling someone murder is wrong
And then showing them by way of execution

So as I see it, as a body of Christian believers we have a big question to answer here, while we recognize that God did ordain wars 3,000 years ago, he did it out of love and a desire for mankind to know Him. We cannot ignore Jesus' words in the New Testament, and his desire to draw all people's unto Him.

Love Excluding Sin...

Recently I was required to do some reading and writing that had to deal with lots of history and theology of the Wesleyan church. All of this for the purpose of my upcoming ordination in July, assuming that I don't enrage the interview board. During this reading I came across something that was rather interesting to me and bothered me at the same time. While reading the section of the discipline on the history of the Wesleyan church I came across this statement.

"The first national camp meeting, which developed into the National Holiness Association, was held in 1867. The revival led to the establishment of several new holiness denominations and to
the renewing and redirecting of others. This spiritual revival, promoted vigorously by a corps of itinerant evangelists, soon established holiness as the major tenet of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, which had formerly majored on social and political reform."

You are probably wondering what's wrong with this statement. Well if you didn't catch it the quote states that the Wesleyan church after a revival moved it's focus from Social Justices and Political Reform to Holiness Evangelism.
The problem that I have with this might be pretty straight forward if you know me, but why in the world would we or how could we change our focus from social injustices and political reform to Holiness Evangelism. Now I am not saying that Holiness is a bad thing or something to be shoved off to the side. I plainly believe that when this happened the point of Scripture was missed and became incomplete in our Wesleyan minds. John Wesley himself said Holiness is, "Love excluding sin...Love filling up the heart and taking up the whole capacity of the soul...For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein." Not only did Wesley describe Holiness as this, but in Scripture we see Jesus describe the two greatest commandments as this, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
Did you catch that? Not only is Holiness loving God with all that we are, but "equally important" is our love for our neighbor. Realize that in this world we were put here to be an advocate for God and not only that a believer above reproach, but we were not put here to only concentrate on our Holiness or our time of devotions. Our life as believers is meant to be lived out in this world and in front of people to be an example of the love of Christ, not a picture of a Holier than Thou God that strikes those that aren't Holy.
Maybe I am too critical about the words that I read but I truly believe that while Holiness is important, I believe that we concentrate on it too much and have missed the point of Jesus putting us where we are in this world to speak love in to the lives of those that we come in contact with everyday. Maybe I need a vacation.

Music

I'm the kind of person that really loves to listen to music, performing is definitely not my thing, thankfully, I would likely be shunned if people heard my voice. Anyway, lately I have been listening to a lot of harder Christian Rock, what most people would say can't be Christian because they don't sound like Michael W. Smith, or The Gaithers, and they don't have a suit and tie on. Or my pet peeve is "they don't preserve their bodies as God's temple" because they have tattoos, and supposedly that is in the Bible somewhere, or the greatest is that because they are screaming or sound angry they can't be glorifying or worshiping God. Read the Bible God himself gets so outrageously angry with mankind. Enough venting. Here are the lyrics to a song that I have been listening to quite a bit, and I really love it. Here are the lyrics, and here is the link to their myspace page which has the song for you to listen as you read. Enjoy.

Preaching

You know I love to preach and love to share some of the knowledge that I glean from Scripture throughout my studies during the week. I have preached some real doozies and I have also preached some easier messages. There are times that I wonder if preaching is what I am actually supposed to be doing for my ministry. A lot of this could be the devil, but at the same time I wonder that even though I love to preach, I am not that great of a communicator. There are also times when I just want to get up and preach until my voice fails and not care at all what people would say or think about the things I would say knowing full well that they are from Scripture in my heart.
There is one inherent problem with preaching, whether it be on a regular basis or more of a spread out schedule. When I preach I always feel more of a disconnect that is built up between me and the people that I am trying to teach/preach to. I have noticed this with other preachers too, and especially remember this in my father. Sometimes I don't wonder if the strong desire of preaching a message to challenge people, at the very same time pushes some away. It is also very possible the people that are feeling challenged by God through the preacher a disconnect of, lets say conviction forms for whatever reason.
I don't believe this is a new problem that I am experiencing. Looking back through all the people that have been preachers/priest/prophets/disciples/more importantly Jesus, they all went through dealing with issues that appear to relate to what I am feeling. Moses felt this with his very own sister and brother. Prophets on countless occasions were persecuted for what they were saying FOR GOD by their own people. Jesus was ridiculed, and rejected by the very people that likely helped raise him in Nazareth, due to the closeness of their culture.
So maybe my problem isn't actually a problem necessarily. I wonder in some form or another if a closeness to people can be hindering in a sense. Only in the way that it would stop a minister from actually speaking God's word in fear of hurting feelings, or actually causing conviction to become an issue for people.

