One of our gifted, younger pastors wrote to me today. We're trading ideas on training films to help Christians and churches recover passion for their ministries. This pastor wrote, "What seems to be missing in so many...churches is a real sense of passion--about life, about God, about neighbors....and while ministry plans and strategies are good, without passion we are going through the motions." Then he wondered aloud, how much deconstructing of the "going through the motions" will be necessary before churches can find a new, authentic passion again.
So, for starters, without regard to film ratings or age, here are some ideas that aren't Sister Act, or Mel Gibson's botched The Passion of the Christ. I'd recommend parts of Zorba the Greek; it's unfamiliar to most, but outstanding. More recently, the animated film Up had a lot to offer. When I left the theatre, I said, every church council should see this film together! Then each council could ask, "Like the character, Carl, what do we need to off-load from our house in order to find a new adventure--or to go heroically to the rescue?" Robert Duvall's The Apostle is superb, as was a much earlier film of his, Tender Mercies.
So those are the early entries for the Top Ten Movies EVERY Church Should Use to Convert Their Hearts to Passionate Ministry. What else would you recommend? I am sorry but we cannot accept recommendations from movies where Moses or Jesus, and everybody else, speaks the Queen's English. Also, no Amaldovar films. If you don't know who that is, count yourself lucky.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
With Jesus or Without?
Every time I get a new cup of latte from Burly's place in Cannon Falls or the Blue Monday in Northfield, they don't check my ID, but there are still a lot of questions asked: vente or grande? flavoring or no flavoring? Skim or whole? Here or to-go? Whipped cream or not? I have learned how to answer these questions. One of these days, I'll be asked if I lived with Jesus or without. God, I hope I know the answer to that question, too.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Only on a Bet
They did it. Not me. A couple of months ago, my wife and some so-called friends of mine started a "stretch challenge" for the four of us. We were each to try something new, out of our comfort zones. Someone committed to trying yoga. Someone else committed to being "spontaneous" with his kids (committed to being spontaneous?). Well, anyway... There was also a most non-United Methodist aspect to this. Again, not my fault. They did it. They agreed that the Loser in this challenge event, the person who did not try their challenge, would owe everyone else a fine dinner at the end of three months for the challenge.
My stretch challenge was to accept a professional back-rub. My wife insists it is "a full-body massage", but I know a back-rub when I see one. This one just extends further in all directions.
Already you see I have competed, or complied; I'm not sure which. I went to the local back-rub artist, at the local Massage and Healing Center, aka "back-rub place". I had to remove my boots and some other stuff, then lie down in a small room where they displayed the Buddha and played the sound of ocean waves. Then the expert back-rubber did. It lasted an hour, kind of.
This is part one. I am obligated to complete two more similar parts in order to fulfill the Challenge and be saved from buying dinner for everybody else. They think this is a Challenge for me because I have body-image concerns dating back to childhood. I think it's just that nobody else ever offered a thorough back-rub.
So, anyway... today I am sophisticated, calmed, de-toxified, and soothed. It's amazing what a good back-rub will do for a guy!
My stretch challenge was to accept a professional back-rub. My wife insists it is "a full-body massage", but I know a back-rub when I see one. This one just extends further in all directions.
Already you see I have competed, or complied; I'm not sure which. I went to the local back-rub artist, at the local Massage and Healing Center, aka "back-rub place". I had to remove my boots and some other stuff, then lie down in a small room where they displayed the Buddha and played the sound of ocean waves. Then the expert back-rubber did. It lasted an hour, kind of.
This is part one. I am obligated to complete two more similar parts in order to fulfill the Challenge and be saved from buying dinner for everybody else. They think this is a Challenge for me because I have body-image concerns dating back to childhood. I think it's just that nobody else ever offered a thorough back-rub.
So, anyway... today I am sophisticated, calmed, de-toxified, and soothed. It's amazing what a good back-rub will do for a guy!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Kings and Plutocrats
Went reluctantly to see Michael Moore's latest populist film, Capitalism: A Love Story . It actually proved to be pretty provocative.
Among Moore's usual confused segments and cheap shots were disturbing glimpses of a United States that is not in much danger of becoming socialist or fascist, as the Right and the Left respectively fear, but plutocratic--a country governed not by democratic voting processes, but by the undue influence of the extremely wealthy. Moore's statistics and narratives on shifts in tax policies of the last 25-30 years show a clear trend that has led to the decline of the buffering zone of a strong middle-class, the increase of the poor or working poor, and astounding concentrations of wealth among a very few persons. Moore appeals for a return to a fairer, more just land. He says, hauntingly, at the end of the film, "I will not live in a country like this, and I am not leaving."
