Galavant and Reconciliation

photo from IMDB

Galavant was interesting. I had been excited for this because I really enjoy the work of Zachery Levi, who is a known Christian but also starred as the lead role in “Chuck” on NBC. It started out rather melancholy compared with my expectations. A lot of the jokes were sexual in nature and I don’t appreciate that, but some of it was funny and the story was interesting. It has a cheesy charm to it.

Galavant was a hero who lost his muster when his girlfriend was kidnapped to marry a king. He went to rescue here and she basically chose to stay with the king for the fame and money. He then went through a time of drunkenness to deal with this pain. The king then conquered another kingdom and the princess of that kingdom comes to get Galavant to come help with a claim that this ex-girlfriend was wanting him to come for her, thus getting our hero to jump back in to heroism.

Now, there were a lot of twists and turns over the 4 episodes of “season 1” (which was supposed to be a minie-series; so a “season” is a little odd). I won’t go into all of them, but one peaked my interest.

***Spoiler***

Eventually the wife of this king betrays him. In her betrayal, Galavant and the King start to become friends, even drinking together. This reminded me of a verse from Psalm 23:

          

     “You lay a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

This verse speaks to the peace we find in God, yet I have, a few times, wondered if this was pointing to something greater than that: a reconciliation.

God is all about reconciliation. He even went so far as to let his one and only Son, Jesus the Christ, die on a cross to bring reconciliation between God and man. He wants this to come to all of us. Jesus himself, while teaching on prayer, told us we will be forgiven as we forgive others.

I won't fool you, reconciliation is a hard thing. I am no expert in it and I am not always so good at it, but Jesus is good at it and He would love to help you with it.

Overall, I found Galavant to be entertaining. If you like musicals, it is worth watching and there are some interesting plot twists in it. It is a story of restoration and I think it does have some interesting lessons to be learned.

The Pandemic Party, or "More Things to Kill You"

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Saturday's Pandemic Party went quite well. We had 14 people (including myself). Most came right away (aside from a straggler). It started with 3 games going simultaneously, all trying to deal with a special scenario suggested on the Pandemic Parties website. Two groups broke up early as some people had to run away for various reasons.

Our goal was to enjoy games but also to pool resources together to donate funds to help Doctors without Borders deal with the Ebola epidemic.

One of them was well on its way to winning (having cured "blue" in the very firs round!). They had a weird thing happen where somehow after shuffling the cards, all players got blue cards for their beginning hands. They also received Government Grant quickly (allowing them to build a second research station anywhere in the world). I always like getting that one early on!

I went and got one drink for every disease (even the purple one from the expansion).

The third group won pretty easily. Things swapped around and I got to join in for a 3 player game (which we won). A couple more people left and we then started a new game using "On the Brink" (the first expansion). We used the Virulent Disease option for a 4 player game which means one disease gets really nasty. Unfortunately, we were only able to get the cure for that disease and then after we sun-downed it, a Virulent Epidemic Card brought it back. Oy! My buddy Nathan Marchand deemed this expansion "More Things to Kill You." Yes, we lost that one as we ran out of cards and we had at least 6 outbreaks. We then used the "In the Lab" Expansion for a 5 player game. It was a nice change in pace. With this expansion you have to move into micro-managing. Instead of turning in the four cards to find a cure, you need to make a series of actions at the research stations that lead to a cure being found. This is a very interesting expansion that makes you think a little more about the work being done in real life and the scientific methods used by researchers. No, your researching is probably not very realistic and it is not hugely confusing, but it does make you think a little more.

Then, we decided to change gears and play some Sentinels of the Multiverse while eating pizza.

Over all, we managed to pool together our resources and raise a donation of 150 dollars. That averages out to a little more than 10 dollars per person donated at a free event.

Pandemic Party!

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

This weekend Nerd Chapel is excited to collaborate with various other gaming enthusiasts around the world by presenting a Pandemic Party. If you are unaware of this movement, check it out here. They had one big weekend for it back in December, but I was busy that weekend and needed time to pull some details together for our event.

