Stop and Look at a Rockwell

Norman Rockwell, the famed painter and iconic cover artist for The Saturday Evening Post, grew up in a hard, tough tenement neighborhood in Manhattan where he would sit on the rooftops and watch the street gangs bloody each other. A far cry from the pictures he painted that still provide a comfort and ease most never experienced. Including Rockwell.

Though many of the pictures are unrealistic of how Americans truly ever lived, they create in the viewers a sense of the way things should be....

That old friends still get together.

That the worst case a doctor can treat is a black eye.

That grandmothers still pray at public restaurants with their grandsons.

And even that the nerdy guy can still get the girl(s).

Every picture told a story. Rockwell gave us the beginning, middle, or end, respectively. The rest was up to us. And we knew that no matter what point we came into the tale it would have a happy ending.

Rockwell's pictures are pure escapism, but they are a calming and hopeful one; a reminder of a simpler, kinder world...even if that world never truly existed. I still find that every once in a while it helps to turn off the news, close my laptop, put down one of the myriad books in the reading stack, pick up one of the several coffee-table-sized collections of Rockwell's work and get lost in the story for a few minutes.

Some favorites I hope you enjoy as much as I do:

"How Useless Stories Become Useful" - The Story from Philemon

Preached 9.27.2009 at Normandale Baptist in Fort Worth.

You can watch the first ten minutes here or follow this link to the full video or audio download.

Storytelling is No Game...Or Is It?

A close friend sent me a recent and very well-reported article by Lauren Parker from gamespot.com, Once Upon a Time: Narrative in Video Games, was sent to me via a close friend with whom I have had discussions over the question of whether video games are a new medium for effective storytelling?

For the record, I still think that "Duck Tales" for NES is as good as video games get (of course, it was also the only one I ever beat). And at a close second is this Batman game from 1989... which was about the last time I seriously played a video game.

If my above choices are not enough evidence, I will go on record: I am not a "gamer." But I am increasingly fascinated by the medium and its growth in technology, influence, talent-pool, and, for our purposes here, its impact on storytelling.

I think the article's main idea worth exploring:

"...now, thanks to video games, we can interact with [stories]. When we play a game we are not merely passive observers; we become active participants in the story as it unfolds."

What are we to make of stories in which the "reader" becomes the an active participant in the storytelling? Or to phrase it as the article does,

"...some critics suggest that because games are interactive, their main focus should be gameplay, not story. Others believe that video games can, and do, successfully marry gameplay and story to become an effective storytelling medium. So who is right?"

In many ways, I have observed people connecting to game characters as deeply as many do the characters in film and literature. The more story-driven games seem to create a fantasy world that captures one's imagination (much like a well-written film or book). Players become attached to a character in that they empathize with the character, even feel sad when they "die."

But unlike a book or movie, the player of a game has say in who lives and who dies. The closest comparison is the nearly-defunct "Which Way" books in which readers would choose the fate of characters by turning to this page or another. And even then, the reader was only given the power of two, maybe three choices for a character's fate. Games provide numerous outcomes, especially the newer variety of Massive Multiplayer Games online. So does the observer/player's ability to affect the outcome of the story even make it a true story any more?

While the GameSpot article reports information displaying a split-down-the-middle opinion amongst gamers and game designers, my own conclusion is that the interactivity of video games does, at the end of the day, make them less about story and more about game play. Games may prove as escapist as a good movie or book, but I have yet seen a game survive decades because of the lessons it teaches.

The basis of great story is to provide a beginning, middle, and end that, while it may be entertaining (and really should be), provides an insight or lesson that leads to a new perspective or even a life change. Jesus Christ was the Master of story, in that He took an abstract concept such as "God is grace" and made it real with a story about a loving Father who took back a prodigal son. If many of us were telling the story of the Prodigal, it would have turned out much differently.

And that is the point. Stories exist to teach and present a point made by the author or storyteller. The greatest stories have endured because they have timeless themes, noble language, and call us to consider lofty ideas and ideals. As imaginative and captivating as some of them are, I've yet to see a video game that has stood the test of time to accomplish such a task. And if an 8-bit Scrooge McDuck can't do it, I don't know if anyone can.

