Yesterday was a pivotal day in my microchurch–someone actually admitted that they were selfish, and they wanted help breaking that mold.
The fact is that everyone in our church is selfish. I’m willing to bet that most Christians in our society are selfish (at least to a point). In order to get the ball rolling, so to speak, I’m going to do a series of posts on what makes us selfish, what God wants to do about it, and how we can start living unselfish lives.
So, check back tomorrow…
This past Sunday, the Discovery microchurches took a “field trip.” We went to another church in the area to hear Ajai Lall, founder of Central India Christian Mission (CICM), speak about his work. CICM celebrates their 25th anniversary this year. In those 25 years, CICM has planted 620 churches. Those churches have a combined 175,000 people worshiping Jesus. That’s mind-blowing. We get excited here in the states when we plant a church that eventually runs 1,000… and a majority of those people have come from other churches. CICM works in an area of India (as well as parts of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal) where less than 1% of the people claim to be Christian. In addition to planting churches, CICM does a great deal of humanitarian work, which opens the door for the gospel to be preached–medical work, working with orphans, etc. God is truly doing great things in the world. You can see the video of his message here (the audio isn’t the greatest–we’re trying to get a better audio source).
Ajai talked about being a Christian extremist. We hear the word “extremist” and we think about dudes like Osama Bin Laden–people who take their faith so seriously that they’re willing to die for it (and, in the violent threads of Islam and even Hinduism, force others who disagree to die with them).
What does a Christian extremist look like? Here in the states, we tend to think of the “religious right”, guys like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, people protesting at gay rallies and abortion clinics. But when you look in the Bible, you see that Christian extremism isn’t about self-righteous finger pointing, political protesting, or lobbying for the government to legislate righteousness. It’s about imitating Jesus–having extreme love for your enemies, having extreme concern for those who don’t know Jesus, having extreme compassion for those in need, and having extreme forgiveness for those who wrong you. It’s about being Jesus where you are, and living in such a way that people are both attracted to Jesus and, paradoxically, reactionary to it. It’s about being so open to God’s leading that you’ll go wherever He calls you to go–whether it be across the world or across the street.
Ajai challenged us to ask ourselves a question: what are you doing with what God has given you? Are we willing to be Christian extremists who have extreme love, extreme, compassion, extreme forgiveness, and extreme concern? We don’t have to be on foreign soil to have and practice those things. We can do it right where we are (although we must be ready if God should send us elsewhere). There are so many people who don’t know Jesus right in our back yard and across the world.
What extremes will we go to in order to tell them and show them Jesus?
If you’re a follower of Jesus, here are some sobering facts:
Later today or tomorrow, I’ll post a link to a message our churches were priviledged to hear from Ajai Lall, founder of Central India Christian Mission. In its 25 years, CICM has planted nearly 660 churches, which have nearly 175,000 people worshiping in them. That’s a testament to the power of the gospel.
I just got off the phone with a dude in one of our microchurches who works with high school students. He’s been praying and searching out God’s will for months about what he should do when it comes to starting a new church–adults, or students? He may have found out his answer.
He got together with about half a dozen students who are currently part of our microchurch in Verona. He pitched the idea of a new student church. The feedback he got from the students said to go for it. This past Sunday, he told his church of what was about to happen, and they’re behind him all the way.
So, on August 2, it looks like Discovery will birth its fourth microchurch. Awesome!
If you’re an expecting parent, please don’t be like the numbskulls in Hollywood or people from New Zealand, who apparently have a thing for weird and stupid names for their kids. If you insist on naming your kids something “off the wall” or “hip”, your kid may sue your ass off.
The OBX was awesome this year (as it usually is). A lot of sand, some sun, a little surf, some golf, a lot of root beer (some new brews that I hadn’t tried yet), watching the sun rise over the ocean, finding some great shells, and a lot of mental rest. I’m physically tired, and not from running around (we did some of that, but not a ton). The only complaint I had was the beds–hard as a rock. It doesn’t matter if you sleep a good nine hours a night with no interuptions (which I did all but one night), if the bed you’re sleeping in doesn’t agree with you… you wake up feeling like someone beat the crap out of you. My bed has felt like heaven the last two nights. I’m taking an air mattress next year…
So it’s back to the ol’ grind this week, and I’m excited about it. A lot of work to do over the coming 10-12 months…
According to Box Office Mojo, “The Happening” saw a whopping 67.2 percent drop in business from last weekend. I was pretty close. I guessed it would drop 70 percent.