Essentially, we will enjoy the cooperative board game Pandemic and make donations to help Doctors without Borders deal with the Ebola problem. This has already raised over 30,000 dollars for this cause and their goal is to have raised 100,000 by the end of this month.

Jesus is all about helping the needy. Just in the book of Matthew we find Jesus "having compassion" for crowds/individuals at least 4 times. That barely scratches the surface of the miracles He did for people! So when we found out about the Pandemic Parties movement, we could not help but participate!  Admittedly, I missed out on Extra Life back in the Fall so I had no excuse for missing out on this opportunity.

Our party is this Saturday (January 17) at 1:00 at All Shores Wesleyan Church. I encourage you to go to the FB page to keep up with all the news/details.

I hope you join us! If you are not in the West Michigan area, please check out pandemicparties.com to find one near you! If not, then organize one yourself. It can be private or public. It is as simple as inviting your friends over to play and pitching in to make a donation on their web page. Even if you can not attend an event, please go to their site to donate.

Ravagers and Repentance

Found on marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com.

Ravagers. We don't always think good things when we hear this word. Certainly, the Ravagers in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) are not seen in a good light by very many. They steal, kill, and make comments about eating people (or at least Yondu does). They are all about living on the move, making money in immoral missions, and drinking alcohol.

But at one point, they did something...good. They formed an alliance with the team that would come to be known as the Guardians of the Galaxy and even with the Nova Corp to protect a planet from a terrorist force led by a Kree named Ronan the Accuser.

This is an act we refer to as repentance. Admittedly, this repentance seems short lived as they soon turn their weapons on the Guardians. Repentance is a Greek military term for turning around. Going 180 degrees in the other direction.

John the Baptist taught this in preparation for the coming of Jesus. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Mark 1 tells us that he came "preaching a baptism of repentance". This was all "for the forgiveness of sins".

All of the Guardians showed major growth over the movie. This included fighting for people who would prefer they be thrown in jail, revealing various forms of pain to us, and giving something valuable into the hands of law enforcement.

But repentance shows a preparation for forgiveness. It shows you are willing to change by doing the change, not by making empty words. This is not always fun. It often means fighting our own desires and appetites. I find that it is easy to be mad at myself when I keep falling off the horse. When I find myself failing at something regularly I get frustrated with myself. Don't you?

Let us learn from Batman Begins: "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again."

But what good does this do us? In both John 1 and Mark 1 we learn that John the Baptist was simply preparing the way for Jesus ministry. And that is one of the reasons we repent. To enjoy the presence of God. My only advice for repentance? Keep getting back up. Don't give up because it is hard!

Pursuing the Present

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

How many movies are you looking forward to in 2015? How many movies did you see in 2014? New Years is a time of looking back and forward in the same moment. We enjoyed a lot of change in the Transformers movie verse and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) this past year. We have been watching as things are developing for 2015 with Jurassic World, the MCU, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and several other movies. We also look at other things in our lives, though. More practical aspects of life.

How interesting is it that we celebrate the Birth of the Saviour at this same time? We celebrate the one who gave the most for us and to us as we evaluate ourselves and our future.

Jewish leaders did not always put 2 and 2 together very well. They spent a lot of time looking back at scripture, but they were not looking for God to change them. They wanted a political change and were infuriated with Jesus for changing other things. Jesus defended Himself in John 5.

"You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." John 5:39-40

These leaders were far more interested in looking back than at looking at their present. They certainly did not understand how the future was supposed to look (although we should admit that we don't understand the future well either).

Think about the disciples. They were a very different group from the Jewish leaders. They were "unlearned Galileans". They were fishermen with a tax collector following a carpenter who had put the religious leaders to shame with his knowledge at just 12 years old.

Jesus certainly did not disrespect scripture. In Matthew He said that not even the tiniest stroke of the OT would disappear. He wanted the leaders and the people to see that Scripture pointed to Him; but He was doing something new. Something they were not expecting. Instead of changing the world of politics and nations, He came to change the world of the heart; knowing that all worlds change when that changes.

As we change years, what are you looking toward? What are you looking back to? How is Christ at work in your heart right now? How can you cooperate with His work? Your best life will be found in Jesus, not in any other thing or person in your life.

