Why I Love "Your Mother"

I recently caught up on season 4 of How I Met Your Mother. I love this sitcom in a way that I have loved no other sitcom before. And I think there are a few things we can learn from it.

1. Have an overarching narrative. What keeps HIMYM from being a rehash of Cheers, Friends and Scrubs, is how the entire show is framed in an overarching narrative. The story is building and the characters are changing. In Churches, it's easy to get lost in teaching "biblical principles," and forget that we are part of the great drama of all time. In our own lives, it's easy to get caught in the day to day hassles, and forget where we're headed.
2. Culture views sex as a commodity. The two most common commodities in HIMYM are sex and alcohol. Episodes revolve around one character sleeping with the other. Sex is something that is bartered, that has little value. An entire episode is built around insulting Marshall for believing that sex should be tied into love. Sex's utter lack of sanctity and value is ironic, since the show is based on Ted's search for true love.
3. Flaws increase authenticity. The characters are very flawed. Lilly is a compulsive spender and Barney is arrogant. But it's their flaws that make them seem more like people I know than characters on TV.
   
4. Friends are the new family. The five friends are so close that they refer to each other as brother and sister. The American family has changed, and how we reach that family, and surround them in Christian community must change as well.
   

What movies have you seen this holiday season?

This year I was pretty overwhelmed by the number of interesting looking movies. Limited budget led me to just pick one.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a beautiful movie. It was great to see CGI and incredible makeup used for drama and not just science fiction. Cate Blanchett (best acress of a generation?) is fantastic as always. I'm a huge Brad Pitt fan, but I felt a bit underwhelmed by his performance. It was a poignant reminder of the inevitability of old age and death. It captured the last American century in the way that Forrest Gump did, but without the charm.

Next on my list is Slumdog Millionaire. Then it's probably back to Blockbuster for awhile.

What holiday movies did you see?

So This Was Christmas.

Without much fanfare, Christmas 2008 has come and past.

This year I happily listened to Christmas Carols. Did not give or receive much in the way of materials. Read the first few chapters of Luke. Spent a lot of time alone. Did some reading. Did some writing. Was taken in by two families from Church. Watched a few movies. Feel rested and blessed.

The simplicity of this Christmas gives me hope for future Christmases. I have hope that Christmas can be simple. It can just be about food, family and friends. I have hope that movements like the Advent Conspiracy will help Churches focus on the needy during Christmas. I have hope that wherever I am, and whatever my circumstances, God will surround me with people that will help me get through. I have hope that someday, I will do the same for others.

Let's be honest.

Let's be honest.

He's the second black President of the United States.

Could we have gotten here without President Palmer?

A Prayer for Election Day (and beyond)

God, make us a people of Grace. Remind us that all leaders are ultimately chosen by you, for grand purposes we are too small to understand. Help us to respect and pray for those to will be given offices. Keep fear and hatred at bay. Let your people be a shining example of the Kingdom of God, no matter who controls the government.

On the Fringes

One of my favorite memories of being a kid is a Friday night in the early 90s where I happened upon a scary TV show where two FBI agents were tracking a serial killer who was a supernatural contortionist. It was one of the very first episodes of X-Files. That, along with the unrecognized classic retake of The Outer Limits made up many of my Friday nights.

So I was very excited to hear that the modern television master of supernatural suspense, J.J. Abrams, was behind a new show that mixes Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and The X-Files. Ever since shining the spotlight on Keri Russell's gorgeous curls in Felicity, Abrams has garnered cult followings with character driven serial dramas. He has even dabbled in movies, making best non-british superspy movie, Mission Impossible: III and gives us high hopes for the college age portrait of Captain Kirk in his upcoming Star Trek installment. His masterwork, Lost, continues to weave an intricate storyline whose complexity is only second to that of the characters themselves.

But after two episodes of Fringe the jury is still out. The story revolves around FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, whose boyfriend contracts a mysterious disease. Dunham goes to extreme lengths to help him, enlisting bad boy genius Peter Bishop (Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson) and his mad scientist father Walter Bishop (John Noble) to find a cure. The twist comes when we find out that the boyfriend was actually a traitor, trying to unleash the disease. A car wreck leaves him dying in Dunham's arms, but not before he can insinuate that Dunham is actually a pawn in a bigger scheme. Subsequent episodes have introduced The Pattern, a series strange incidents happening around the world. Someone is doing an experiment; only they are using the entire world an innocent human lives, as their lab.

Abrams succeeds in placing Fringe in our modern setting. Dunham is recruited for Homeland Security, a tip of the hat to the fears of pandemic disease and religious warfare that haunt our globalized post-911 world. Unfortunately, a mysterious overarching plot is not enough to make up for the two-dimensional the angst-ridden characters of Dunham and Bishop. The X-Files revolved around the chemistry of Mulder, who wanted to believe in everything that goes bump in the night, and the sexy archskeptic Scully, a doctor who questioned everything. Abrams is the master of creating fascinating characters, from the adorable Felicity, to the entire cast of Lost, whose first three seasons gave each character multiple episodes to tell their backstory. Fringe feels like retracing old steps. Only this time, it's not as fun.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching. Despite the rehash, Abrams is tapping into a powerful zeitgeist. Fringe is based on the fear that eventually science will progress to the point it is out of our control. This belies a greater fear, that their are forces beyond our control, things we cannot see.

For Christians, this is the basis of all our beliefs. However, the modern worldview, shaped by the scientific achievements of the enlightenment, tried to make accepting anything that cannot be reproduced in a lab seem childish.
Angels, demons, miracles, and even God were pushed out of the picture, only leaving room for what we could quantify and explain. Fringe represents a change in the discussion of our culture. This same science causes us to live in fear of nuclear warfare and global warming, and has yet to produce a cure for cancer. Science has failed us, and we are starting to look beyond ourselves for help.

As Christians, Fringe represents a discussion that the church should be having with the world. Our answer is, yes, there is more out there. But you don't have to fear it. His name is Jesus Christ, he loves you, and he gave his life for you.

Mission vs. Extraction

One struggle I have as a youth minister is understanding, and helping my student's parent's understand the difference between living in the world and being of the world. H. Richard Riebuhr wrote a great essay on the 5 positions of Christ and culture. But to boil it down, I would say their are just two.

1) Extraction "Help! The culture is coming! Run and Hide!"
Here are some results of extracting oneself from culture:

• Circling the wagons, removing oneself from the institutions of culture, such as schools and community organizations
• An inability to communicate with those who exist within mainstream culture
• Crappy knock of "christian art." Here's an example: "Does your child enjoy the evil twisted Satan music of Metallica that will send them straight to hell? Try this instead: It's called 'Jesus goes Metal.' It sounds like Metallica, only with sub-par musicians writing uninspired parodies of Master of Puppets, using only scripture and right-wing political metaphors."

2) Mission "As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" Paul at Mars Hill, Acts 17

When a missionary goes into a country, their first assignment is NOT to convert people, it's to learn the language. In order to demonstrate the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is necessary to express it within the local language and culture. Paul demonstrated this by quoting a PAGAN POET to explain God to the Athenians.

God has not called us to remove ourselves from culture to be like him. Think of how Jesus did it: He became a first-century Jew! We could not know who God was unless he had become a missionary!

God doesn't want you to run away from your world. He has put you there so you can do the same thing he did- become a part of your culture so you can save your culture. As long as we circle the wagons, abandon our community, hold up in our churches and WE WILL NEVER BE THE PEOPLE GOD HAS CALLED US TO BE.

In the future, we'll talk about practical ways to be a missionary.