Crazy

So I have heard of some crazy amusement park rides and been on some crazy ones myself, but this video takes the cake. WOW

Here is the link

ever wanted to mow your own roof?!

Your probably wondering what in the world I'm talking about, but if you click here you will see quite quickly. I find this absolutely amazing and a great way to limit a buildings impact on the air & atmosphere. Enjoy

Neat Site

recently found this website called Readprint.com. If you like to read and especially for free go check it out.

Doomsday Vault

Watching the news this morning I caught something that seemed to be out of a movie or the sequel to Day After Tomorrow. The news snippet was about an alliance of science and engineering craziness to one day save our mankind. It is actually quite amazing and at the same time a little silly.

The article can be found here, but the basic idea behind all of this is to collect the seeds of plants from all around the world and preserve them so that they may be reused in the supposed imminent destruction of mankind or just plants. Either way it is pretty impressive they dug 130 yards into the side of a mountain in the Arctic Circle to preserve and protect these seeds. The bunker/vault is supposed to be nuclear attack safe, and bunker busting bomb safe. A magnitude 6 earth quake has already tested it and didn't even displace any of the frost or ice in the bunker!! Maybe we should send a thank you note to thank all the people involved for saving our existence?! Or not.

Want to save space and water in your bathroom?

Well not many people are probably going to jump at this option, but those families in drought stricken areas of the world sure would love to have a toilet like this in their bathroom. Whenever the toilet is flushed the faucet on top serves as the water source to fill the tank, and also giving the user the opportunity to wash their hands, thereby saving water by basically double use!!

The Air Car?!

So at this point you are probably wondering what in the world I am talking about. It is actually real and not something from a Sci-fi movie. If you want to know more watch a 9 minute video, here or here

This is a very revolutionary idea and pretty sweet at the same time, although I likely would never fit into one!! The car has many different models meaning hybrid or just compressed air, the compressed air model has a range of 125 mile with 68 mph top speed, refills in like 3 minutes to 4 hours depending on whether using a filling station compressor or plugging into an electrical socket. Insane.

The Bucket List (review)

This movie had me all excited about going to see it at the theatre. I had very high expectations for this movie, first because of the quality of the lead actors brought together for this movie, and then second the very creative idea behind the flick.

Starting out Morgan Freeman, who I didn’t know had a great narrating voice, tells the ending which also happens to be the beginning of the story. I somewhat expected the movie to be a big tear jerker that would depress me for the rest of the night. Little did I know that this was going to be a movie interlaced with uproarious laughter, and then gut wrenching sorrow.

It begins quickly with both Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman getting test results back from the doctor with a very devastating diagnosis. The true premise of the story comes out when both men realize their ultimate end is soon to come, thus driving them to write and complete a “Bucket List”.

From this point on there is a slew of laughter and somber moments. During the whole movie I really felt like I was watching two men try and forget about their cancer and ultimately their death. This was the amazing balance that brings this movie to life. You have two men both with the same end, one with all the money and the other with extreme passionate dream to see the top of the Himalayan Mountains.

Being strangers before they even decided to go on their jaunt around the world, the two men have their personality differences, both moral and spiritual. There are some great conversations and lines in this movie that will make you think about the impact that you have on others while you are alive. The movie definitely hinted at Christianity and truly showed the beliefs and moral/spiritual backing the Morgan Freeman has in the movie.

I would highly recommend this movie mainly for it’s depiction of the extreme change of Nicholson from his depressed and disgustingly rude attitude, to a person that has “found that joy” in his life, and the life questions that it raises to the viewer.

Niagara Falls

Recently Stephanie and I took a very spontaneous and random trip...extremely spontaneous for her. Thankfully we had a day off together this past week and decided on Wednesday Jan. 30th @ 11:30pm to go to Niagara Falls, and we got there at about 9 in the morning on Thursday. It was absolutely amazing and fun something we will never forget.

What is more important?

I have one thing to ask. What is more important safety or helping someone? I read this article that made me think about this question myself...now it's your turn. Read here

Stupid

One thing that I am really good at is having a routine...as are most people. Well today part of my routine always involves checking my email as I sit down at my desk. Not only did I get an exorbitant amount of emails, but one of them was as retarded as I have ever seen it.

