AVATAR: 4 Perspectives on the Top Grossing Film Ever

Avatar is now officially the top grossing film of all-time worldwide, making (so far) $1,849,317,325 at the box office – that’s 1.85 billion dollars. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and was captivated simply by the sheer epic proportions of the film, let alone the wealth of meaning and metaphor behind it.

Since Avatar’s release bloggers, journalists and critics have attempted to analyse and reflect on the meaning behind the film. Here are four very different perspectives I’ve read recently, which all bring a different insight into the film’s setting and storyline:

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5 Highlights from Greenbelt 09

Have spent the weekend at Greenbelt. Some highlights:

1. Peter Rollins talking about the presence of God in the absense of God.
2. Kester Brewin talking about what Christians can learn from pirates.
3. Rob Bell on growing old and limbering up. And answering some good questions and some mental ones.
4. Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – amazing.
5. Shlomo beatboxing.

Attached are some blurry iPhone photos…

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From the garden to the city

I’ve been thinking recently, inspired by some stuff from a recent lecture at CYM, about the whole biblical meta-narrative – and in particular this idea of the story beginning with the garden and ending in the city. Beginning with Eden and ending with the new Jerusalem. I think I’ve read a few authors who have pointed this out and tried to draw observations from it – in particular recently Rob Bell’s new book and NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope.

It’s really interesting to see how we can play around with the interaction between this little bit of theology and all kinds of ideas about the way society and culture develops.

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Happy Incarnation

Thought I’d take a moment out on Christmas Eve for a few reflections. Happy Christmas – hope you have a good one!

There’s that classic verse from John 1 in the message version of the bible that a lot of people in the missional/emerging movements use. “The word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood.”

It’s a fantastic way of declaring Jesus’ presence amongst us – the God who lives (or dwells) amongst us. The God who incarnates.

This God breathes his own live-giving breath into man. And walks with him in the garden.

This God knows – maybe even feels - the sufferings of his people in Egypt. And sends a man amongst them to be like him to Pharoah.

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Lots of stuff…

Realised that it’s been nearly two weeks since I last wrote in this blog. Guess it’s just been a really busy two weeks and I haven’t really found much to reflect on that I can blog about easily. My first essay is due in another couple of week’s time so until that’s out of the way you might not hear very much from me.

Busy preparing my talk for the Lab on Sunday when Aardv:ark are coming up to join us – it’s one of the last in our current series on Living the Jesus Life – Living with Hope. Meant to put my last talk up here but never got round to it so maybe I’ll put the two up together sometime next week I don’t know. Anyway, really excited about this Sunday – it’s going to be big, fun and exciting I hope.

I’ve been growing in presence on Campus at the university a fair amount in recent weeks – with the blog, as well as my first show with G on Radio Noize, the campus radio station. Radio was really good fun, looking forward to it again tomorrow (12-2pm – and you can listen online at the website ;-) and getting to play around with all the sound equipment. The first uni blog entry was received really well all-in-all – when I went in on Tuesday Lawrence, the head of Student Services, commended me on it as well. Really need to get round to writing another post on there as well – but they take a little more thought than my ramblings here. I want to communicate something useful and thought provoking and that takes a little more production time than the usual five minutes.

Had our first Lab Team Meeting on Wednesday night which went really well – there’s so much to plough through though and make decisions about. Hopefully we’ll get there eventually. Some of the stuff that we talked about for next term was really exciting though – sounds like Sunday nights might change quite a bit in the future (I can’t say much more than that).

Finally, G gets even older today, so Happy Birthday to him.

Phew. Think I’m done.

We hang our lives upon Your mercy

Oh, just wanted to quickly link to the "liturgy" I used last Thursday lunchtime for the CYM guys in Bristol. It was a really good time of just existing together in God’s presence, made even more special I thought by the feeling of community as everyone contributed and prayed and brought something… I’m sure a wise man once said something about that in some book or letter or something… ;-)

So anyway here it is: http://www.btinternet.com/~smallritual/section8/mercy.html – the words are by a guy called Steve Collins and they’re just amazing. I split it into three sections, using the first two verses to start, the next couple in the middle somewhere to start a time of prayer, and then the last couple to finish.

Back to Work

I thought it was about time for another big update. I was hoping to sandwich this in between SMASH and choir, but it ran over so I had to save it and then come back to it afterwards (now). So here’s what I’ve been up to this week and last week, as well as what I’m doing this week and next week (if that makes sense).

The Refresher Course

I was away last week at the second Careforce Conference in the Quinta in Oswestry last week from Monday til Thursday, and it was really good. It was great to see people again, and to really get to talk with lots of people – much more than last time. Had great fun staying up til the early hours playing silly circle games with everyone.

