Distracted by a Cause

A new episode of Untangled is up! There is so much injustice, mudslinging, political corruption, and religious obligation in the world today that we often find ourselves driven by anger, arrogance, or self-righteousness to take up a cause. Though some of these causes may appear to be good, many times they are merely distractions to get us to spend our time, energy, and emotions on something other than abiding in God's love and loving others. It is so easy to fall into the trap of placing our identities in something other than Christ. This is what David and Loren discuss in this podcast. 

Beautiful Crackpots

A new episode of Untangled is up! We are usually taught by this world to keep up an image of strength even when we are weak. This is how many are trained to minister to others. But interestingly, Paul spoke of glorying in his weaknesses.  These things are often skimmed over as we read the Bible as if they're merely nice little poetic sayings or Paul being modest.  Yet, the truth is Father truly is glorified in our weaknesses because He loves us right in the middle of them. It is often in our weaknesses that others are touched because there is less of us and more of Him.  When we don't live in denial of our struggles we are less prone to become pharisees and are better able to genuinely connect with others.

Love and Judgement

A new episode of Untangled is up and marks a new beginning as my friend David Fredrickson and I have teamed up to host the podcast together. Did you know that love and judgement for us humans are polar opposites? We weren't created to judge, that place is reserved for God alone. But thanks to partaking of the fruit from the of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil we thrust ourselves into a position for which we weren't created. We were create to abide in the love of our Father not to be experts on good and evil. The root of that knowledge is actually the desire to live independent of God. We cannot abide in love and judge others at the same time. We either eat of the Tree of Life or The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what Loren Rosser and David Fredrickson discuss in this podcast. 
Just click on the link to go to the podcast.

http://untangled.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-23T14_50_03-07_00

Three Things

This week's episode of Untangled is up! This week Loren has a heart to heart chat with us. He discusses the three things that are of utmost importance for us as believers and a project he is taking on that will result in some changes to the podcast.

What Really Matters

Christians today are very good at majoring in the minors.  Singing, sermons, and Sunday School can all be nice but these are minors.  What are the majors?  What is it that is most important to Jesus Christ, the Head of the church? Believe it or not, it's no mystery.  Jesus made it crystal clear what should be our entire focus as His people.  This is what Loren discusses in this podcast. (In this episode Loren mentions Johnny and Kate Brooks and the work they're doing in Kenya. If you want more information go to http://www.purechristianity.blogs.com/)

Heaven is for Real Movie Review

My wife and I watched the movie Heaven is for Real last night starring Greg Kinnear based on the book and true story of a little boy who had a near death experience and claims to have visited heaven.  Overall I’d say the movie was okay.  It wasn’t great and it wasn’t bad, it was just okay.  The strengths of the movie were the acting skills of Greg Kinnear who played Todd Burpo, a Nebraskan pastor and father of Conner (the boy who had the near death experience), Thomas Haden Church, and Margo Martindale who played church board members and friends of the Burpo family.  At first it looked like they were going to make a few of the main characters one dimensional, but I was pleased they avoided that pit and gave them some depth.  As a follower of Christ I have no doubts of the reality of life after death so I found the parts of the movie focusing on Conner’s experiences intriguing and encouraging.  I also really liked that the movie centered on God being love without clouding the issue.  And since I believe God loves us so much he meets with us where we’re at, in our reality, I had no hang ups about the Burpo’s religious views and activities. 

Where the movie really fell down was surrounding the point of conflict.  Since the movie was based on a true account that was turned into a movie the writers had to come up with a conflict to make the movie entertaining, otherwise it would’ve been better to simply make a documentary.  The problem is the conflict was just not believable.  (Minor Spoiler Alert: stop reading if you don’t want anything to be given away.)  The conflict was that people were having a hard time believing what Conner had witnessed.  This included the church board members and even the parents. Now that would work for me if they were atheists or agnostics, but these were church going people.  Conner’s story confirmed their beliefs.  The number one concern with the majority of Christians is heaven.  In fact, the subject of heaven is probably the LEAST offensive subject to Christians.  No matter what denomination or non-denomination, they all agree on the existence of heaven.  I’m certain that’s why the book on which the movie was based was number one on the New York Times best sellers list.  It’s the “how to get to heaven” and “who will be there?” where Christians start splintering into factions.  But I don’t know of a single Christian group that doubts the existence of heaven.  In fact, one of the problems some Christians have is they act like the whole point of life is just to die and go to heaven.

This is what makes the point of conflict in the movie unbelievable and quite ridicules.  The parents and church members would have eaten up Conner’s story.  They would’ve been begging him to tell them more.  Instead they’re aloof and suspicious.  The family even encounters minor “persecution” over it.  The “persecution” was so forced it came across as downright corny and made me cringe.  Getting persecuted for something with which the majority of people agree?  BIZAAR!  It felt like the movie makers were pandering to their audience. “Let’s make the average Joe church goer feel like a spiritual powerhouse for believing in heaven.”  Wow!  Such a controversial topic!  Don’t ever say you believe in heaven in mixed company – who knows what people might do!?  And while you’re at it how about having the kid get persecuted for talking about footage he saw of astronauts landing on the moon.  Whoa! This is edgy dangerous stuff here! Nothing will get you persecuted faster than believing what everybody else does – NOT! 

The conflict was nothing but a “straw man.”  This made it impossible to get emotionally invested in their struggles.  The mom’s aloofness followed by her overreactions to her son’s stories was so unbelievable it was like watching somebody get emotional about paint drying.  I found myself detached from the characters.

The other problem I had with the movie was the way it constantly pointed to the church building as being the center of spiritual life and the source through which all spiritual activity occurs.  Jesus made it very clear that we, his people, are his temple.  He dwells in those who follow him.  He meets with us right where we’re at, not on some “sacred ground” as in the old covenant.  But I realize this was merely reflecting the wide spread accepted tradition of many Christians today.

So there you have it.  Heaven is for Real is an okay movie.  But it can make for some good conversations afterward.  So that alone may make it worth your while. 

Movies That Impact The Spirit

This week's Untangled podcast is up. Movie Man Bob joins Loren again for another edition of Movie Monday (even though it's Tuesday).  This week they discuss movies that impacted them spiritually and launch into a deep conversation about the power of God that’s found in relationships. “Relationships transition us from pride to humility,” points out Bob, “…and God gives grace to the humble."