Preacher's Post

8/28: Temple Grandin: Different--not Less

Thank you Russ Kane for telling me to look at Temple Grandin as an example of courage, and include the HBO film Temple Grandin as part of our 2011 Popcorn Parables.  This woman is truly amazing, and it’s no wonder she was listed in the 2010 Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world in the category “Heroes”. 

"I am different, not less,"  Temple Grandin is autistic.  Born in 1947, by age two, it was apparent that something was “wrong,” with her and the diagnosis of autism followed in 1950.  We still don’t know the cause or causes of autism, but we’ve come a long ways in the kind of support provided.  In 1950, the recommendation was a lifetime institutionalism.  She did not speak until age four, and it took intensive speech therapy to accomplish that routine developmental step.  Her mother championed her cause, and along the way key figures provided essential support and encouragement.  But life for a kid different from the rest is difficult, even cruel. 

8/21: Bonhoeffer

If I had to choose five books to have with me on a deserted island, or in a prison cell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship would be one of those books.  If I got two books, one would be the Bible, and the other would be The Cost of Discipleship.  I was introduced to Bonhoeffer’s profound theological thinking and pastoral action my first year of seminary, and remember to this day how shaken I was.  My understanding and practice of Christianity up to that moment had been child’s play in so many ways.  Bonhoeffer was someone who didn’t dumb down the gospel message and the ethics of God’s kingdom as laid by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. He left the bar as high as Jesus had placed it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Born on February 4, 1906.  Martyred on  April 9, 1945.  He is proof that one’s life cannot ultimately be measured in the days, weeks, or years lived.  He was thirty-nine years old when he was hung by the Nazi’s.  His execution occurred just days before the allied liberation of the concentration camp where he was held.  But it was the clarity of his vision and complete faith in Jesus Christ that reaches out to touch me today, some sixty-six years later.  He truly was and is a towering figure that moved so many because he was so willing to give up his life for Jesus' sake.  He didn’t talk about the cost of discipleship, he lived Jesus’ challenge from Matthew 16:24-25: Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

8/14: Popcorn Parables: Invictus

The Popcorn Parables are starting this Sunday.   Possibly the most popular sermon series of the year, one might think of them as trivial entertainment.  They are not.  Jesus pointed to visible examples of what he was preaching as a teaching tool.  His parables sought to convey in the everyday life of his listeners the eternal truths of God.  Many of the movies we watch can also remind us of God’s truth. 

The theme this year is “True Grit.”  The question I’m asking is, “What does it take to live courageously in the face of the many challenges we face every day?”  Remember that Mark Twain lamented, “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”  There are examples of physical courage every day as people challenge the physical world through the increasingly more rigorous and dangerous adventure sports.  But where are the examples of moral courage?   Where are people taking personal risks to do the right thing even though it might cost them dearly?  While the crowd might stampede in one direction, where are the voices that are willing to speak up and risk pointing in a different direction—a more godly direction?

The four films selected tell the story of four very different people who had one thing in common:  They displayed true grit in their time and place:  Invictus, Bonhoeffer, Temple Grandin, and The King’s Speech.

8/2: Popcorn Parables 2011

Popcorn Parables are coming soon to a church near you…and you can get a head start by watching the four films that we’ll springboard off of this year.  The theme is “True Grit.”  What does it take to live courageously in the face of the many challenges we face every day?  Mark Twain lamented, “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”

The four films selected tell the story of four very different people who had one thing in common:  They displayed true grit in their time and place.