red eyed return
spent a few days in the Bay area (Oakland, Monterey) as part of a focus group, aka marketing study, for an upcoming event.. and perhaps it should be no surprise, but it was to me, that the fast pace and widely pervasive technologies of the online world is not being used by significant numbers of people.. so for me to contribute a few common terms like viral, evite, buzz, and blog, it wasn’t venacular for them. Okay, guess that makes me the resident “expert”, to use a positive spin, or the marginalized geek, to be more realistic. 
Good to visit with a couple of old friends, Joe & Tina, and greet their new blogging baby Maddy (tho’ I think it oughta be renamed to Mother of Maddy’s blog, with its motherly realism coming through much more than the baby’s voice).. and, thanks to Joe, I’m now IN! I’m connected to that exclusive Orkut network 
a day of motivational speak
just got an email invite to a full day of motivational speakers ranting and pumping you up : “Get Motivated Seminars want to give YOU the best seats in the house on Tuesday, April 6th, 2004 at The GET MOTIVATED Seminar with Zig Ziglar [and team] at the MCI Center Arena! ” Knowing that at moments there’ll be the infomercial-ish sales pitch for additional resources and seminars, I’d still like to go — drop me an email to come with my troop: I’m looking to get a block of 10.
:
#1 Motivator Zig Ziglar will be joined by this dynamic team of experts:
- Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will show you how to lead in difficult times!
- Peter Lowe, America’s Success Strategist, will inspire you to reach new levels of achievement!
- Tom Hopkins will show you how to strengthen your sales and negotiation skills!
- Rick Belluzzo, former President and CEO of Microsoft, will give you his top business strategies!
- Goldie Hawn will teach you how to attain and exceed your goals!
JournalCon
now wouldn’t it be great if there were a contingent of missional + spiritual + emergent bloggers at JournalCon - it’ll be in Washington DC this year, some time in the August-October time frame.. to be determined by your survey responses.. see you there, if they pick a weekend when I’m in town
another sneak preview
nobody asked me, but I would have flown halfway or all-the-way cross country to get in on it ..fellow blogger Scott Hodge saw it too, and then I found another person who was in on the sneak preview of The Passion movie.. Dave writes: “I happened to see the screening at Willow and was very moved by it. The word movie does not really capture it - “experience” would be a better word. I wept while I watched - I can’t imagine not weeping while watching such graphic images of our Savior bearing what should have been done to us.”.. [update: and 5,000 pastors saw it in Orlando yesterday, and the Washington Times picked up on it a day later]
“Perhaps as striking as the depiction of suffering were the flashback scenes
of His earthly ministry. The portrayal of Jesus in those scenes is so
compassionate and mild - so attractive and winsome. It is hard not to be
attracted to know more about this Jesus. If anyone goes into this movie with
preconceived notions of who Jesus was and what He was like, I believe they
will be challenged to change.
I appreciated the interview Mel Gibson gave after the screening. I got the
impression that his faith is genuine and his motivation in making the film
was very sincere. It was an expression of his own faith - a compelling need
to see on film and in reality what lived only in his imagination.
Although many are excited about the film’s potential as an evangelistic tool, I
got the feeling that it was more a part of Gibson’s genuine spiritual journey - a
movie made for God and for his own spiritual growth. Yes, he wants people to
be challenged and properly disturbed, but I didn?t get the sense he wants this to
become the new Jesus film for the next generation.
One thing Gibson said in the interview particularly struck me. He said that
most Christian films are hard to watch because they’re made so poorly. They
suffer from such a self-conscious hyper-reverence and such a sense of agenda
that the audience is made to feel like they are being preached at rather
than witnessing something that is real. I think his reasoning speaks to a
postmodern generation who is looking for authenticity in art, not art used
simply as a means to other ends.
There is not doubt that this film will cause people to have an emotional
reaction and ask serious spiritual questions. It will make the Christian
remember things long forgotten about the price of our salvation and the
centrality of Jesus in the Christian life. It will make the unbeliever
wonder if he should read the Bible for himself and investigate this Jesus
more thoroughly.
As a pastor I want to be ready to minister to those who come seeking answers
to the film. I am also prepared to recommend the film to people because it
is an experience not to be missed. But I would hesitate to call the film an
evangelistic tool because it feels somehow that such a label would cheapen
the experience. I think God will use the film mightily to move the gospel
forward. I hope that the agendas of eager Christians will not somehow get in
the way of that.
Just my two cents. A wonderful movie overall. Two thumbs and one heart way
up.
In Christ,
Dave Lee
Harvest Community Church“
church as junket
Fascinating to me how the distributor of the Mel Gibson funded (produced, is the more proper word) movie about Jesus Christ has tapped into a zealous market, the evangelicals, and I’m anticipating they will easily recoup the costs and make some good money on it.. got this junket write-up about the forthcoming movie from some connections at CTi via Helen Lee (who gave me permission) and Mark Moring (who did the write up).. [you know how celebrities hit the talk show circuit to promote a movie or book, well, how about hitting up megachurches, the new frontier for media blitz, which they did indeedy, at the 2 crown jewels of the megachurch, Willow and Saddleback]
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