-jsm-

'Unfaithfully Yours' // Time Magazine Seeks to Make...Marriage Matter Again (?)

The July 13, 2009 issue of Time featured a cover story, "Why Marriage Matters", in which author Caitlin Flanagan observes and comments on the alarmingly-increasing apathy of most Americans toward the institution of marriage. I was very surprised to see such a prominent coverage from the media elite over the eroding of, as the cover stated, "our most sacred institution." Ms. Flanagan is a gifted writer who outlines the problem through penetrating analysis.

She writes: "No other single force is causing as much measurable hardship in this country as the collapse of marriage." She first cites the recent extra-marital affairs of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and former presidential candidate John Edwards. Both men violated the vows of their marriage and had emotional/sexual relationships with women younger than their wives. Both men apologized publicly. Flanagan noticed an omission from these apologies and the seemingly countless others like them: "The one thing both men refused to admit was that, back in the heyday of these affairs, they must have been having a blast."

After reciting portions of the praise-laden emails sent between the respective adulterous couples:

"[The adulterous couples'] actions were so blatantly self-centered...These two humanitarians were engaged not only in worshipping each other's high-mindedness but also in destroying another woman's home, hobbling her children emotionally and setting her up for humiliation of titanic proportion...Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another."

She also addresses the psychological distress and damage divorce brings upon children, citing that "few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home." Flanagan cites feminist sociologist Maria Kefalas: "Women always tell me, 'I can be a mother and a father to a child,' but it's not true" Growing up without a father has deep psychological effects on a child. "The mom may not need a man," Kefalas says, "but her children still do."

This is a fascinating analysis considering the source. The ideology of most modern feminists is that men are not needed in any capacity for a woman or children to be successful. A biblical worldview would call each man who marries to love his wife as much as Jesus Christ loves His church. Women, as children of God, are to be cherished, built up, and protected by men. Unless a man or woman is called and gifted by God to remain single, then they should seek to marry for life so that they might experience in marriage a testimony of the grace and love of God.

There also seems to be an increasing awareness in secular circles of a truth many Christians know from Scripture: that the father is the crucial factor in the development of children. That is, a father in a stable, loving marriage to a woman. Co-habitation, writes Flanagan, doesn't never works. She cites Heritage Foundation research fellow Robert Rector,"When children are born into a co-habitating, unmarried relationship...they arrive in a family in which the principals haven't resolved their most basic issues," such as those of sexual fidelity and how to share responsibilities. Flanagan writes that once stress enters into a co-habitation situation "things start to fall apart." And then the man, she writes, "is out the door."

On the subject of marriage and children, Flanagan refers to the recent high-profile bust up of Jon and Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus Eight fame. Flanagan admits to enjoying the show in its initial episodes because she saw it as "an enterprise dedicated not to making [Jon and Kate] happy but to taking care of a cavalcade of children they had produced, that they were laboring at something more significant than their own pleasure." But began to detest the spectacle the show had become, especially after the couple decided to divorce over indiscretion.

Jon still claimed to love the kids after he'd had a fling with another woman, but the couple filed for divorce. "As though loving the kids and doing right by them were unrelated events," observes Flanagan. And in this statement she pinpoints a hypocrisy of our divorce-happy culture: divorcees claim to love the children, but are unwilling to do what is best for them by working through their marital issues, forgiving the other, learning to trust again, and then continue to raise their children together in the way they should go.

Flanagan calls for a true introspection on the part of readers to decide "What is the purpose of marriage?" writes, "America's obsession with high-profile marriage flameouts -- the Gosselins and the Sanfords and the Edwardses -- reflects collective ambivalence toward the institution."

And to drive her point home, she asks the reader to consider their own future,

"The current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives -- that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old."

Flanagan writes, "A lasting marriage is the reward...of hard work and self-sacrifice." This is as close as she comes to providing any an answer to the cover's promise for a plan to might make marriage matter again. She is right in asserting selfishness as the reason a partner or partners walk away from the commitment of marriage. Sin entered our world and has stripped us of the ability to be truly selfless. The only hope for marriage is that both partners come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ; that He is supreme in both partners lives, inspiring the sacrificing love He Himself inspired when he gave up His life on a cross and then rose again to show Himself supreme over all. Marriage exists as perhaps the greatest vehicle of sanctification, of helping us learn to love another as Christ loves us, with all our fears, foibles, and outright failures.

