We recently held a Small Group Leader training session at our church, and one of the ideas that we rolled out was using movies as discussion starters. I realize that for some of you that may not seem like rocket science but it was a very energizing session for most of our group. As a teaser for the idea, we watched a clip from “Walk the Line”; it was the scene where Johnny Cash was asked if he was dying and could sing one song, what would it be. That scene is so powerful, and we spent almost 20 minutes generating and capturing ideas, thoughts, comments, questions, etc. from just that one scene. Really good stuff!
In closing out our training session, we spent some time brainstorming a list of movies that fit the description of what my friend Jennifer calls “God haunted.” A partial list of what we came up with was Elizabethtown; An Unfinished Life; The Truman Show; The Matrix; and O Brother Where Art Thou (which shouldn’t surprise you if you know me at all!). Before we closed, our youth leader was stoked to share a web resource, and I threw out www.hollywoodjesus.com as well. As I said, it was a really great time of stretching and encouragement among our small group leaders.
But after the class, I spent some more time rolling around “Walk the Line.” And not even so much about the movie, exactly, but rather, about the idea of walking a line. How every day, we live in a tension between being in the world, but not of the world. How do we reach the world if we don’t go to the world? And how do we go to the world without becoming like the world? Is there a balance point? Is it a thin line that we walk?
And if you really want to smoke your brain, watch the scene in the movie that I mentioned above, and honestly ask yourself about your passions. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is that one thing that God put you here on this earth to do? Can you look in the mirror and say that you’re doing it? Wow. I’m feeling the tension between knowing and doing – I can actually sense that I’m getting a little tense – just as I sit here typing.
Let me close with this thought: That the tension we feel in this life is a good thing. It reminds us that we’re alive, and that we are growing more and more into the person that God desires us to be. Jesus lived in tension, as he loved a world that rejected him enough to die for it. He was revered as a teacher, and scourged as a blasphemer. He was worshipped as a king, and spit upon by those that rejected him.
And daily, he walked the line. May we answer his call to follow.
In closing out our training session, we spent some time brainstorming a list of movies that fit the description of what my friend Jennifer calls “God haunted.” A partial list of what we came up with was Elizabethtown; An Unfinished Life; The Truman Show; The Matrix; and O Brother Where Art Thou (which shouldn’t surprise you if you know me at all!). Before we closed, our youth leader was stoked to share a web resource, and I threw out www.hollywoodjesus.com as well. As I said, it was a really great time of stretching and encouragement among our small group leaders.
But after the class, I spent some more time rolling around “Walk the Line.” And not even so much about the movie, exactly, but rather, about the idea of walking a line. How every day, we live in a tension between being in the world, but not of the world. How do we reach the world if we don’t go to the world? And how do we go to the world without becoming like the world? Is there a balance point? Is it a thin line that we walk?
And if you really want to smoke your brain, watch the scene in the movie that I mentioned above, and honestly ask yourself about your passions. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is that one thing that God put you here on this earth to do? Can you look in the mirror and say that you’re doing it? Wow. I’m feeling the tension between knowing and doing – I can actually sense that I’m getting a little tense – just as I sit here typing.
Let me close with this thought: That the tension we feel in this life is a good thing. It reminds us that we’re alive, and that we are growing more and more into the person that God desires us to be. Jesus lived in tension, as he loved a world that rejected him enough to die for it. He was revered as a teacher, and scourged as a blasphemer. He was worshipped as a king, and spit upon by those that rejected him.
And daily, he walked the line. May we answer his call to follow.
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