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This would be funnier if it wasn’t so true. Watch Matt Damon and then the Trailer response…

Koyaanisqatsi - Yes all 86 minutes of it online for free…

Great discussion on Real Time. I see my faith as a four cylinder (or “four-banger” as my farm boy friend used to say) engine. Jesus said the most important commandment was to love God with all your Heart (emotional), Soul (spiritual), Mind (mental) and Strength (physical). As humans we are made up of all four of these, but for a lot of Christendom, only the first two cylinders ever fire. We don’t (and are sometimes encouraged not to) think (mental) or act (physical) on anything in our faith.

To disregard the amazing mind and mental capacity we’ve all been given, the most powerful supercomputer ever created, is to insult our creator. Why would God give us this amazing brain if we weren’t supposed to use it? Why give us an imagination if we weren’t supposed to exercise it?

Skip to 6:40 to get to the heart of the discussion:

So I went in to Best Buy to pick up some VHS cassettes. Yes VHS for what was known as a VCR (I know that the teen-hagers these days don’t like the VHS anymore).
The blue shirt kindly asked if I needed assistance and I told him I was looking for blank VHS tapes.
He showed them to me and then asked: “Did you want to pick up anything else today? How about a Blu-Ray player?”
I smiled, shook my head and replied: “You realize I’m here picking up VHS tapes? You think I’m ready for Blu-Ray?”
He laughed and said: “Hey it was just a suggestion…”

I just returned from watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Part I - The details
Since we live about a quarter mile from the movie theater, we got there in a snap. Becka was smuggled in a bag microwave popcorn, a bag of Fleet Farm chocolate covered raisins and a Mr. Pibb for me. When I was a kid, I remember my mom packing my brothers and I an entire sack lunch and dropping us off at the Apple Valley $1 movie theater for the day.

Flash forward to the conclusion of the film. As I waited in the hallway for Becka to come back out of the ladies room, I stared at the floor. I then noticed a man exit the men’s room in my peripheral vision and hear a loud “CLICK” from his torso. My eyes darted up to investigate this peculiar sound. A short, plump man with grey hair and a beard had just secured a black fanny pack around the bulge of his overflowing midriff, above which the words: “Dragon: The other white meat…” was printed on his maroon t-shirt.

Part II - Analysis - SPOILER ALERT!!! (Skip to Part III if you wish)
I had high hopes for this film when I heard from someone, somewhere that in making this film, “They tried to do as many of the stunts and stuff with real people as much as possible.”
This was not the case. Gophers and monkeys are CGI’d throughout the film as a comic relief that takes the idea of the mischievous monkey from Raiders and takes it to a three year old’s wild imagination level.
Seeing Shia LaBoof (or however you spell/say it) swings through the trees like Tarzan, I thought, “Just because you CAN do something with special effects, doesn’t mean that you should.” In fact, even if a CGI sequence is perfectly executed, my mind still jumps to the fact that, the only way a human being could perform such an impossible stunt is through a computer.
And as for the plot. George Lucas, your madness must come to an end sir. For nearly ten years you have treated your fans like the beloved “Good Ole” Charlie Brown, while you sir, playing the part of Lucy hold the football of a triumphant second coming of the most epic film franchises in history. And each time, I foolishly believe that you will redeem yourself, that you will stop destroying the escapist world of my childhood imagination. Yet each time I have been left with such a feeling of alienation (no pun intended) from the original films I obsessed over into my teen years. This one took the cake. It wasn’t enough to tackle Biblical myth, or eastern magic. You had to actually bring in extra-terrestrials into the world of Indiana Jones.
I am sick of these “final” sequels being produced by these once genius, now seniel, rapidly aging, boomer directors. With the latest Die Hard, it wasn’t enough to save a building, NOOOO, the entire U.S. of A. was at stake. And it wasn’t enough for some ghosts to fly out of the Ark and melt Nazi’s like wax, we now have to see inter-dimensional travelers fly away in a saucer (I wish I was making this up). These “finalies” of blockbuster series are nothing more than cinematic pissing matches.