A Good Lingering!

This past month has been really busy. I have participated in The Journey to Bethlehem (see my last post) programmed and run lights for a large Christmas program at a church with a full rock band doing TSO songs and some acoustic and a Capella acts. I have also been working at the local mall selling calenders and games. Then on Christmas Eve I ran lights for the Christmas Eve services at All Shores Wesleyan Church, which consisted of a folky acoustic styling.

Needless to say, on Christmas Day I was pretty tired. And yes, we did have family over to our house so I got to do some cleaning before they came.

After all of this I chose to spend Christmas Day away from my computer and specifically away from email and social media. I feel like we often rush through Christmas. We get our gifts, spend 1 hour at church on Christmas Eve talking about Jesus, and run around between family events and parties.

I have heard mixed reports of what the Church as a whole has done with this focus in the past. One has suggested that the early church spent very little focus on His birth. They were more concerned with His resurrection. Another suggests that, at some point in time, there were groups that would spend weeks focusing on the birth of Christ.

Through this season I have tried to keep up with a reading plan from All Shores reading short scripture 6 nights a week. Some weeks I have done better than others and sadly this week was one where I didn't keep up as well.

I want to encourage you to do a couple of things as time moves away from Christmas 2014:

1. Don't move to quickly. Take some time to ponder Christ's birth this week. I know it isn't easy to make time for things, but don't just move on with an attitude of "I did that, now let's go to the next thing"

2. At the same time, keep Christ's ultimate mission in mind. Jesus came to "seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10). In Luke 4 He quoted Isaiah 61 for his mission statement:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

3. Seek to join Jesus in His mission.

Flash and Power

Hey guys. Sorry I haven’t gotten a new blog up in a while. We have been busy with moving into a new house and I have had some problems connecting with wifi at our new house.

So I’ve been thinking about a recent episode of “The Flash”. No, this is not the cross over episode, although that is a great episode. Yes there are SPOILERS in this post. A meta-human that feeds on electricity starts causing massive trouble around town. In an encounter with them Barry loses his powers. You see this guy drained so much energy out of him that they paused. As they went on to explore the issue with his problems, he came and attacked Star Labs, sucking power from the city and allowing the Clock King to cause a terrible situation at the police station, putting several lives in significant danger, including Iris.

Back to the Flash, they decided to try to charge him with electricity on the bar of the treadmill. You see a slight little vibration in Barry, but he still can’t run. As the night goes on, the situation gets more dangerous. Eventually, Caitlin Snow checks him and finds that he should indeed have his speed. His cells are all operating at the normal “Flash” efficiency. She challenges him to believe it. Then, Doctor Wells calls out the meta-human and gets into trouble, of course. 

Right at the point in which Doctor Wells would be killed, Barry gets his speed back. He didn’t receive back his belief until someone was in absolute danger. He had his power all along, but he lost his trust in himself. Barry has a lot of pressure on him. The pressures of the department for his job, his desire to have Iris in a deeper relationship. His desire to help people and save lives as the Flash. As soon as he lost his powers he doubted himself. When his body was physically recharged, he still doubted. 

As followers of Christ, we are the same way. We fall into a sinful pattern such as lust or an angry attitude and we feel like we can’t get out of it. 2 Peter 1:3 &4 tell us:

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

God has already give us the ability to rise above these sins. We just need to trust Him for the power. We need to believe it. Now, this power does come “through our knowledge of Him who called us”. God doesn’t give us rules He won’t empower us to follow. We often fail to use this power. Often we simply don’t think it is available. We think God is so sick of our sin, why would He give us any power? But, the reason He makes His power available to is to get away from that sin. God loves redemption. To come and die for our sins but NOT provide the power to overcome the patterns they lead to would not fit with His agenda.

There is one more side to this: the more we sin, the more likely it will negatively affect those around us. Sometimes we don’t wake up to the need to change until someone around us is really hurt by it. When it comes to lust and a single person, we often don’t even realize that lust now will affect our spouse later as it affects our expectations and desires. Flash didn’t get working again until someone’s life was in danger. Don’t let things get that far.