I am with Flanagan wholeheartedly in this, her article's closing statement: "What we teach about the true meaning of marriage will determine a great deal about our fate." With this soberly in mind, we move on as a culture to consider what will be our defining statement on marriage. And our future.

Reflections from England: June 17-30, 2009

There is always more work to be done.

This is a conviction under which I constantly labor in ministry. The balance is knowing when to take a God-directed Sabbath to reflect, recharge, and recognize all the ways the Lord has worked in recent days. And then get ready to go full tilt all over again.

Never have these statements been more true to me than over the past two weeks of mission work in England and the past two days that I have been home. A large part of me feels it is torn between two countries as I fell in love with the people of England; the believers we were privileged to meet and minister alongside became fast friends and partners for Kingdom work. And that is a testament to the spirit of unity that can only exist among fellow believers in Christ Jesus. We came together for the gospel and what follows here are my own personal reflections on two weeks that will forever have an effect on my life and ministry.

"This is a country that has pretty thoroughly rejected the Gospel..."

These are the words of an English pastor friend when explaining to our team the spiritual state of England and the magnitude of the work that is to be done there. This is a great tragedy, as England was once one of the major forces for the work of the gospel in the entire world. It was scarcely 100 years prior to now that the preaching of Charles Spurgeon helped reignite a passion for winning souls to Christ in the country. But modernism/postmodernism come at a great spiritual cost, one that England has paid dearly.

The hope I have, however, is twofold: Firstly, it was proven to me that there is a strong remnant of faithful believers in Great Britain. The Lord is not finished with this country as He has left many strong workers to contend for the gospel. It was my privilege to meet many of them: Pastor Paul Newman of Whitley Bay Baptist Church, Helle Sewell, David and Miriam Lennox, and many others in the Tynemouth area. Seeing their hearts for God and for the English people testifies to me that we cannot give up on England because our great God has not.

Secondly, this "loss" of the gospel may indeed have run its course. After spending a week in the schools of the Tynemouth area speaking to Religious Education classes about the truth of biblical Christianity, I walked away burdened by the darkness the enemy has cast over the hearts of young people in England. But I also have hope because seeds of the gospel were planted and the Word of God never returns empty! I saw many faces light up as we unabashedly shared Christ in the classrooms. Many sessions began with "gotcha" questions but would mostly transform into very personal requests for Christian truth and worldview to be explained. At the center of it all was the gospel. It was an incredible opportunity the Lord opened for us. We pray these doors into the schools of England continue. What I have seen in the schools is that the young people are nearly ignorant on the story of Christ so when told with prayer and power it is moving to them. It may well be England rejected the gospel, but it may also be that a resurgence in the hearts is around a hard-fought corner. Time will tell as we continue our work.

One young man, 12 years old, particularly touched my heart as he stayed after our first class to ask us how he could become a Christian. He said, "I want to move to America so I can become a Christian." It broke my heart to hear that his parents had no place for religion in their home and that this boy felt he had to leave his country in order to follow God. We had many lunches and talks with him about his life and about the hope of Jesus Christ. It is my conviction that the Holy Spirit is at work in his life and he will come to Christ very soon if he has not already since we left. It was a sad parting our last day in the schools. There were shared tears with this boy and promises to write which I very much intend to keep. There is opportunity now for further explanation of truth and possible discipleship through letter-writing.

And there is indeed hope for England, for the brief reasons I have lifted above and many more that our great God is working to ensure. This will be a subject of great prayer and reflection for me in the coming weeks and months. Because with the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ, there is always more joyful work to be done.

Mission Britain

Very excited to be leaving this week for the UK. A team of youth and four adults from NBC will be going into the public schools of Whitley Bay for a week of representing Christ in the religious education classes. We will also be spending a weekend doing a DiscipleNow with youth who are believers. Pray for our team and the hearts of the students and adults with whom we will interact. Pray that, as with Lydia in Acts 16, the Lord will open their hearts to pay attention to what is said.

Who Is Jesus?

Discipleship Defined

You can view here the first ten minutes of "Discipleship Defined." You can continue watching/listening by clicking the link at the end of this preview.