What a beautiful site this morning around our home after the big “Nor-Easter” storm slammed our county last evening.
(click the image to view the full photoset)
Jess and I sat down and watched the movie, “The Invention of Lying” the other night and at first I didn’t want to review it here on stevansheets.com.
The premise of the movie is that there is a “world” where no one could lie. The truth was ONLY told – no one yet knew what a lie was. This world seemed to function “normally” and without knowing that they didn’t know how to lie, people went about their daily business without any problem.
This world of “honestly”, however led the main character, “Mark Bellison” (played by Ricky Gervais) to break the cycle and tell the world’s first lie. After his first lie, Mark quickly develops a habit for lying and finds himself enjoying it very much – the power that he yields continues to grow.
The twist comes when Mark tells his mother a “lie” on her deathbed to comfort her fear of her understanding of nothingness after she breathes her last.
Mark’s lie revolves heavily around what I believe as a Christian (with a couple of comical twists to keep people’s interest).
His lie is heard by the doctor and nurses and quickly spreads to people hearing this “truth” (because they don’t know what a lie is) and they rally together to build Mark up as some sort of a guru on the unknown.
Mark holds a press-conference on his new understanding of a “guy in the sky” and hands down this truth as he has outlined on two pizza boxes to further poke fun of Moses and the 10 Commandments. The audience’s emotion of this “guy in the sky” changes from hatred (he causes bad things) to love (he also gives us good things). The “lie” continues to build as Mark continues to hand down this information about the guy in the sky.
The movie ends with Mark winning the love of his dream-girl (Jennifer Garner) by telling the truth, but beginning the cycle of lying as seen in the way their son responds to a dinner-conversation about his mother’s cooking.
The movie did spark some conversation and thought for Jess and me. I shudder in realization that there are some in our world who think that the teachings of Jesus Christ is just a lie. While this movie pokes fun at some of the truths I hold as foundations for what I live every single day, it does also remind us of some of the people we have opportunity to live-like-Jesus in front of.
I ordered the Voice of the Martyrs DVD entitled “Underground Reality – Vietnam” after hearing that there was a new curriculum based around the DVD and that used clips from the DVD.
From the back of the DVD –
What would happen when eight ordinary teens set out on a mission to meet the underground church in Vietnam? Now you can travel with The Voice of the Martyrs and a group of American and Australian teenagers through the cities, jungles and everyday life of the Vietnamese underground church. A journey that started with a single mission to smuggle Bibles and ended with the dramatic reality of harassment, persecution and a courageous faith like none of them had witnessed before.
I watched all four episodes on this DVD in the last two weeks to review it before showing it in our youth Sunday School setting and was blown away.
I love the raw, real-ness that this disc exemplifies. I love that it includes real-teens with real-emotions and real-conversations.
I hope my students respond to seeing this DVD with their faith reignited.
I just got heart-wrecked by the Holy Spirit during an online-simulcast of the VERGE 2010 conference happening this weekend in Austin, TX. My sister happens to be there enjoying the conference live and in-person.
I caught Francis Chan’s message tonight on what it means to be “missional” and how DOING is much more important than thinking about doing, or talking about doing, or planning on doing.
One point he made is that when he tells his daughter to go clean her room she doesn’t go off to her room and come back with a statement of, “Dad, I heard what you said and I memorized it.” He even joked a bit saying that she wouldn’t come back to him and tell him that she could “even repeat it in the original Greek”…
The opening session of the conference finished with 2000 people at the church on their knees before a Holy God pouring out their hearts and asking Him to lead them to DO. I was 1500 miles away and I was pouring out my heart in the same manner in my own living room.
I know from Scripture that we will be judged on what we’ve done with what we know through the Gospel. Not on how well we’ve studied it, not on how well we have it memorized, but on how we applied it and LIVED it.
So.. Christian brothers and sisters, what are YOU doing with the Truth of the message of Jesus Christ?
If you want to catch the live-stream of the conference like I did tonight – they will be streaming the main sessions on their website here tomorrow and Saturday, too!
UPDATE: Found a great blog post from someone who took EXCELLENT notes during the session here. Seriously – even if you only skimmed my thoughts above, you MUST read this post!
