Grab Bag: Movie & Book & Lead Retreat Reviews

As penance for last week's long-ish posts, I'm going to do a bunch of quick-hit movie and book reviews for your reading pleasure...mazel tov!

Movies:

Avatar: an average and recycled story-line told brilliantly and exquisitely well. Worth the ticket price to see it in the theater.

Taken: rented it last weekend, 20 minutes of plot followed by 110 minutes of killing just about everyone in sight. I was riveted, Kelly repulsed. Choose for yourselves which one you think you'd be more like.

Pulp Fiction: finally watched this cult classic last Monday when I was sick in San Francisco at my brother's house. Maybe it was because I was sick, but I didn't get it. Long, painful scenes that didn't seem to have much point. Sorry, bro, I know you love Quentin, but the dude's weird.

Books:

"In the Beginning, God" by Marva Dawn. Dawn is a theologian/pastor/prophet (in the "truth-telling" sense, not the "future-telling" sense) and as such, is insightful, careful, and often grating.

I've read almost everything she's written because she's deeply rooted in viewing the world and ministry through the starting-point of God's character and 'being' in the trinity. This book would be a good and easy introduction for someone who's interested in getting to know her as she unpacks the creation story and its' implications for our relationship with God, with one another, and with the earth.

"Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace" by Miroslav Volf.

It is said that all the great preachers have only one sermon--that is, one core idea or principle that they run everything through. Perhaps the same thing is true for professors from Yale.

Volf made a huge mark a couple years ago in the evangelical thinking world with his book "Exclusion and Embrace" where he did some heavy-lifting work about the issue of forgiveness. His combination of brilliance (he's a prof at Yale, yo), commitment to Christ, and his authority having come from a war-ravaged country all combine for a powerful punch.

In this book, he attempts in the first half to apply the principles of forgiveness to giving. The results are moderately interesting: just read the first chapter and you'll get the basic idea.

But then skip to the interlude as he talks about his older brother's accidental death and his parents' working out of forgiveness. And then read the last half of the book in it's entirety, soaking in Volf's one great sermon/idea/concept, delivered with grace and excellence.

"The Household of God" by Lesslie Newbiggin. Long-time readers will recognize Newbiggin's name, I've read and loved just about every single thing he's written.

Here, however, we get a young-ish Newbiggin, written before he's found his one great sermon. Interesting, but not revolutionary as his later works are...particularly "The Gospel In A Pluralist Society," which I think every one who does full-time Christian ministry should read...twice.

InterVarsity Student Leadership Retreat: 70 or so tremendous students gathered together over-night on Saturday/Sunday to prepare and pray for the spring.

In my five years here, this is the healthiest, most dynamic, most vibrant group of student-leaders I've ever had. It is a joy to partner and work with them as we consider what it means for us to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ in our own lives, in our chapter, and to have it bless the campus.

The dude who planned the thing (me) probably packed it with too much stuff to do, but it was a great 22 hours, full particularly of student's sharing from their own lives what it has meant for them to live out our vision of being a Christ-Centered Community: Authentic, Invitational, Missional.

It's going to be a great, great semester.