I am the lucky one today because I one the Toyota Car Lottery of 2008. All they need is my contact information...wow how great is this. Anyway the stupidity behind this is that Toyota is a Japanese corporation. While the supposed prize that I was selected for out of millions of others is being given out in British Pounds Sterling 600,000 to be exact (almost 1.2 million dollars), why in the world would Toyota give out the prize in British Pounds, this guy should have read the idiots guide to scamming people. So if this dope would have been thinking and realized that Toyota wasn't based out of the UK he might actually have a better chance of stealing some money...but you know when you get desperate you get stupid. WOW

Merry Christmas

I would just like to take time to say Merry Christmas to everyone. I will not be blogging for the next couple of weeks (big surprise, huh) because I will be suffering down in Florida as I help at a youth conference, and take some nice vacation time. Nonetheless have a great Christmas and New Year.

The Golden Compass (Movie)

So, just on Friday I had the opportunity to see The Golden Compass at the theater here in Marion, IN. To my liking there were no signs of a boycott or angry maliciousness from moviegoers. All in all it was a good experience.

As far as the movie goes it was a great movie for entertainment. I had a friend come along with me that discussed some of it afterwards, which was quite enjoyable. The movie though was done very well with the graphics, acting, and making it an entertaining movie. As suspected they attempted to hide/take out/water down, the religious elements of this movie. Although they tried they must not have tried very hard, with all the publicity about the religious nature of this story an infant could have picked up on the religious undertones of this movie.

The story line followed the book fairly well, except the movie ran along so quickly that it seemed they tried to cram everything into the film that it was like running for 2 hours at a full sprint. The ending was very strategic, for in the book the ending is where Lyra finds out the true intentions of her father and the "Dust" where she decides to make sure that the dust is open and good for everyone, in the movie this was left out. If you thought this was bad the next two movies in this trilogy are going to be even more subversive than the first.

Overall an entertaining movie, it was very subtle and very much geared for kids to be interested. Albeit the books were written for adolescents the movie was blatant in this for the obvious main character being a young girl, and the vast majority of her supporting cast being children and their "daemons", which usually were cute little fuzzy creatures. The movie has some obvious religious elements that are there and if you don't pick up on them then you might want to watch it again after you read your Bible. Ultimately this movie will draw kids to the books and when that happens they have great potential to confuse them and possibly lead them astray. This potential is even greater now that The Golden Compass topped the Box Office charts @ $26 million. I wouldn't spend the money to go see this again, but was glad I did.

Nonetheless this doesn't give us as Christians the right to be attacking Pullman's integrity or his views. Yes they may be wrong and yes they may confuse some of our kids. Rather than attacking him, why not sit down and read the Bible with your kids, teach them, lead them to God's throne. Allow Scripture to sink into their hearts and have that help them make decisions.

The Golden Compass (attempted review)

It is official; I have finished reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I will attempt to give a fair review of this book but at the end I will give what I truly think about this book and all the craziness it has cultivated among Christians. I will attempt to give what may seem to be two reviews, (1) as a reader, (2) as a Christian.

(1) This book is written for young adolescents, as this is how the local library had it listed in their directory. I was thoroughly pleased with Pullman’s writing and the descriptions that he gave of the events taking place in the life of Lyra, the main character. The story is based in a world that is “much like ours,” as Pullman says. The main plot of this book is based around Lyra’s adventures, and her discovery of what ‘dust’ is.

The dust is what spurred on most if not all of the events in this book. The dust is something that can be seen through a special camera lens, looking like little light particles resting around a person. In this world the “Church” is the ruler of the world and controls the coming and going of everyone, except for the bears and witches. This dust is something that the church is so utterly afraid of and conspires to eliminate it from the world. Done so by separating a child from its Daemon, a shape shifting creature that follows the children and express many of the emotions and expressions of the child by changing into different animals, which could easily be compared to the soul of the people in this world given to them by God.

The story is weaved so carefully and intricately around the dust that it drives the reader through page after page seeking to answer the question. “What is dust?” Pullman uses that so well throughout the book that it isn’t truly revealed until the last three chapters. The story was done so well that I liked reading it and getting engrossed in to the story of Lyra and the Dust. The ending was done extremely well and set the reader up for the next book superbly. I will eventually read the next two, in time.

(2) This is the part where my true being comes out. While this book is a great and easy read, there are some qualms that I have with what is portrayed in this book. Realize this that while I read the book, I do not and will not agree with Pullman, and at the same time I am not purporting a boycott of any of his materials (books, short stories, movies, etc.). I am merely giving you my view from what I have read.

Pullman is not as clear in putting his view of God out there as I had expected but nonetheless his philosophies do emanate from his writing. What he is very clear at is his portrayal of the church, and it is obvious that there is some angst toward “organized religion”. From the beginning of the story all the way to the end the story portrays the church as the bad guy or the antagonist. Pullman describes the church in such a way that reminded me of the church during the Crusades, where it was a know all, do all, approve all type of organization. This is obviously not the “true” church as we know it, and this portrayal could potentially be very confusing. Mainly his view of the church through this book is that it is manipulative and corrupt; it is a church that is run more like the central government of a country rather than a ministry, which tends to be very confusing and off the wall.

