Filed under: General, Media, Movies and TV | Tags: al gore, avatar, dances with wolves, james cameron, orson scott card
All the hype, and I have to be honest, I don’t really like James Cameron’s movies so I was not expecting much in the way of originality. In other words, my expectations for this movie were not exactly high.
It met my expectations. It was half a billion dollars of beautiful mediocrity. Sure, the film looked absolutely amazing. But the characters and the stories were so derivative.
For example, I’ve seen the aliens who were connected so intimately to their ecosystem in Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead. I have heard the natives struggling against the cold industrialists in any number of films, although none quite as drawn out and painful as Dances with Wolves. And the preachy environmentalism was drawn directly from An Inconvenient Truth.
At over two and a half hours, Avatar was about as long as your average Cameron movie. It had the romance angle, the stunning visuals…yawn. If it hadn’t cost me $12, I probably would have spent most of the movie in the lobby. Actually, come to think of it, I had to go to the bathroom a lot, so I probably did spend a lot of it in the lobby.
A little over a month ago, an anonymous donor gave me $1,000 and said, “This is to buy your Mac.” Now, I’m not genius; but when that kind of thing happens, I don’t question it. I obediently went to the Apple store and bought a 13″ Macbook Pro.
I had $1,000 to invest; and I spent another $200 to get a couple of upgrades (like going to 4GB of RAM), so I could not go much bigger. But for a guy who carries his computer on his back on a bicycle, the 13″ is just fine.
A few weeks ago, my friend Greg (an ubergeek in disguise) bought the 15″ and it is pretty cool, but too big for me. I’m glad I went with the 13″.
Some of you may remember my review of the Acer Aspire One – still an amazing little machine – as well as my adventures with an old Mac G4 desktop I bought for $50. After a month of pretty heavy use, I am finally ready to review the macbook pro.
So, what is there to like about a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6)? A lot. The OS works intuitively; and contrary to what a lot of Windows users say, you have a lot of control over just about everything. There has not been a system setting I have not been able to adjust – from monitor tint to how the RAM SODIMMS are accessed.
Because it is built on the Unix architecture (unlike Mac OS X 9 and previous incarnations), it is powerful and robust. It also has no legacy issues that Windows seems to have in spades.
I found the keystrokes easy to learn and the unique features like all the trackpad gestures to be very useful. There is no wasted gadgetry, as one finds on some Windows laptops. Everything is designed to work; and it does.
That said, are there any downsides to the Mac conversion? Yes. My Outlook email databases (which goes back to 2004) does not import into Apple Mail; and there seems to be no easy way to get things over. Likewise, Office for Mac 2004 is a behemoth and I do not care for it. But, I installed Neo Office, an open source office suite based on openoffice.org, and I am very pleased with it. It is not as robust as MS Office, but does the job.
There is also no simple, open-source graphics program like Paint.net. I’ve given Inkscape a whirl, but I did not really care for it. Next, I am going to try GIMP.
So what to do about my issues? I installed VMWare Fusion and put Windows XP on as a virtual machine. I installed all the stuff I like to use on that virtual machine; and problem solved. Since Fusion allows you to run Windows XP native to Mac OS X, you don’t even notice that it is a Windows program most of the time.
In short, Apple makes an amazing machine; and Microsoft would be wise to learn some lessons from them. They won’t; and most people will continue to be afraid of Mac; but Mac OS X is by far a superior platform to Windows.
Recently I started reviewing for Waterbrook/Multnomah, in addition to my gig with Thomas Nelson. The first book I received to review is Primal, the third book by the pastor of National Community Church, Mark Batterson.
Primal is one of those books that been hyped in pastoral circles. Batterson’s previous two books – In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase – are sitting on the shelves of pretty much every pastor I know. Everyone was anticipating it.
With all that said, it does not live up to the hype. The central theme of Primal appears to be a call for some kind of new reformation in the church. That is what Mark Batterson says in the first couple of chapters, although the rest of the book seems only loosely connected to the theme.
I felt the Batterson’s prose was somewhat disjointed. He jumped from idea to idea but there was not a lot of internal flow. Personally, this reduced my ability to engage with his subject matter which I felt was worthwhile.
In short, the book does not live up to its hype or, to be honest, its potential. It could have been hyped a little less and edited much better.
In return for this review, Random House (Waterbrook/Multnomah) provided a free copy of this book. To purchase the book, you can click the image above or the link here.
Previously, we posted about Ten Commandments for Ministry Failure.
Today, we want to talk about ways to guarantee you never see God’s vision for the Church.
First, let’s unpack the term vision this way:
Vision is an image of the future you believe God sees for you. At it’s core, vision is getting in harmony with God’s imagination and seeing what he sees.
With that being said, here are ways to make sure you never see God’s vision.
- Don’t waste your time talking to God. Invest your time in everything but praying and listening to what God has to say.
- Become obsessed with maintaining the status quo. Make it your goal in ministry to just keep what is going.
- Get buried in the details. Spend 90% of your time doing the day to day so you never have any time to dream God’s dreams.
- Become passionate about anything but God’s glory. It does not matter whether it is good, bad or indifferent, if your focus in ministry is anything but the glory of God, it is in the wrong place.
- Use my, I, me and mine when referring to your church or ministry. If you own it, then the only vision that will be expressed is yours.
