The Joshua House
a missional community of worship following Jesus...

In the spirit of our discussion last Sunday night on Advent I would like to pass along an Advent video that the wife of a former teacher of mine created for this Christian season.  May it inspire us all to worship more the one who is worthy this Christmas!  Some of you might think I’m being a little early on this…but have you seen the stores lately?  Although traditional Western Advent doesn’t start until December, Celtic and Eastern Orthodox Advent start in the middle of November.  I don’t think you can start too early to begin meditating on and preparing spiritually for both the remembrance of the incarnation of Jesus and the expectation of his second coming (two major themes for this time of year).

For the video click here and then press the "play" symbol

Enjoy with a cup of eggnog! 

Scary Movies and the Christian
Around Halloween I had some good conversations with different friends on the whole watching horror movies issue.  In the days surrounding Halloween, as I channel surfed my TV by repeatedly pressing my already severely indented “channel-up” button (from the several quadrillions of times I have pressed it over the years), I couldn’t help but come across scary movie after scary movie being served up on my already over-priced, non-digital cable package.  I know I’m not alone on this.  Now I do have to admit that over the years I personally have enjoyed many a scary movie, everything from Jaws, Halloween and The Thing (the 80’s one with Kurt Russell) back when I was a teenager right through to more contemporary tales like Wes Craven’s Scream series, M. Knight Shyamalan’s The Village and a recent rental I got called Disturbia.

But as a Christian who should always be discerning about what aspects of the world around me I let into my heart and mind what should I think about all these scary movies that make their way into our TV’s, movie rental stores and theaters?

That being said I would like to pass on another good article on this issue that again relates to our recent discussions as a church on our value of discerning, missional cultural engagement.  This one again is by Pastor Harleman of Mars Hill Church (pastor of film and theology) and looks more closely at the issue of the horror, gore and fear movie genre and the Christian life.

For the article click here

As a disclaimer I would like to say that there are actually some movies that I choose not to watch because I think they will be more harmful than helpful to my life as a Christian.  I should also say this can often include really bad romantic comedies, etc.  This is something that I have chosen to do because I, like Mars Hill and other culturally engaging churches, understand that movies are the modern preaching pulpits of our day.  So the question is, how are we both discerning and engaging with this most important culture-forming media of our time in Jesus’ name (Colossians 3:17)?

So one of our four core values at The Joshua House is what we call “missional journey.”  It means several things but specifically one of the things it means is how we want to be a church that has a more radical engagement with culture, specifically postmodern culture, for the sake of the gospel.  Many of you know that I have a real bone to pick with this and will continue to sound like a broken record until I convince as many of you as possible for its need.  Fortunately I don’t have to make the case on my own feeble insights alone but can let scripture speak for me instead.  Two Sundays ago as part of our walk through Acts we looked at Acts 10 and had a great discussion on the whole issue of the clean vs. unclean things in our culture and even in our churches?  I sent out a Mark Driscoll (http://www.marshillchurch.org) video related to the issue and thought that would be that, until I started reading Acts 11 for this Sunday and saw the whole issue being brought up all over again.

So as I reminisced about my own conversion experience(s) I found myself asking a question:  Would I have become a Christian if the gospel hadn’t been communicated to me in a culturally relevant way?  And that is the question I leave with you here.  Note – As a Christian who believes in predestination and the sovereignty of God (because the scriptures seem to say so) I do believe I would have become a Christian regardless, but who knows when, maybe not until I was ninety years old (I hope I live that long), dying on my death bed.  And that I believe, would have been a tragedy.  So here’s my question and my rant:

Would I have become a Christian at Camp Qwanoes (a Christian camp on Vancouver Island) when I was thirteen if:

• They sang nothing but hymns on an old pipe organ instead of having a band with electric guitars and congo drums singing rock ballad worship songs by Michael W. Smith, Rich Mullins and Keith Green?  (By the way, the point here is not so much the hymns as the pipe organ…many hymns are pretty cool if done well)

• They had counselors that thought most Hollywood movies were of the devil, guitars and drums were demon possessed and skateboarding was what lost heathens did, instead of counselors who liked movies that I liked such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws and Rambo, were musicians in rock bands and taught me how to do ollies on my Powell Peralta skateboard?

• They held the camp inside a big, square, pastel painted building with bare, white walls and fluorescent lighting instead of in the wild forests of B.C., situated along an oceanside beach, full of cool rustic cabins, eating dinner with the setting sun on a deck overlooking an inlet and then later sharing and singing songs around a huge bon fire outside under the majestic star-lit night sky?

• They played games like “guess which bible translation is evil,” “what’s your favorite Gaither song” or “pin the cross on the sinner” instead of games like capture the flag, surf the soapy slip and slide, how many people can we fit into a Mazda hatchback and midnight pillow fights in the field?

I know I take some liberties and make some major exaggerations but if that’s what cultural relevancy looked like for me as a teenager in the late 80’s at a Christian camp what should it look like today in 2007 in an increasingly postmodern world for adults/families in our churches?