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Jul 27, 2007
sports and movies During a 15 hour bus trip yesterday, my ipod was constantly working. Fortunately for me, I discovered podcasts recently, and had several hours news, sermons, and sports to entertain me. One of the podcasts I had was espn radio's "The Big Show," which normally is hosted by Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman, but instead this edition had a guest host, Eric Concillias. His opening segment was quite brilliant. He was talking about how the various professional sports leagues are like movements, and how he can instantly tell what genre of movie a sports league is. Those his analogies aren't perfect (though a few were), I found myself quite impressed. His analysis is as follows: NFL: A blockbuster. Extremely popular, a lot of action, lots of big stars, and the opening of the season is highly anticipated with a lot of fanfare. NBA: A slaphappy comedy with Lindsay Lohan. "It's the trainwreck off the set that gets all of the attention." Really, the movie isn't all of that good, but it's the stories off of the set that get the most attention. Golf: A documentary. You watch to learn. People who watch golf are the same people who play golf. MMA (UFC). A hot indy film. It has a large following, but is not mainstream. It will never make a lot of money, but it will have a lot of loyal fans. X-games-- A teen movie that nobody over 30 gets, aka Beerfest. Boxing--Silent movie. Years ago, it was the biggest thing, people would come in droves to watch. Now, nobody really watches anymore, except on occasion they will check it out for nostalgia. Soccer--A foreign film, with subtitles. They aren't bad, but they don't hold our interest, except a really big one comes out about every 4 years. WNBA--Chick flick Wrestling--Porn. At first, you don't want to get into it, but once you start you get hooked. Then, you buy the pay-per-views, and then hope that nobody sees your cable bill, or if they do, then you hope it's vauge enough that they don't know what it actually is. Baseball--Romantic comedy. There are really only two or three possible endings, and usually you can tell what's going to happen in the first 15 minutes. **NOTE: Thanks to Total Nonstop Action wrestlings initials, TNA, it makes their paper views look, at worst, like a porn film, and at best like a women in prison movie, such as TNA: Hard Justice and TNA: Lockdown. posted
by Unknown @ 7:56:00 PM Jul 24, 2007 a sense of wonder Back in the spring of 2002, some of us who were preparing to launch FOCUS were meeting in the “green room” at UCC. As part of a devotional time, John Wentz had each of us read a verse that we had come across recently. My first thought went to Habakkuk 1:5, which I had read just a few days earlier, perhaps due to the fact that I was taking a class on prophetic literature at the time. Anyway, going back to 2000, I was struck off and on with the feeling that God was going to do something big. As we were planning FOCUS, John and I both had this feeling quite often. I suppose that it was with this background that reading Habakkuk 1:5 had jumped out at me in the way that it did. However, I initially chose not to share Habakkuk 1:5, opting instead for Romans 12:1-8, like a good worship leader should have. However, someone in the group made a comment that nobody was likely to be sharing from Habakkuk. I took it as a sign that that was the verse that I should have shared in the first place, and thus, I read the following: “Look at the nations and watch— And be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days That you would not believe, Even if you were told. (NIV) It’s a passage that some of us who were involved in the launch of FOCUS would refer to years after the fact, and occasionally it’s still something John and I refer to. Lots of amazing things have happened since then, but I don’t think that which I kept sensing has happened yet. It’s possible that it has, and that my limited view of things has kept me from realizing it. There were times, though, when I felt that were on the edge, about to jump into a major time of revival, only to back off or never quite reach our destination. I’ve mentioned that a couple of times in the past on this blog, particularly in the winter/spring of 2006. After that, I lost that feeling of anticipation. Again, I don’t know if it was a moment I missed, or one of those things where God just decided to move on, or if it was just a thing where my part was over and it was time for my next big challenge. So, fast forward to July, 2007. Yes, that’s this month. Back in my first weekend in Iowa, I went to church with one of the board members for the campus ministry here. Speaking that week was a guy who was preparing to leave to do mission work in the Middle East. Throughout his message, he talked a lot about many of the missionary efforts in the Middle East, most prominently the “Back to Jerusalem” movement. The “Back to Jerusalem” movement is a movement in the