Hancock

Last night after our ball game I went to see Hancock.

It was interesting.
The first half of the movie was really good and what I expected.
But.
The second half just got weird.
The twist was crazy.

Hancock is probably a rental movie and not theater.
Save your money.

The website is sweet. So take a look.

American Teen

A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques. American Teen

[embed video]

mmmmmmm...it reminds me of this movie.

[embed video]

In high school I thought I was the heartthrob, but other probably thought I was more the geek.

Which one were you?
The Geek
The Rebel
The Princess
The Heartthrob
The Jock

Movies with a Cause pt. 1

Tonight at First Assembly we had our monthly Very Intentional Parenting workshop.
Tonight's theme was "Spiritual Conversations with your Kids".
I tackled the teenage years.
A couple great ways to have spiritual conversations with teenagers is thru situations and culture.

Here are 5 movies with a cause that can be used for spiritual discussion with teenagers.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
official site


Amazing Grace
official site


Hotel Rwanda
official site


Jesus Camp
official site


Invisible Children
official site


Have you seen these?
What do you think?
What are some other movies that are good for this?

{rss subscribers. there are five embedded videos}

Steve-O on God.

Steve-O blogged on myspace yesterday about his life of drug and alcohol abuse in a post titled You Should All Know I Am In Rehab.
Who's Steve-O? Wikipedia calls him a daredevil performer, television personality and hip-hop artist.

Steve-O blogs...

SPIRITUAL ISSUES

1) I believe that I was chosen by my Higher
Power/Guardian Angels, and led to the spiritual path
which I am currently on. I try not to ask of God,
rather, to work for what it is I want, and communicate
with God only in "Thank You’s." For my Higher Power I
am more grateful than I could possibly express.

2) I used to consider myself agnostic, as recently as
September of 2006. I now consider myself, well,
"spiritual," actually, let me say, "Thankful..."

A GOODBYE LETTER TO MY DRUGS OF CHOICE

At this point,
All you f#$%@#!@ things are good for is dying. I’m not
ready to die. I’m ready to live. I’m ready to breathe
(properly, even). I’m ready to fall in love. I’m ready
to become ready to start a family. I’m ready to be
happy, fulfilled and meaningful. Maybe I’ll see you
f!#@$&@ if and/or when I’m ready to die.

Interesting.
Everyone is searching aren't they?
Keep on seeking, and you will find. - Jesus

Amazing Grace. A Must See.

Last night was our first night of a new an eight week small group we are calling Faith & Film. Each week we are watching a film that has a cause. That has purpose. That is challenging.

Last night we watched Amazing Grace.
It is about a young zealot, William Wilberforce, and his fight to stop slavery in the 19th century.
One of his mentors/allies was John Newton, a former slave ship captain who wrote the hymn, "Amazing Grace."

Who are those people in the world that don't have a voice of their own.
Who are those that God wants me to stand up for?
What is the cause that God wants me to live and die for?


{embedded video}

Any suggestions on movies that we can use in the future?

Tom Hanks' hands

Taken in 2002, outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater

Some Tom Hanks trivia

• Dislocated his shoulder when he fell through a rotting floor in a building in Germany while scouting locations with Steven Spielberg for the HBO series "Band of Brothers"
  
• Was asked to play the title role in Jerry Maguire 
  
• Has another brother who is a professor at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, IL
  
• Gained and later lost 50 lbs. for his role in Cast Away
  
• Was considered for the role of Peter Banning (Peter Pan) in Hook
  
• He is an environmental conservationist and often advocates and supports natural causes.
  
• Sold popcorn and peanuts as a teenager at the Oakland Coliseum.
  

My Fav 5 Tom Hanks movies

1. Saving Private Ryan
   
2. Terminal
   
3. The "burbs"
   
4. Big
   
5. Cast Away
   

I think Saving Private Ryan has one of the greatest movie endings of all time.

But some think is should have ended different. {Video Embed}


What's your fav Tom Hanks movie?

Stormtrooper

Welp. My iBook went down for the count today. So I have to sent it off for repair. Gulp.
So that means that i will be without the following for almost 2 weeks.
Photoshop. Final Cut Pro. Dreamweaver. InDesign. iLife. iWork. Office.
My Music. My Photos. My Contacts. My Life.

So my blog posts will be a little different including this one. So, here goes.



I found this picture today, and facts about it.
Taken in 2002.
Taken outside the Grauman's Chinese Theatre
Day after Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones premiere.
The only Star Wars movie i've seen is Empire Strikes Back.
I'm wearing a borrowed Illinois sweatshirt. If you know anything about me, you know it had to be cold for me to wear that.
Photo was taken by Jon Keck.
I spent a week in southern california for a Purpose Driven Church conference.
Taken a less then month before I got married.
Directly after this picture was taken, i gave the stormtrooper a knee to the crotch.

Soul Searching: A Movie about Teenagers and God

A documentary was put together from the research of Christian Smith and National Study of Youth Religion.


It's only available on amazon for $20. ouch.

center for parent/youth understanding
national study of youth religion
relevation studios

and the land of the free

the other day i watched Home of the Brave.
i really enjoyed it.
its about the effects that the Iraq war has on the soldiers coming home.



the human cost of occupation

I laughed. I cried. I hurled.

What an incredible read!

I just finished Pop Goes the Church: Should the Church Engage in Pop Culture authored by Tim Stevens. Tim is an executive pastor at one of the most innovative churches in the states, Granger.

When I first saw this title, I immediately thought it would be all about putting on a rock show, and firing up the HD projector for a blockbuster movie and popcorn in a state-of-the-art auditorium. But the truth is Tim Stevens so wonderfully challenged me to take a look at the needs of the people in my community, and for me to meet them.