Coincidentally, the three-year lectionary focuses this week on the texts in 1 Samuel 8-10 where the Prophet warns Israel not to take a king because a king will use up their sons, their daughters, and their fields and vineyards, "but the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, 'No! but we are determined to have a king over us..." (1 Samuel 8:19). Samuel was trying to say, "You won't really want to live in a country like that... " On behalf of God, the prophet gave fair warning about kings and plutocrats. They bear watching. Moore seems to think that, all too often, if you follow the trail backwards from uninsured families, foreclosures, and down-sizings, you will find unfair tax laws, deceptively complex investment instruments and dishonest balance sheets among the planet's largest corporations.
Among Moore's usual confused segments and cheap shots were disturbing glimpses of a United States that is not in much danger of becoming socialist or fascist, as the Right and the Left respectively fear, but plutocratic--a country governed not by democratic voting processes, but by the undue influence of the extremely wealthy. Moore's statistics and narratives on shifts in tax policies of the last 25-30 years show a clear trend that has led to the decline of the buffering zone of a strong middle-class, the increase of the poor or working poor, and astounding concentrations of wealth among a very few persons. Moore appeals for a return to a fairer, more just land. He says, hauntingly, at the end of the film, "I will not live in a country like this, and I am not leaving."
Coincidentally, the three-year lectionary focuses this week on the texts in 1 Samuel 8-10 where the Prophet warns Israel not to take a king because a king will use up their sons, their daughters, and their fields and vineyards, "but the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, 'No! but we are determined to have a king over us..." (1 Samuel 8:19). Samuel was trying to say, "You won't really want to live in a country like that... " On behalf of God, the prophet gave fair warning about kings and plutocrats. They bear watching. Moore seems to think that, all too often, if you follow the trail backwards from uninsured families, foreclosures, and down-sizings, you will find unfair tax laws, deceptively complex investment instruments and dishonest balance sheets among the planet's largest corporations.
Friday, October 16, 2009
God-Borne
The latest "news" via e-mail reminds me of the illnesses and struggles of many friends and their families. An old friend called this afternoon to tell me his long-time partner had died a few months ago; he said it was lonely now. Another extraordinary fellow, a great-souled brother in one of the churches, is dying of cancer. Another is fighting off a cancer. I am reminded that one comes to a stage in life where one's near age-cohorts begin to take the blows of mortality on thier shields; the ranks thin. Among the Greeks, soldiers often served effectively well into their old age; they were mentally tough and strong enough to carry on.
I have been fortunate so far. My armor has not rusted badly. My wounds have not been traumatic, though they have surprised me. Hair gets thinner; it grays. Bodies get larger in the wrong places. Mental functions may slow. There is soreness in joints that one never exerienced before. I am not disturbed by illness at all, yet the possibility this could happen to me and my friends seems strangely more certain and inevitable.
So what? Well, for those of us who assumed when we were young that we were immortal, these things come as a shock. Boomers are doubly distressed; we were to be the fair-haired and irresponsible generation all our days. Now it seems likely we won't last forever after all. Since we cannot, nor can other generations, rely solely upon our good looks and good luck for life and health and world peace, what shall we think and believe to sustain us on the path we're walking?
Not everyone thinks this way, but I do. I listen closely to Paul when he says, "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us....For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:18, 37-39).
When my friend called to say his beloved had died, he also said, "You and I, we once were children; now, we must be grown men." So we grow older, but we also grow up. What great deeds are yet to be accomplished, though we limp as we march? What can be done next to offer the glmpses of the reign of God for which human beings yearn? Don't all of us still have more time in our enlistments to speak kindly, share generously, trust completely in God, pursue justice, and walk humbly? Like Don Quixote, we ride! Not because we are romantics, but because some of us believe we are God-born, God-borne and God-bound.
I have been fortunate so far. My armor has not rusted badly. My wounds have not been traumatic, though they have surprised me. Hair gets thinner; it grays. Bodies get larger in the wrong places. Mental functions may slow. There is soreness in joints that one never exerienced before. I am not disturbed by illness at all, yet the possibility this could happen to me and my friends seems strangely more certain and inevitable.
So what? Well, for those of us who assumed when we were young that we were immortal, these things come as a shock. Boomers are doubly distressed; we were to be the fair-haired and irresponsible generation all our days. Now it seems likely we won't last forever after all. Since we cannot, nor can other generations, rely solely upon our good looks and good luck for life and health and world peace, what shall we think and believe to sustain us on the path we're walking?
Not everyone thinks this way, but I do. I listen closely to Paul when he says, "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us....For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:18, 37-39).
When my friend called to say his beloved had died, he also said, "You and I, we once were children; now, we must be grown men." So we grow older, but we also grow up. What great deeds are yet to be accomplished, though we limp as we march? What can be done next to offer the glmpses of the reign of God for which human beings yearn? Don't all of us still have more time in our enlistments to speak kindly, share generously, trust completely in God, pursue justice, and walk humbly? Like Don Quixote, we ride! Not because we are romantics, but because some of us believe we are God-born, God-borne and God-bound.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Mutual Encouragement in Every Event
Count it all joy, brothers and sisters...(James 1:2)
We watched an old movie the other night, Zorba the Greek. It's one of my favorites, starring Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn (as Zorba). Almost no one I know remembers this excellent movie, or has read the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. This is unfortunate.