I see a dead movie. Trying to act like a regular movie. But it sucks.
Tonight, my wife and I went out on a date (which happens way too rarely). We don’t go to the movies that often, because ticket prices are the one thing more ridiculous than gas prices. We decided to go see M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, “The Happening.”
Two words describes this movie: SUCK FEST.
And that’s a huge understatement.
I like Night’s films. “The Sixth Sense” is an all-time classic. His other films are really good, although I do admit (along with many others), that the overall quality of his films has diminished somewhat with each new release. Still, I love his other works: “Signs”, “The Village”, and “Unbreakable” were all good films with cool premises. I even liked “Lady in the Water”! Yeah, his work is an acquired taste, but he’s done some really visionary stuff.
“The Happening” has a great premise–and since the film is a piece of crap, I don’t mind spoiling it for those reading it who haven’t seen it yet. The premise–there are acts of nature that happen that just can’t be explained. In this case, nature (specifically plants) turns on humanity. The trees start it–they’re tired of humanity trashing the planet. They adjust–”evolve rapidly” as one actor says–and start emitting a toxin that paralyzes people and causes them to kill themselves. Yeah, a little hokey, and definitely eco-political undertones, but for a Night movie, it really could have worked. He has gone on record, saying that he talked to many scientists and environmentalists about how nature has reacted to change in the past–red tides, etc. He simply took something and magnified it, which movies often do.
He just screwed it up.
Night’s movies are all about suspense. Viewers have to piece the puzzle together, and usually (but not always) there is a twist near the end. The twist isn’t in this film, and really doesn’t have to be. But there’s no suspense. Ten minutes into the film, you’ve got it figured out… because they tell you. There’s no suspense at all. One or two jumpy moments, but no suspense.
There was some gore in the film, some of which was done well. The lady on the park bench stabbing herself in the jugular with her hair pin was disturbing, as is the man who sets a huge golf course style mower to run over him. The construction workers falling off the roof–disturbingly beautiful shots. The dude in the zoo who gets his arms ripped off by a lion… horrible. If the editor would have insisted that the scene be cut about 30 seconds short, and leave the audience simply thinking they had seen a man being mauled by a lion, that would have been great. Nope… had to have the lion rip the dude’s arms off. Blood for blood’s sake.
The acting was frickin’ awful. Marky Mark could have been good. He wasn’t. The rest of the actors seemed very stilted and stiff. And no character development! Toward the end of the film, we meet an old woman who lives alone. She’s crazy… but you don’t know why. Her death scene is really cool… but her craziness is just, well, there… with no explanation.
Lastly, the editing. Holy crap, what a terrible job. Night’s movies are usually very crisply edited. The editor was drunk or smokin’ something weird. In several scenes, the boom mic lowers into the picture! Not once, not twice, but several times in multiple scenes! How on earth did they let that slip?!?
The score was really weird as well. It’s like they lifted outtakes from “The Village”–which had an awesome soundtrack featuring the violin–and plugged it into this film. It really didn’t fit at all.
Bad acting, horrible editing, forced score, bad plot, unrealized potential with a decent premise, zero suspense. Don’t waste your money. If you want to watch a doomsday style movie, pick up “I Am Legend”, or if you like ’70’s style movies (which are crazy cool corny), get “Soylent Green.”
Again, I love Night’s stuff. But this one sucked big time. I totally expect a HUGE drop in business from opening weekend. And, unfortunately, a big drop in credibility for a visionary film maker who is brilliant, but seems to be running out of ideas…
UPDATE: It’s been reported that Night says he wanted to make a “B movie”. If that’s the case, then stuff like mics in the frame, stilted acting, and no character development may have been done on purpose. It just doesn’t fly. It doesn’t come off as B movie. It comes off as Bad Movie…
I spent my Father’s day watching Tiger Woods’ final round at the US Open. I watched him start double bogie, bogie to lose his lead, and battle back to sink this tricky little putt (the video kinda sucks; the NBC feed wasn’t posted yet)…
All on a super painful surgically repaired knee that affected his swing all weekend. An 80% Tiger still whips the rest of the field (save Rocco Mediate). And he gets to play 18 more today in a playoff with Rocco (who is a lot of fun to watch–you could tell he was having a lot of fun).
Gonna have trouble focusing today after 12 noon…
After watching this (and the video I posted yesterday), I feel like I need to repent. For what, I don’t know…
Thanks to the staff of Forefront Christian Church for making me feel so cheap and dirty.
