Kidology U

This weekend I got to back to my "sweet home Chicago," to be a part of the 10th anniversary Kidology U conference. It was fun to be a part of this event for the first time, and to get to visit some family in the process. Karl Bastian and the gang and Kidology have a great passion for kids ministry and for equipping other children's pastors. Here's a few photo highlights.

My friend Alan Root took care of the praise and worship duties. You know that part in the Bible where it says to "always be joyful," Alan's got that verse nailed. He's one of the happiest guys I know.

Karl Bastian is the brain trust behind Kidology.org. Here he is during the opening session. His workshop that was to follow had a cooking theme, thus the outfit.

The first two days of the conference featured some intensive leadership labs. I can't think of anyone better suited for teaching those kind of classes than the man you see pictured above... Bro Jim Wideman!

A highlight of the conference for me was finally getting to see a Kidz Blitz event in person. It was slightly different than the real thing since it was pretty much an all adult Kidz Blitz, but it was still pretty wild. Above is Roger Fields, the man behind Kidz Blitz.

Here's Karl Bastian competing against his sister in the donut eating challenge at Kidz Blitz. You're supposed to eat the donut off the hook while blindfolded without it falling off. But, after starting, Roger Fields had Karl's sister remove her blindfold and take the donut off the hook...unknown to Karl.

Atlanta Puppet Festival...a few weeks late

I'm a few weeks behind on posting some pictures from my trip to Atlanta for the Puppet Ministry Festival there. Sorry on being late, here's a few pics...

One of my favorite clowns, Brenda Marshall (aka Flower) was one of our guests. Speaking of favorites, here she is doing one of my favorite ways to present a simple salvation message, the good ole Salvation Flash Cards.

When I first met Jason Bonilla he lived in Florida. When I first met Gene Cordova (above) he lived in Seattle. Both have taught at festival for us for many years, and now they are both apart of the same church in Tennessee. So they drove down to Atlanta together to teach at the festival. This is Gene with his vent buddy, Puppy.

Here's one of the most creative people I know, Ferrel Marr, teaching a class on blacklight puppetry.

Our host team, The M&M Puppeteers did a wonderful presentation that combined some flag choreography along with something cool that's been making the YouTube rounds lately called "Cardboard Testimonies." Like "Edward Scissorhands" they made me cry.

Go Animate!

I just came across a new website where you can make your own animated films. Goanimate.com has backgrounds, effects, and characters to choose from. The characters have very actions they can do. It's pretty cool.

This test is just what I was able to put together from the stuff that was available on the site, including "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. Hey I had to have something to work with...

Eat-Mor-Chikin

Brothers and sisters, if you don't love Chick-Fil-A...well, God will deal with you on that someday. Hat tip to the Kidologist for pointing me to this fun little video about the joys of Chick-Fil-A. I actually made a hajj to the original Chick-Fil-A store in Atlanta a few years ago. It's called "The Dwarf House" and to the dismay of the cows you can actually get a hamburger there. I'm going to Atlanta later this week, maybe we'll have to do that again.

The National Association of W Haters

I just watched the movie "Vantage Point" tonight. No, I don't have a biblical application this time around. The movie was alright. Clearly it was trying to be a 90 minute version of "24." It's about a terrorist plot that involves an assassination attempt on the President, as seen from several different points of view. The President is played by William Hurt, and he's not playing George W. Bush. So I found it really weird that at the beginning of the film we see a group of protesters, one of which is holding a sign featuring a letter W in a circle with a slash across it. Now if the President in this movie has middle name that begins with W it's certainly not made known to the audience. So what does the letter W have to do with anything here?

This could be viewed as a goof, but I'm not so sure. It seems like it may be another example of the filmmakers injecting their own political views into the background of the film. It's not uncommon. Richard Donner, who is a fine director, does it all the time. His police stations wallpapered with anti-NRA posters in the Lethal Weapon films is especially notable.

You know, on "Sesame Street," way back when I was a kid, there was a segment that featured Bert as the leader of a club called The National Association of W Lovers. Perhaps this person in the movie is really from a rival group.

Mothra Song

Remember the other day I said how I love Asian cinema? Well I couldn't resist sharing the theme song of one of my favorite Asian cinema stars...Mothra (or Mosura as he's known in his native land). You gotta love Mothra, he's got his own groupies!

Psalm 133

Last night I write a post about unity in the body of Christ. This morning God leads me to Psalm 133:1 in my morning scripture reading...

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!

God Speaks through a Kung Fu Movie

I love the cinema of the Asian world. Whether from China, Hong Kong, Japan…their animation, their giant monsters, and especially their martial arts films intrigue me. The other night I was finishing watching the movie "Fearless" staring Jet Li. I was just sitting back enjoying this beautifully photographed and skillfully choreographed martial arts epic when suddenly God snuck up on me. As a big movie fan, I love it when God brings something to my heart through a movie.

In the film, we see Li's character as a child growing up in the home of his father, a wushu master. In once scene we see the father battle with the head of another household who argue that their style of wushu is superior. Even as the boy becomes an adult these battles over who is the greatest master continue, escalating until Li's character kills another master during a battle motivated by revenge. The circle of revenge then continues, and members of Li's family are also killed.