The story is one of two very different men, one younger and the other older, one an intellectual and the other a man of the earth, one intellectual and disembodied--and the other with a wild mind and a passionate body. In the course of the story, they develop an intense friendship, suffer and delight together in many of life's events, and ultimately influence one another deeply. The younger man is most changed, for he is enabled to embrace life as it presents itself--with an open heart, equally willing to rejoice and to ache. In a culminating moment of dramatic failure and the literal collapse of their great, shared business venture, the young man finally asks Zorba to teach him to dance an individual's wild, personal dance on the beach--at the very place of their economic calamity.
Zorba says, "A man needs a little madness, or else....Or else, he never dares cut the rope and be free!"
How many of us lapse into "never daring" to be impassioned in our relationships, our tasks, our ministries, or our witness for the generous Christ? How important is it to us that the brothers and sisters in our churches give one another mutual instruction and encouragement for life-embracing joy, teaching one another to dance with passion, and to become the great-souled persons we are called to be?
We watched an old movie the other night, Zorba the Greek. It's one of my favorites, starring Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn (as Zorba). Almost no one I know remembers this excellent movie, or has read the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. This is unfortunate.
The story is one of two very different men, one younger and the other older, one an intellectual and the other a man of the earth, one intellectual and disembodied--and the other with a wild mind and a passionate body. In the course of the story, they develop an intense friendship, suffer and delight together in many of life's events, and ultimately influence one another deeply. The younger man is most changed, for he is enabled to embrace life as it presents itself--with an open heart, equally willing to rejoice and to ache. In a culminating moment of dramatic failure and the literal collapse of their great, shared business venture, the young man finally asks Zorba to teach him to dance an individual's wild, personal dance on the beach--at the very place of their economic calamity.
Zorba says, "A man needs a little madness, or else....Or else, he never dares cut the rope and be free!"
How many of us lapse into "never daring" to be impassioned in our relationships, our tasks, our ministries, or our witness for the generous Christ? How important is it to us that the brothers and sisters in our churches give one another mutual instruction and encouragement for life-embracing joy, teaching one another to dance with passion, and to become the great-souled persons we are called to be?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Winter's Glancing Blow and Frizzly Breath
The past few days have brought winter's glancing blow and frizzly breath to October--cold winds, some snow. Most of us are just annoyed. Like the President's Nobel Peace Prize; whatever else may be said about it, it is premature. It has come too soon. We had counted on a few more weeks of Indian Summer!
In a small way, the early arrival of winter reminds us of our personal limitations, of our national set-backs, and of our global anxieties. The daily lections from Obadiah this week say, "You say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord" (Obadiah vv.3-4). We had collectively hoped for a worldwide and continuing Indian Summer, but snow has fallen too soon! We have been brought back "down to the ground". The earth itself groans and labors to feed her billions. The poisons of a few decades of prosperity are filtering into our waters. The economy, whether it is recovering or busted flat, is an immense fable few of us truly understand. Wise and humble leadership seems rare, and nationalism or "cause-ism" rampant.
We hope that all of this is just a warning, a glancing blow of winter, an instructive thump of threat. It might be. The sun might shine again, even tomorrow. But, it's also possible, as a Poet says, that "Winter is icumen in, lhude sing goddam." We sing the many verses of that song now because cold times have hurried toward us. They are the times we probably thought other generations would need to face, but they have come to us now. What will we do when history twitters us by name and writes us just one word, which we fear: "Calamity"? Whether that true Winter has come or not, now is the time to find a way through its snows bv a holy path of respectful prayers, christly deeds, innovative risks and lives given to the common good.
In a small way, the early arrival of winter reminds us of our personal limitations, of our national set-backs, and of our global anxieties. The daily lections from Obadiah this week say, "You say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord" (Obadiah vv.3-4). We had collectively hoped for a worldwide and continuing Indian Summer, but snow has fallen too soon! We have been brought back "down to the ground". The earth itself groans and labors to feed her billions. The poisons of a few decades of prosperity are filtering into our waters. The economy, whether it is recovering or busted flat, is an immense fable few of us truly understand. Wise and humble leadership seems rare, and nationalism or "cause-ism" rampant.
We hope that all of this is just a warning, a glancing blow of winter, an instructive thump of threat. It might be. The sun might shine again, even tomorrow. But, it's also possible, as a Poet says, that "Winter is icumen in, lhude sing goddam." We sing the many verses of that song now because cold times have hurried toward us. They are the times we probably thought other generations would need to face, but they have come to us now. What will we do when history twitters us by name and writes us just one word, which we fear: "Calamity"? Whether that true Winter has come or not, now is the time to find a way through its snows bv a holy path of respectful prayers, christly deeds, innovative risks and lives given to the common good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