Part III - I had fun
A part of me wanted to see this movie simply for the fact that I was too young to see any of the originals in the theater (like Star Wars, but the special edition gave me a rare and wonderful opportunity to see those films). I remember getting a fedora for Christmas one year that I had been eyeing from the TJ Max. My parents gave me a word of caution first though.
“You know what you shouldn’t do that Indiana does though right?” they asked me.
“He does dangerous things?” I replied.
“No, he has sex with women before he’s married…” If that won’t spoil a 10 year old’s fun, I don’t know what will.
I was giddy watching the film tonight. The music got me excited and I laughed harder than usual at the comic relief lines, and found myself leaning in to Becka to “Ahhhww!!!” point, and gawk at the perfectly choriagraphed action.
Indiana was one of my childhood hero’s. A nerdy proffesor (which I painfully identified with as a youngster), who could also kick ass (a far away fantasy growing up). Part of my knows that I’m to old for this kind of nonsense, but tonight, that 10 year old boy in his pajama’s wearing his new fedora on Christmas morning was let loose, if only as an echo of myself.

Some day I will have teenagers/young adults of my own and I need to remember that I will incorrectly say or spell something that middle-aged folks today often do, like “U-Tube,” or “I-Tunes.”

Session 5:

Panel - Marcus Goodloe, Yvonne Latty:

Book “We Were There”
Thumping the melon reveals whether what is on the inside is good or not.
The more you risk, the better the rate of return can be.

Erwin and Panel:

We like to help the powerless rather than peers because it allows us to maintain still feel powerful.
Make the change necessary to reach you children.
Churches lack diversity because they don’t care about people.
Is our church designed to cater to us, or to serve the world?
The church is the most diverse group as a whole on the planet.
The longer you wait to deal with conflict, the worse things will get.
If you don’t affirm, you can’t rebuke.

Rick Yamamoto:

Book recommendations:
“Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire”
“Ice To Eskimos”

Panel - Phil Cooke - Mark Joseph - Dan Rupple:

Phil produced these highly talked about Super-Bowl commercials for careerbuilder.com:
“Follow Your Heart”
and “Wishing”
Humor connects on the deepest cultural level.
The label “Christian” has become a catch phrase for amateur.
Mark’s book: “The Rock & Roll Rebellion”
The label “Christian music” makes non-Christians feel like outsiders. Imagine a station that played “We play today’s hottest Jewish hits!”
Objects are not Christian.
In regards to separate music sections in stores, we must assume that “Christians don’t know the alphabet and can’t find the band they’re looking for.”
Branding = A compelling story
http://www.philcooke.com/
The digital media revolution is another chance for Christians to (hopefully for the first time) stand at the forefront.
The untold collective of Christian experience. Hollywood is out of ideas.
The power of perception.
Learn your city.
Wrap yourself in the cross, not red state-blue state.
Most people are not atheists. Most people are searching.
Mosaic has never hired from outside it’s church, always volunteers becoming staff.

Session 4:

Nancy Beach:

The power of wonder.
Creatives must be people who say “wow” a lot.
Is your environment one that has an expectation of space to breath or one that snuffs?
Are you willing to fight?
Ministry is a series of difficult conversations.

Paul Richardson:

Creativity is the natural result of spirituality.
Primal creativity - Van Gogh:
“Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don’t know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can’t do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of ‘you can’t’ once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, “defiles” — they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.”
Set your message free with the help of artists running with it.

Dr. Emmanuel Katongole:

The courage to invent the future.
Jesus’ feedings - Creating abundance in scarcity.
An invitation to go places and speak with your accent.

Panel:

Fight for something better.
Restlessness - Stubbornness - A Dream
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Cost of Discipleship
Let go of what you are most dependent on.
We tell stories that are inauthentic to our own lives.
It is not a lack of creativity but of passion.
Larry Dawson LE Blog

Ate at Acapulco’s Mexican and had some great conversation with Freddo.