To make a long story short, our hero goes away for many years and eventually returns with a new outlook on life. It was during a scene where he is meeting with an old friend after being away that God spoke. He says to his friend (at least according to the subtitles):

"We have to be very strong for us and for our people. The reason foreigners look down on us is because we are not united. For several years now, we surely were our own worst enemies."

Immediately my brain went to one of the things that has troubled me the most in my spiritual journey of the last year or so…the subject of the lack of unity in the body of Christ. I seem to encounter people, fellow believers, who spend way too much time looking for things to complain about concerning other churches way too often. Everything from style of worship music to how a pastor dresses to whether or not someone ended a prayer with "in Jesus name…" seems to be fair game. In all honesty, it's making me sick.

Pastor Craig Groeschel from Lifechurch.tv said well it when in one of his messages he pointed out that Christians are known more for what we are against than what we are for, and unfortunately, what we against the most is each other. We are our own worst enemies. Why do so many have no interest in the Gospel ? Why do so many look down on it? We are not united.

Groeschel preached a sermon earlier this summer called "Lord Make Us One." The whole sermon is great (check it out here), but one thing he pointed out really hit me. Every Christian needs to hear this. We need to remember that as believers we have just one enemy. It's not the church that likes their music a bit louder than you like. It's not the church where they use King James only. It's not even the church down the road that has triple your attendance. His name is Lucifer, and I'll be he likes nothing more than seeing Christians arguing with each other over the stupidest things.

"Lord Make Us One," what a great prayer. Add to that the name of the movie that in a strange way brought this all to mind for me again…"Lord Make Us Fearless."

This is just plain Sick

Politics is a subject the interests me a great deal, but I don't generally talk about it too much on my blog. This, however, I could not pass up as it is perhaps one of the sickest things I've ever seen in my life. Watch if you can as Michael Moore, appearing on Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC calls the fact that Hurricane Gustav may hit New Orleans as the Republican National Convention starts "proof that there is a God in Heaven."



That was just a short clip. The entire segment featuring Moore's appearance can be found online as well, in which Olbermann even goes further to point out how ironic it is this is happening after one of the gang over at Focus on the Family called for people to pray for rain during Obama's speech at Invesco Field a few days ago. Now that story, I'll give you, was stupid, childish, and, quite frankly, Dr. Dobson should be ashamed. But with this hurricane, we're dealing with lives at stake. This is not a political issue. I don't care who you align yourself with or you plan do vote for...if you believe there is a God in Heaven, pray for the people of the Gulf Coast region.

Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise has called on Moore to apologize and I second that. Olbermann too, for that matter. I guess the Democrats can be thankful that nobody actually watches MSNBC.

The DNC comes to Denver

I flew back to Denver from our Puppet Ministry Summerfest in San Antonio this morning (I'll try to post some stuff about the festival later). I was anticipating that DIA might be a zoo today, what with the Democratic National Convention starting in town early this week. Even on Thursday when I headed out there were volunteers all over the airport with signs that said "Ask me for help." The TSA people even had shiny new blue uniforms on. Today there was a lot more people there representing the convention, and I even encountered two celebrities.

As I got onto the train to go from Concourse B to the baggage claim area I noticed someone who looked familiar getting onto the next car over. Turns out it was none other than the "reverend" Al Sharpton. I snapped the above picture from my part of the train. He had a full entourage, as you can see. He spotted me taking the picture and smiled and waved. I agree without almost nothing the man says, but I smiled and waved back.

He posed for photos with a bunch of orange-shirted convention helpers. There were plenty of news photographers all over the main terminal.

As I came up the escalator from the train I saw many people looking for convention travelers. Most of them held "Obama 08" signs, which for the life of me I can't figure out how that would assist in finding the people they are looking for. Right in the center someone held a large sign that said "Fox News Channel." It caught my eye, and then I saw someone walk up to that person...it was Alan Colmes from "Hannity and Colmes." Now if it had been his partner, Mr. Hannity I probably would've run up, shook his hand and said "you're a great American." I settled for just snapping a pic of Mr. Colmes.

This was probably the only brushes with celebrity I'll have during this whole convention thing. I am just so glad I don't work downtown!!!

Happy Vader?

The kids were off school today and I ended up staying home with them. So I did what any good Dad does on a day like that, we went to McDonalds!

I was thrilled to see that there were "Star Wars" toys in the Happy Meals. A kindly Mc-employee even gave me one which will soon take up residence in my office. I was struck though when I looked at one of the Happy Meal boxes my kids got. It featured the head of Darth Vader and in big letters the words "Happy Meal." It just seemed a bit strange seeing Vader and the word "Happy" in such close proximity. I mean, Darth Vader just isn't a happy guy. But I suppose the folks in the Mc-marketing department figured that calling it the "Burned to a crisp and stuffed into a walking iron lung meal" just didn't have the same ring to it.

Olympics Mania!

I'm sitting here watching the Olympics as I mess around on the computer and you can officially count me in the ranks of those really having a hard time believing these Chinese girls in the gymnastics competition are 16. My kids go to school with girls that look older than these tumblers!

I don't usually get into the Olympics that much, but I am enjoying watching some of the competitions this year. However, catching this video today has me itching for the Winter Olympics. Just two years to go!