One of the questions I have as a filmmaker is, ‘how does one film spiritual realities in an effective and realistic manner?’ Film is a notoriously physical medium, one that dominates two of our five senses to the exclusion of everything else. Since, by definition, spiritual things cannot be seen or heard, how exactly do we show the spiritual? I’m not talking about showing spiritual beings such as angels or demons: for years film has used actors or computer graphics to represent these characters; but this is more fictional than real. The average person has never seen a demon or angel, and so knows there is something unrealistic when they are used in film. Rather, I’m interested in understanding how to film daily spirituality in a realistic manner without it seeming forced or fake. How does one show the influence of the Spirit? How does one reveal the personal relationship between God and man? How does one show love between the creature and his Creator? [click to continue…]
As I continue to read on family worship for our next curriculum series, I often run across books that are particularly good. Merle d’Aubigne’s sermon on family worship is a case in point: clear, simple, and practical, it outlines the reasons behind spending time doing it, then provides direct steps to implementing it. His sermon is filled with honest advice that makes as much sense today as in the 19th century: “Public worship is often too vague and general for children and does not sufficiently interest them. As to the worship of the closet, they do not yet understand it. A lesson learned by rote if unaccompanied by anything else may lead them to look upon religion as a study like those of foreign languages or history…. If they observe that no worship is paid to that God of whom they hear, the very best instruction will prove useless. But by means of Family Worship these young plants will grow ‘like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither.’” His small booklet on family worship can be read via Google books or in HTML. It’s a quick but encouraging little read.
History is consistently more interesting than fiction, and for good reason: God is its author. I’ve recently been listening to a series of lectures by Lars Brownworth, author of Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization. They are really very good. He provides a substantial overview of Roman-t0-Byzantine history tracing the split of the empire by Diocletian all the way down to the fall of Constantinople over 1000 years later. It’s a brightly-colored pageant of wildly different men and women. From a storytelling perspective, his lectures are very instructive: character is the great determiner of action, and empires literally rise and fall as a result. I think the magnification of events combined with the compression of time makes the actual plot points stand out more clearly. Furthermore, Brownworth succinctly draws the links between particular personalities and particular outcomes. This is, after all, the crux of all good storytelling. Lectures are available in MP3 format,on iTunes, and on Podcast Alley. I highly recommend both the lectures and the book.
That’s what Voddie Baucham quotes in the introduction to his book Family Driven Faith. It’s a sobering thought. 7 out of 10 kids who are now in church won’t be there in the future (he’s not talking about unchurched kids; he’s talking about kids whose parents assume they’re Christians until one day they reject their faith). I thought about my children’s Sunday School classes and all the little kids running around – according to this, 70% won’t make it past college. Wow. One of the reasons I’m reading Baucham’s book is that we’re developing a new curriculum on family worship, and it reminds me that the only way to change these numbers is at a grassroots level, one family at a time. If you’ve got children yourself, I recommend getting Baucham’s book – it’s a good reminder of what’s really at stake for parents, as well as what can be done to build up the little ones in our care.