Session 3:

Erwin McManus:

Acts 17:16 - Mars Hill Story
Bible commentaries seem to talk about the verses that are already easy to understand.
Are people closed to the gospel, or are we just babbling like Paul was?
Paul didn’t begin the conversation with the Bible, he began the conversation with their bible.
A Buddhist healer described Jesus as a “cheating” shortcut to enlightenment and pointed a man to Christ.
“I’d rather alienate 1000 angry Christians than not see you come to Christ.”

Matt Batterson:

Every-ology is a branch of theology.

Rick McKinley:

Disconnecting the dots we’ve been raised to believe as Christians.
Advent Conspiracy

Jamie Tworkowski:

To Write Love On Her Arms
“I’m not afraid of your pain.”

Dan Kimball:

Pastors are trying to get their churches to become something that they aren’t willing to become.

Dr. Henry Cloud:

An infant trusts its mother without knowing her name.

Panel:

Lee Strobel - Mark Mittelberg - Rick McKinley - Dan Kimball - Eric Bryant
If we love people, love will find a way.
“You don’t have to give up your sexuality to follow Jesus. It’s worse. You have to give up everything.”
Love God, then do what you want.
The biggest resistors to reaching more people are the ones with no non-Christian friends.

Rick Yamamoto:

Book Recommendations:
“The Connection Gap”
Mindset
rick@mosaic.org

Went to lunch at “Big Mama’s Rib Shack”

Session 2 notes:

Rick Yomamoto:

Recommended reading:
“The Lessons of Experience”
“Apprentice to Genius”

Erwin McManus:

“I didn’t want to become a pastor. I wanted to do something meaningful with my life…”
Vision - Passion - Mission - Three things that drive leaders.

Eric Bryant:

A leader needs to be able to move ideas into action.
Reccomended: “Good to Great”
If the business world is learning to lead like Jesus, shouldn’t we?
A leader takes people places.

David Arcos:

The power of chaos.
Rather than organizing and waiting for God to do something, let’s organize what God is doing.
If everything you are doing is excellent, than you are moving to slow.
Nelson Mandella:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Kim McManus:

We need to live our lives out of love.
“Tell me again, why do you love Jesus?”

Marcus “Goodie” Goodloe & Panel:

Erwin stays out of staff meetings in order to stay out of it. He also doesn’t see what special pieces the service will have until they are happening that day.
To recognize the needs of others is Holy.

Bill Hybels:

Nothing matters more than the ownership of a vision.
Parable of the good shepherd - hireling vs. owner.
How is vision formed? Sinai vs. Team.
The pastor that leaves to come back with a vision (Sinai) is simply arrogant.
Ask the team: “What does God want our church to look like in 3-5 years?”
Refine the vision, shop it to others, get their input and more and more people become owners of it.
The congregation can smell and tell when a leader doesn’t own the vision.

Panel Discussion:

Hybels was smitten with the church of Acts 2.
You have to love your community. The world doesn’t need another church. It needs churches to love communities.
You must be committed irreversibly to your community.
Unresolved sin destroys a leader.
Again with multi sites - The church is responding to a biblical teaching deficit.

Wayne Cordeiro:

We reproduce what we are.
Amos 8:11 - A famine of not hearing from the Lord.
Two types of experience - experience from mistakes and learned experience from others mistakes.
The Bible contains 66 books full of leaders mistakes.
People aren’t tired of the gospel. They’re tired of a tired presentation of the gospel.
“My best friends are in the Bible.”
Hungry? Feed yourself! Don’t say “I’m not being fed.”
World class musicians always practice the scales, it’s the beginning of greatness.
Wisdom gives you answers before the mistake.
The Holy Spirit will reveal to you in devotions what will be coming down the road.
Church is like group guitar lessons one hour a week. Devotions are like one hour a day with a master of the instrument. People will know that you have ben with the master.
The best time for devotions is when you are at your best.

Bring your Bible
Bring a pen
Bring a reading program
Bring a journal

SOAP - Scripture - Observation - Application - Prayer (written)

Panel:

How to say no?
“No.” is a complete sentence.