Ides of March

þÿFirst, can we all agree that the poster for this film is one of the greatest of all time? Seriously.

If you've been to the movies this year, chances are, you've seen Ryan Gosling. In Ides of March, co-starring, written and directed by George Clooney, Gosling plays 30-year-old Stephen Meyers. Stephen is one of Governor Mike Morris' (Clooney) chief presidential campaign staff members.

A political movie called the Ides of March… this has betrayal written all over it.
What unites Stephen and Morris are their optimism. Morris is a democrat candidate - he's pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. He calls loudly for alternative energy sources and is an atheist. He's also committed to running a clean race. No dirty ads or tactics, no selling cabinet seats. A race of integrity.

And that's what inspires Stephen. We learn that Stephen is something of a prodigy. Already recognized as one of the best in the country, he's had offers from many candidates. But he doggedly supports Morris because he believes in Morris.

Stephen's and Morris' idealism comes to a head in the Ohio caucus.*
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prayer

reNEW

Table of contents for reNEW

  1. resolution
  2. worship
  3. prayer

Download a full manuscript of the talk.
Download the Discussion Guide.
Download a guide to Spiritual Practices.


If there's a more complex and confusing practice than prayer, I'm not sure what it is. Just about everyone prays at some point in our lives. It's a natural human response - especially in times of crisis - to reach out for someone bigger than we are. But at the same time, so many of us feel that our prayers are ineffective. How many of us in here could admit that prayer has been something that frustrates us? That we can't focus, or we feel ineffective?
Wouldn't it be kind of nice to have some sort of Prayer Hotline?
Our problems stem from our assumptions about prayer. Our culture reserves prayer for times of crisis - who can forget that in the wake of 9/11 even secular businesses hung signs that read "Pray for America"? When loved ones are sick, even more mundane scenarios - praying when we need a job or promotion, before a sports game, when we didn't study for a test.
Our prayers assume that God is out there, up there somewhere doing something else, and we have to get his attention.
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The Prayer Hotline

A skit we wrote and recorded for our week on prayer. You can hear the recording here: Prayer Hotline

Hello! Thank you for your prayers. In order to help process your prayer more efficiently, please choose from the following menu options. Listen carefully, as some of our options have changed.

Para escuchar este menú en español, pulse el número 2 ahora.

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Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

TAD-Poster3If you like horror movies, then you've seen the one with the college kids that go for a weekend in the woods, only to encounter evil hillbillies who terrorize and slaughter them. But what if the whole thing was a big misunderstanding? What if the hillbillies are actually loveable, bumbling buddies just trying to get away?

That's the question posed by Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a horror film that's more silliness than slaughter. The film opens on said typical group of college kids headed to the woods for the weekend. We're quickly drawn to tall, dark and handsome Chad, the obvious leader of the group, who clearly has his eyes on blonde beauty Allison (Katrina Bowden). They're passed on the road by a couple of scary-looking hillbillies in a beat-up old truck. They encounter these same two when they stop for gas and beer.

TAD-CollegeKidsFrom that moment on, every encounter between the college kids and the two hillbillies - whom we learn are named Tucker and Dale - is a hilarious and barely plausible misadventure. It turns out that Tucker and Dale are actually normal everyday guys who've just purchased a vacation home. Just like the college kids, they're on their way out of town for the weekend, just to have a good time. Every interaction increases the kids' suspicion of the duo, unbeknownst to Tucker and Dale.

From the college kids' perspective, it's easy to see how Tucker and Dale come off as maniacal and threatening. But there's much more to the story...
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Hometown Prophet by Jeff Fulmer

HometownProphetThe Scriptures promise that in the latter days, God's people will prophesy. So what happens when God start sending visions Old Testament-style to a rather unlikely fledgling follower living in the buckle of the Bible Belt?

Under Jeff Fulmer's guidance, Nashville's recent historical events take on an apocalyptic tone. The results are explosive.
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worship

reNEW

Table of contents for reNEW

  1. resolution
  2. worship
  3. prayer

.

You can download the Discussion Guide here.

When you get right down to it, a lot of what happens on Sunday mornings in church gatherings is weird. Nowhere else in our culture to people get together in a room and sing a bunch of songs at each other, then listen to someone talk, collect money, and so on.

Our regular, weekly practices make Christians unique. But why do we do them?

It's interesting - when the earliest Christians started meeting together in homes, they had to come up with a name for it. Nothing like it had ever happened before. So they chose a word that was already used in their culture. Continue Reading...

The Descendants

Table of contents for Best Picture 2012

  1. The Help
  2. The Descendants

Descendants-PosterStarring an outstanding, pitch-perfect George Clooney and directed by About Schmidt's Alexander Payne, The Descendants is a bittersweet meditation on the high cost of materialism. We meet Matt King (Clooney), a middle-aged real estate lawyer who's in the final stages of negotiating a business deal.

Matt is the descendant of King Kamehameha, and is the sole executor of the King family's last inheritance: 25,000 virgin acres on the island of Kaua'i.

The family will lose the land in seven years, so Matt is selling it all to developers. While Matt has lived relatively simply on the money he makes from his practice, his cousins have mostly squandered their inheritance. The larger King family - all Matt's cousins - stand to make a not-so-small fortune on the sale, so the whole state is following Matt's decision closely.

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Young Adult

The Young Adult Movie Poster looks like a book cover. Love it!Even though Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was billed as the "feel bad movie of the year", that award might be better applied to Young Adult, penned by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. Starring Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, Young Adult is the story of a woman who hasn't ever moved on from high school. The recently-divorced Mavis is a semi-successful ghost-writer for a Sweet Valley High-esque series of young adult books. When Mavis learns that her high-school sweetheart Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Beth have just had a baby, she sets out from the big city (Minniapolis) to the small town where she grew up. Her mission? To save Buddy from the tragic life he's trapped in.

Young Adult is actually a wickedly clever critique of our materialist culture.
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Best iPhone Games - 2011 Edition

A couple of years ago, I listed my favorite iPhone games. A lot of new games have come out since then, so what old games have staying power, and what new games are worth a look? Click on any of the game titles to buy it in the App Store.

Plants vs. Zombies ($0.99)

PvZA typical tower-defense game in which you're a homeowner. You plant various flora whose special attributes keep the zombies at bay. The game has a lot of replay value, and the developers keep adding achievements. There's enough to unlock - and it's just frustrating enough to save up enough - that you'll be playing for hours. A couple of the levels even get genuinely tough. Tons of updates and new ways to play have made this already fun game well worth the investment if you haven't already got it.

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Dexter Episode 12 - This is the Way the World Ends

Room for Monsters?

Dexter 0612-Gellar's Sketch of the Two Witnesses and the LambSeason 6 began with Dexter fathering Harrison. He marveled that he could "be himself" around Harrison - the only person he knew who really knew him (whatever that means for a two-year old). Dexter referred to himself as a wolf among sheep. But Dexter quickly realized that Harrison was picking up on too much. And that scared Dexter.

Dexter reached the central crisis for this season: Can he raise Harrison free from darkness?

Thus began a long search on Dexter's part. Inspired both by Harrison's preschool and his new friendship with Brother Sam, Dexter begins to see himself as a more complex person. Sam gives voice to what we've known all along - that there's more to Dexter than Dexter realizes. He sees himself as a monster, but he truly loves his son.

But is that love enough to redeem Dexter? To let him become more than he is - a monster, a killer?
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