I’m far from the perfect pastor; but I do know that a few minutes in God’s presence brings all of my vain imaginations, and my empty imaginations are not good things. And the same is true for all of us, in all ministries.
As we approach the daunting task of merging Heritage Baptist Church and Grace Baptist Church, let’s be reminded that we are pursuing God’s vision and not our own.
So far, the vision that I am getting is not a grandiose one; and it does not make for a snappy vision statement. We need to be focused on uniting Christ’s church right now. His vision for us is one of unity and healing right now. And as that vision becomes a reality among us, I believe he will put another, grander vision before us.
The time is quickly arriving. It has been months since I first posted about the merger between Grace Baptist Church and Heritage Baptist Church, it had been four months in the making.
On Tuesday, both congregations will vote on a merger in principle. This will be a vote to bring the two congregations together as one and pursue a complete merger of the two in 2010.
[title Growing Together, Post 14]
Filed under: Book Reviews, History, Reading | Tags: Book Reviews, douglas wilson, History, western civilization
I have no doubt that Douglas Wilson is a good man, and possibly even a great theologian and teacher. He has pastored Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, for many years; he is on faculty at New St. Andrews College; and he as debated Christopher Hitchens.
All that being said, his most recent book 5 Cities that Ruled the World is a poor reflection on his life of ministry. It is poorly edited and choppy, contains unsubstantiated historical myths (like the sowing of Carthage with salt) and by in large appears to be only superficially researched. There are huge tractates without so much as a footnote or indication of the source and then tiny, obscure references footnoted ad infinitum.
Rather than approach the subject of Judeo-Christian western civilization (which is what this book is actually about) objectively, I felt that Wilson came to the facts with a very definite agenda. He was going to prove that the entire history of the world revolves around the emergence of the ‘Christian nation’ of the United States.
I will give him credit; he tries to appear impartial; but the evidence is everywhere. This is a book with an agenda, and history is often made to reinforce that agenda whether it wants to or not.
If you want to know more specifics, you can check out my previous posts: post 1, post 2, and post 3.
Things with the merger between Heritage and Grace seem to be moving forward well, so I took some time this morning to think about some practical concerns. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is our ‘target’ for ministry.
Now, I need to provide a quick clarification. I am not a big fan of ‘group specific’ ministry (i.e. Gen-X ministry, postmodern ministry, seeker-driven ministry). Scripturally, the church should be diverse both ethnically and generationally. But, that being said, we need to keep in mind who we can reach.
I was reading something from the pastor of a megachurch in Washington, DC. He said that 70% of his church is twenty something singles. I cannot judge his congregation, but doesn’t that seem a little unbalanced? The Scriptures are full of references to families and households in the church, and it seems to be implied that the family is the foundation of the church.
That being said, I am thinking that not only should our church provide ministries for every member of the family (adult Bible studies, children’s ministry, youth group), it should also design worship and large group gatherings with the family in mind. Perhaps the family ministries should be a safety net for the family, but the intention should be to allow the family to worship and grow together.
Why shouldn’t the adult worship gathering be as welcoming to children and teens as it is to adults? And why shouldn’t adults feel welcome and engaged in the children’s ministry?
How do we build a ministry without these age borders? I have to think about it some more and try to engage the entire congregation a little better. I also think we need to build a children’s ministry with just as much spiritual content as the ‘adult’ services. And we have to almost ‘reteach’ church to people because the assumption is that kids cannot handle the adult service and that adults get nothing out of children’s ministry.
A lot to think about.
Yesterday, the congregations of Grace Baptist Church and Heritage Baptist Church worshipped together in a formal worship gathering for the first time. It was a full house, despite several families who were out because of work or illness.
The building was full of excitement – a confirmation of what the leaders believe is a clear direction from the Lord.
It was also full of people. We had 85 in the worship gathering, and if those absent had been with us we would have easily broken 100.
The combined worship band really came together to make the music something special; and I hear the sermon wasn’t too shabby.
Afterward, we had a shared lunch and everyone really enjoyed themselves. Then the kids headed outside (both those who are actually kids and many of the guys who are really just big kids) and made extensive use of the playground and the fields.
There were nothing but positive thoughts from folks as things wound down and people headed out.
All in all, I don’t think it could have gone much better; and all the credit goes to our Lord Jesus!
Looking forward to our discussions on Thursday, December 3, at 7:00pm, and our Christmas party this Saturday, December 5, also at 7:00pm!
We have changed our schedule for the merger activities between Grace Baptist Church and Heritage Baptist Church.
November 29, 10am – Joint Worship Gathering @ Grace, 67 Bedford Rd, Merrimack
December 3, 7pm – Discussions about Merger @ Grace
December 5, 7pm – Joint Christmas Party @ Grace (child care at 21 Londonderry Tpk, Hooksett)
December 13, 10am – Joint Worship Gathering @ Grace
December 15, 7pm – Business Meetings (at separate locations)
December 20, 10am – Last worship gathering @ 21 Londondery Turnpike
December 24, 7pm – Christmas Eve service @ Grace
December 27, 10am – Worship @ Grace
December 31, 7pm – New Year’s Eve Vigil @ Grace
January 3, 10am – Worship @ Grace
January 10, 10am – UNIFICATION SERVICE