The other issue I have is this dust that Pullman describes as original sin. His idea is that this dust only collects/falls on a person when they reach adulthood, and then right on the last few pages Lyra the protagonist of the story decides that she wants to stop the church from eliminating the dust and make it freely open to everyone of every age. The issue here is that one original sin is on us at the time of birth into this world; something that we have inherited directly from Adam & Eve, a problem also with his view is that he uses inserts of Scripture but adds his own words to fit the story. He then willingly puts the idea on the page for the reader that original sin is not a bad issue in a person’s life.

Ultimately Pullman is a claimed Atheist and one that deeply despises Organized Religion; he is quoted on his website saying this about God and organized religion.

I don't know whether there's a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.

Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them. (philippullman.com)

The man is against the church and against God; his books could potentially be confusing for a young mind. I would strongly recommend that as parents not letting your kids read these books unless you are ready to combat it with some good teaching. As for the movie, I really don’t know what to tell you about that I haven’t seen it yet (obviously), but boycotting and cursing this man is not going to accomplish anything at all except bolster his view of Christians. You just need to ask yourself is this movie going to be worse in spiritual content, than Evan Almighty (that had some major Biblical issues), or maybe even the DaVinci code (which was always claimed as fiction). You all know your children better than I do, but you can’t always protect them from everything there needs to be some opportunistic teaching in kids lives, don’t just let the children’s pastor do all the work for you.

Ridiculous

So recently there has been a lot of craziness going around about an upcoming movie, no I'm not talking about Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. The movie is The Golden Compass, trailer here, a movie taken from a book trilogy, of which only the first is published. These books are written for adolescents, and the first is catching a lot of flak from many a evangelical.

I will give them this, Phillip Pullman is an atheist that claims to hate The Chronicles of Narnia. After this news started to spread some people gained an interest in his book, but not to read, rather to find a problem in it and crucify the man for his writings. Many have said that his book portrays the killing of God. Desiring it see what everything is all about and this craziness that is being caused by leaders of the church I went and picked up the book at the local library. Now being almost 200 pages into a 389 page book I have found no idea of killing God. There are some references to the church and it's power over the people. Basically what I'm trying to say is that we are being a little ridiculous about this, we complain that this man hates Narnia, yet we let our kids watch all of these magic shows with eastern mysticism engulfing our children's mind, we complain about Bush and the war and all the death, yet in his place we would put someone that would legalize and encourage abortion; that all seems a little backwards. We complain about problems and let another slip right under our nose and ignore it. With these books would it be better to tell our kids that this man is a God hating heathen that might burn in the fires of hell, or would it be better to go through this with them and prove to them the wrong in this book if there be any, because after 200 pages I have found none. Here is another article that brings about the same idea feelings just likely more eloquently. There will be somewhat of a review after I finish the book.

Hopefully you realize that this is more of an opportunity than a time to crucify someone about their views, we should be praying for God to send someone into Mr. Pullman's life to share truly what God is about.

25 Questions for Mary

These are from Max Lucado's book God Came Near. I found them very interesting and thought provoking and really brought back to my mind how real and how much of a man Jesus was at the same time as being God.

1. What was it like watching him pray?
2. How did he respond when he saw other kids giggling during the service at the synagogue?
3. When he saw a rainbow, did he ever mention a flood?
4. Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he created the world?
5. When he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently?
6. Did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to someone you couldn't hear?
7. How did he act at funerals?
8. Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under your own roof?
9. Did you ever try to count the stars with him....and succeed?
10. Did he ever come home with a black eye?
11. How did he act when he got his first haircut?
12. Did he have any friend by the name of Judas?
13. Did he do well in school?
14. Did you ever scold him?
15. Did he ever have to ask a question about Scripture?
16. What do you think he thought when he saw a prostitute offering to the highest bidder the body he made?
17. Did he ever get angry when someone was dishonest with him?
18. did you ever catch him pensively looking at the flesh on his own arm while holding a clod of dirt?
19. Did he ever wake up afraid?
20. Who was hi best friend?
21. When someone referred to Satan, how did he act?
22. Did you ever accidentally call him Father?
23. What did he and his cousin John talk about as kids?
24. Did his brothers and sisters understand what was happening?
25. Did you ever think, That's God eating my soup?

Enjoy, just thought I would share these with you all, have a great weekend.