Chinese church. They have noticed that the movement of Christianity has gone westward, starting in Jerusalem, moving its way west throughout the Roman empire, then into Europe, then crossing the Atlantic into the America’s, and now it is quite prominent in East Asia. Tracing this movement, they see the spread continuing westward until it gets “back to Jerusalem.” So, it isn’t Jerusalem that is their target, rather, it’s everything between China and Jerusalem. It was really exciting to hear him talk about this movement, and just how God was working in China and the vision that has taken over the church there. Obviously, with the general distrust of white people in the Middle East, the Chinese have an opening that we may not have had. The reason I mention all of this, of course, is that Habakkuk 1:5 is one of the theme verses for “Back to Jerusalem.” I don’t know what all of this means, but as this verse came up again, on what was my first official day on staff here in Iowa, it has helped renew that sense of God planning something big. Given that I have had this feeling since 2000, one of the big things that I have learned is that I am going to have to be patient in seeing it fulfilled. posted
by Unknown @ 8:20:00 PM exhibits b and c If you need even further proof that a musical starring Shattner, Hasselhoff and Cena needs to be made, well, take a look these posted
by Unknown @ 3:45:00 PM the ultimate movie So, in keeping with what Barnes and Tommy have been doing on their blogs recently, I figured that I would jump in and create some of my "dream scenarios." Today, I will be doing my ultimate movie. I've given this a lot of thought, and my result surprised even me. Because, I found that my ultimate movie would be a musical. Yes, a musical. But how can that be? Well, it's all in the cast. The three leads are as follows: William Shattner David Hasselhoff John Cena See, this works. And the title: Badminton in Mississippi Now, there are two reasons for this. One, out of all of the sports movies of all time, there is no badminton movie. I mean, there is even a cockfighting movie. So, this takes care of that. Secondly, I have noticed a trend that every movie that has Mississippi in the title is about racism. Well, we are going to put an end to that trend as well. So, here it is. Cena's character is an up and comer in the world of badminton, in order to fulfill his dream of becoming an Olympic Badmittion player, he has to win the State Championship. To do this, he has to get past the perinnial state champion, David Hasselhoff. When all seems lost, he meets a badminton legend, played of course by William Shattner. Support characters will be played by: Morgan Freeman Wilford Brimley Gary Coleman Todd Bridges Kiera Knightly Eric Cartman James Earl Jones The cast of "The Office" Dennis Haysbert Jessica Beil Mr. T Julia Louis Dreyfus Sara Chalke Tom Bosley and Kathy Bates If you aren't convinced yet, then this video, shown to me by Bill, will convince you. posted
by Unknown @ 1:12:00 PM Jul 23, 2007 corn, meetings, missionaries, and myspace Usually, whenever I go a long time without blogging, it happens for one of two reasons. Either I have nothing to write about, or I'm just lazy. This last hiatus has been due to the latter. I keep saying, "Now I'm going to get back into it." But, blogging, for me, requires a certain rythmn that I got out of a long time ago. So, now, I am saying, "I'm getting back into it." I suppose we shall se what happens. So, for the few of you unaware, I am now in Iowa. I've been here just over 3 weeks. And, as the sterotype goes, there is a lot of corn here. And, over the last three weeks, I have eaten a lot more corn than I normally would during a three week span, which really isn't a lot, but still, there is a definate increase. The sweet corn is amazing up here. Apart from the corn, it's really nice up here. According to whoever makes these rankings, Ames, IA, is supposedly the best small town in the country to live in. Whether or not that is true, it really is a good place to live. People here are laid back and friendly. The new job is going fairly well. It's kind of slow, this being summer and all, and school being out of session. But, I've been doing some planning, and I'm getting excited for fall to get here. Also, last week I went to a regional campus minister's meeting, which was a lot of fun. About midway though it, it occured to me, "I'm at work right now." There are a lot of indicators that a person is in the "right job," but I think I'm in the luckiest group, which is that I'm one of those people who has a job that they would do for free if it came to that. It's great waking up each morning and not dreading going to work. And, on a sadder note, I finally signed up for myspace. I vowed I would not do it, but, in my line of work, it's a necessity. I know the title says something about missionaries, but I'm going to give it it's own post. Oh yeah, my myspace page is at myspace.com/thecolonel12 posted
by Unknown @ 11:53:00 AM |
