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Video

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl

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Was given a preview copy of “Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl” which I had never heard of before. It was a dvd series which made the consumption of it a little more palatable than a book review, being honest here I keep falling asleep when reading, call it a two year old joy/disease. N.D. Wilson isn’t someone who was on my radar till now, so I had no clue what to expect. So here is a bit of my experience with “Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl.”

  • The cinematography of the whole thing is quite good. If you watch it beginning to end as a I did you might pick up on some of the similar looped videos from chapter/segment to segment but as someone who has produced and edited a video 1. I see that stuff easily 2. I forgive that stuff as long as it isn’t overwhelming. The audio is equally good. This makes for an enjoyable watching experience if nothing else.
  • Wilson (sorry, just can’t do the referencing as N.D.) is fusing together a whole lot of philosophy, science and religion. I immediately thought of Rob Bell in this way of teaching. These are not Nooma videos, but I did think of that to. The videos speed through through Wilson’s thoughts so I’m sure I missed a thing of two, which will probably be most people’s experience. But there always was some takeaway idea that I heard in there.
  • Wilson also has some video that are poetry mixed to a video element. Watching the whole thing through those took me a minute to realize that is what this segment was, but I actually would skip back at that point to listen/watch again. Poetry is really cool when read by the authors, you get some of their original emotion & intent when you can experience that. As an art fanboy I was in to those segments.
  • Wilson grew on me. I was skeptical of the whole thing at first. In part because I wasn’t familiar with him or this at all. Towards the middle to end of the whole thing I found myself in the rhythm of him and a bit about his message. Seems like a pretty cool guy I wouldn’t mind having a drink with.
  • I imagine everything through the lens of “Is this a teachable element for youth?” For the sake of this being video and the whole collision of philosophy, science & religion it’d be a great discussion starter for the guys. Not sure the girls would get into it as much, but maybe. I haven’t done any control and test groups there, just my suspicion. All our kids are in some level of educational science and that is part of what they wrestle with in their spiritual formation. Not sure the level of philosophy for a middle schooler..
  • Wilson’s theology I wouldn’t necessarily agree with in all points. The core stuff seemed to be there, the more nuanced things I might switch up. A few times I had that feeling, “I’m not sure why, but that just doesn’t jive.” It is more of an apologetics type creation so that is probably where a little bit of that comes from.
  • There is a study guide, if you want to teach into this. I didn’t go there as of yet, so I have not perused it as of yet.
  • Will I go through this myself with my teenagers? It is possible. We have our outlines and things set for the foreseeable future at the moment so it probably won’t happen soon, but it could make an appearance. I think if nothing else it would be a good discussion starter for many of my teens to give words to their own faith. That would be what we would use it for.

 

What is The Why of Ministry?

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I have been pondering this idea of “start with why” for my own ministries then it had me wondering. Does our church even know the ‘why’ of its existence? Sure there are some mission statements, but those are things that the church says it wants to be. Not really why it is there. Maybe I am thinking to hard on this, but companies who live to do their why have captured mass appeal. Maybe the church doesn’t need mass appeal.. The leaders of my faith expression sure seem to want ‘vital’ mass appeal.

Singularity of Transcendent Man

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Credit to JDLasica for photo used in this posting

More in my ongoing series of Netflix documentaries. I checked out Transcendent Man a chronicle of Ray Kurzweil. Now, other than seeing him on the Daily Show (which actually shows up in the documentary) I knew nothing of the man. Have to feel I’ve been influenced by him in some ways as his premise of our bodies being filled with microcomputers has been one of my crazy thoughts that the future might look like as well.

The documentary is rather interesting as it chronicles a segment of the life of a complicated man. Here’s a guy who has some deep family pain he’s obviously hoping to rectify at a future point in time. Here’s a man who has boundless creative imagination yet still bound by the mathematics and engineering of our time & near future. It is very human, yet dabbling around the artificial intelligence of being un-human.

From this I picked up the idea of Singularity, explained here:

I’m wondering as we move towards this fusion of mechanical and human. What would be the loss or gain of our spiritual life? Would we become a Spock type character who struggles with the emotions because of the process logic? Maybe we are already there even without the machines?.. Are we going to program ourselves with the theology of all our great theologians and various versions (feminist theology, liberation theology, radical orthodoxy, etc)? All I know is that I’m not there right now to wrap my very biological brain around what impact that is going to make. But something will happen and then a question arises. What will the church do about it? If there is even a church…

Feel Bad for the God who Wasn’t There

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In my ongoing documentary watching courtesy of my newfound Netflix subscription I watched “The God Who Wasn’t There.” I remember when this was hitting the release date and it had its natural pub and buzz as denying God can be a real sassy topic. It never interested me as I’ve seen the “Religulous” or “The Root of All Evil” (aka. God Delusion) and could pretty much script the whole documentary.

Well, if I’m already paying for my subscription and it is available, why not? So I watched the documentary and it was as predicted. It took on more so the modern theology of focusing on the resurrection as the only real part of the story. Took a whole bunch of Christian pop culture of the time (the Passion of the Christ gets a good reflection). This is all circles back around as the director/narrator shares that he grew up in a fundamental educational environment. He even takes on his private school principal/dean on some of these theological teachings.

As the movie went on and on I was less impressed by the case against a “God who wasn’t there” but felt bad for him because the God who he had been taught about actually wasn’t there. God wasn’t there because he had been taught a shallow part of the story of God’s workings with his people. There wasn’t anything of grace, dreams, loving others, caring for the poor & less fortunate, and more. There is a God who is there, in my belief, and I’m saddened by this case the many replicating cases out there where people were taught short of the full spectrum of a God who loves them.

The Rising Son Transformation

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Began a Netflix account last month and have actually been a bit disappointed in the movie catalog (apparently what I want to watch hasn’t been in streaming demand of yet), but what has been great is some of documentaries/movies. Figured I’d share some of the things I’ve been watching.

I was an adolescent in the late 80’s to early 90’s. Which, was an interesting time of pop culture, hair metal, to grunge music, folding & rolling your jeans, and some really horrid other fashion experiences. One thing that was a constant for many years of my adolescent was ‘skating.’ In the skating world Christian Hosoi was huge and my group of guys were big fans. So it was a no brainer to check out a “Rising Son” a documentary on him. I know some of his story from the rise and fall of skating, but he wasn’t on my radar the last decade. I was interested in checking that out & had an expectation for what was going to be shared.

The documentary is a nostalgic walk for me seeing old footage and hearing names, interviews with guys that I cut out photos from magazines and posted on my wall and more. As the story goes.. Oh, heck, I’ll let you hear a bit from him (not actually part of the documentary though):

In Rising Son he speaks to how he got a hold of a bible and searched through the scriptures, found the book of Kings and that was his transformative moments. From there he became a believer and accepted Christ. He’s now a pastor as well as professional skater.

I wasn’t aware of his transformation story, so that caught me off guard but really excited about where he was in the world. Seems he’s found a place of peace and knowing of self which is celebratory.

If you can check out the film and don’t care for the 80’s and 90’s of skating then skip forward as his story profiled in the documentary is really remarkable (at least for me).