I took an emotional rollercoaster while reading this, from being inspired, to being frustrated. I laughed. I cried. I hurled.

Talk about research. Tim has studied pop culture and how to minister to a pop culture saturated people. He also takes a look at how some of the most incredible speakers of time used pop culture. Speakers you might be familiar with. Jesus. Paul. Tim just didn’t go to the local used record store and pull from a cd from the hottest hits, or the grab a movie from the Blockbuster Video's Employees favorites. He has researched his thoughts both with society and biblically.

Tim is so in your face, in a good way. He inspires the Christian community & churches from pulling out of the culture, and challenges them to instead engage in it.

Pop Goes the Church…
Challenges the boring church.
Addresses the problem with evangelism.
Connects the gospel to the community.
Gives practical help of how to avoid the art of being boring.

I can’t wait to get this book into the hands of our staff and leadership team.

I'm Reviewing a New Book

Tim Stevens, the executive pastor at Granger Community Church, has written a new book titled Pop Goes the Church: Should the Church Engage Pop Culture? Tim posted on his blog, asking for 10 leaders willing to read his book, and review it. I applied and I was selected.

I'm super pumped.
I will be posting more about the book as I'm reading it, but I can't quote any parts of it.

Also my name will be mentioned in the book.



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An Inconvenient Truth

Kt and I just finished watching it. Well, kt watched the first 20 minutes then started dozing off. I thought it was an ok documentary. All documentaries have their agenda and are weighed one side. It gave me the same feeling i had when some evangelist came to Pawnee Assembly and talked about the doomsday of y2k.

Gore didn't really need to spend 90 minutes trying to conveince me of the global warming problem. I mean, come on, it was over 65 degrees today in the middle of winter in Illinois. I thought of riding my scooter to work, which would have been thinking green, but I havent put my new plates on it yet. I was looking for more of a, "here is what you can do", but it was a lot of politics and saying that the current administration is more concerned about money and oil, instead of the existence of human life. I was really hoping that it (politics) would have stayed out of it, there was even shot of the 2000 elections, and he saying that he was the "ex president-elect".

The credits were the best part of the documentary, because it gave me some action points. I actually found them on YouTube.
An Inconvenient Truth - Credit with Special Effects Video


Climate Crisis
How to recycle everything

The Kingdom

*Spoiler alert*

Last night kt and I rented The Kingdom from Redbox. I fell and in out of sleep towards the middle of the movie, due my sleeping pattern change (got 6 hours of sleep tuesday night, and 11 hours monday night). It was your typical, you did something to us, so we are going to do something to them. See Myth of Redemptive Violence.

An FBI Agent is killed by Muslims in Saudi Arabia, and the FBI sends a team to "investigate", and obviously it turns into a shootout.

The final lines of the movie were incredible.

The muslim grandfather, as he was dying from being shot by an FBI agent, told his grandson, "Don't worry, we are going to kill them all"
Meanwhile, it flashs back to a scene earlier in the movie, when the FBI learns that a muslim killed one of their agents, Jamie Fox's character comforts another FBI agent with the words, "Don't worry, we are going to kill them all."

The movie stressed a connection between the Middle East fighting for what they think is right, and the Western culture fighting for what they think is right.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

I'm probably the only blogger that goes from blogging about a free Michael Bolton mp3 download to something as serious as Intelligent vs Artificial Design.

So my brother sent me the link for a new documentary from Ben Stein called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It about creation, and how if scientists believe in creation and disown darwinism, then they are outed by the scientific community. It comes out in theaters in February 2008.

There is an incredible super trailer here. Its a little over 7 minutes.

Here is the theatrical trailer, which is only a little over a minute.

What Would Jesus Buy

The docu-comedy What Would Jesus Buy sparks my interest, too bad its not in a theater anywhere close to me. I'll have to wait for it to come to redbox.

Actually this sunday im speaking on consumerism at the 930 service. The big idea is, you become what you consume.
I'll looking for a good title. Any ideas?

i gave free hugs at eiu

I went with aaron to EIU for about 30 minutes to give out free hugs. I basically just stood at the major intersection of foot traffic on campus. Over 40 people stopped for a hug. I have put together a video, I will post it after we premiere it sunday am at service.

I'm in a Jib Jab Video

9th Grade Physical

Today I have been going thru all my immunizations records to prepare for my El Salvador Book of Hope trip that is in 15 days. I was laughing and looking over my 9th grade physical, which is almost 15 years ago to the day. This was the physical i had to take in-between my 8th grade and 9th grade year.

June 15, 1992
Evan Colin Courtney
RR1 Box 77A

Height 59 1/2" or 4' 11 1/2"
Weight 74 1/2 lbs

I also took the TB Skin Test that day & gave a urine sample.

Here is a video of probably the same time era. enjoy :)

The Search for Bigfoot

The Search for Bigfoot Part 1


The Search for Bigfoot Part 2

My First Minor League Baseball Game

I'm in Peoria for a couple days for IDCAG meetings. So last night, travis and I decided to go to the minor league class a peoria chiefs (cubs) vs lansing lugnuts (bluejays) game. It was Mt. Dew Half Price Mondays, so we got the Row 1 behind the chiefs dugout.

The automosphere was way different then the majors. The skill level was pretty bad. There was a bunch of cheesy mid-inning crowd teasers. The game went into extra innings, and it seemed like as the innings past more people would leave. Finally in the 11th innings we decided to move from our seats and seat directly behind the plate, in row 1.

The coolest thing was that Ryne Sandberg was the head coach. And the chiefs knew it, so everything was centered around him and not the players or the team.