On Wednesday morning (I think), we woke up to a small amount of snow on the ground which we carefully re-distributed (using airbourne propulsion techniques) before it all melted away around lunchtime. Then that afternoon we had the muddiest game of football ever – I could barely stand up let alone run around and keep control of the ball – which ended as an 11-1 massacre by the internationals against the UK volunteers (but if we had played on the hardcourt instead of in the mud our superior skill levels would obviously have meant that we’d have won ;-).

I had quite a reflective Tuesday all-in-all, which ended with me leading worship in the evening meeting. I spent a couple of hours in the prayer room at the conference in the afternoon, just really challenging myself and being critical of what my motivation was to lead worship, and I kindof realised that my prayer for most of that morning had been “Lord, please come tonight in power when we worship…” which seems pretty okay, “…so that I look like a really good worship leader” – which was the bad part. So I just really spent some time asking God to give me a passion for His name, rather than for mine – and that he’d give me a real passion for the guys I was going to lead in worship, so that I’d want them to encounter Him and to really be filled up to overflowing than for them to think that I was really good. It was a real release when I left the prayer room knowing in my heart that it wasn’t about me and that I didn’t matter – because then all the responsibility was lifted off my shoulders; it was all up to God.

That night there was just a real, tangible sense of God’s presence in the worship – it was phenominal. We sang:

Over all the earth (Also known as “James’ generic go-to praise song to begin a meeting with”)
Above all
Jesus, lover of my soul (All about You)

Halfway through All About You, I just felt it was right to stop at the end of the chorus and take a moment – I had a couple of lines in my head to speak out – so I turned around with a couple of lines to go and gave the instruction to the guy behind me playing keys to hold the D chord at the end of the chorus. As I began to speak out “It’s all about You, tonight, this week, this year, for our whole lives…” etc. a huge wage of voices hit me and nearly sent me flying backwards as this huge new song to God was rising up. So I did what any worship leader should do when God hijacks their worship block and stood back and just began to worship myself. That few minutes, coupled with the amazing sense of God’s presense and the sense of intimacy when we were singing “I will offer up my life” as a response to the talk.

The best thing is that musically I made so many mistakes in that worship time – God just really showed how much it’s not about me or what I do, but all about Him. I fumbled with plectrums, hit the wrong chords, forgot the chords halfway through that third song and had to stop playing to quickly switch around the chord sheets in front of me to the right song – but God came, and it was amazing.

Time for Praise

I arrived back on Thursday afternoon with a couple of hours to settle back home before Worship Group and then Youth Club, so this is the list of songs we prepared for Time for Praise on Sunday, which I led worship for.

Worship Block (I chose these):
- Come, now is the time to worship
- Blessed be Your name
- Friend of Sinners

and (chosen by the Time for Praise team):
- As the deer pants for the water (1983)
- Make me a channel of Your peace (1967)

Interesting… The service went well. One things of note was that this sunday there were more people in Time for Praise than in the formal 9.45 communion service so it will be interesting to see what numbers are like next week.

Youth Club

Youth Club was good last Thursday. This weekend is our Youth Club Trip to a random converted farm somewhere near Barry (The Amelia Trust Farm) so this week we’ve been busy preparing material for that as well as games and activities. It going to be a really good weekend. Then on Sunday, I’m flying back by helicopter (well, G’s car) to lead worship at Time for Praise since Sarah’s away before heading back for the end of camp.

24-7

24-7 was last night and we planned for our Youth Time for Praise service which will be a week on Sunday, and David has asked me to do the talk for. The service is going to be based around Jesus healing the man at the pool and finishes off our series looking at Jesus the friend. So basically the main point of the service is going to be that Jesus has God’s power to do the impossible and that he identifies our needs and responds to them in a way that’s best for us. But somehow, in between all that, two girls gave their lives to Jesus and made a commitment, which was awesome. That’s part of the reason I’m really looking forward to this weekend because we’re taking both of them away with us as well as a couple of others who could be quite close to making a commitment so it’s going to be great to have more time to talk to them and see where they are with God. The angels were having a mega-party last night.

SMASH

We were back at SMASH this afternoon continuing our series about how God is “Awesome!”, looking at how he healed the blind man.

Home

Half term in Newport is next week, so I’m coming home to Aberystwyth for a few days on Monday, then hading back to Newport on Saturday – so get in touch if you want to meet or anything, anyone.

So that’s about everything. I’m hoping to get the chance to put together a paper prayer newsletter for St. Mike’s whilst I’m at home, so watch out for that (if I get around to it). I might post again before the weekend but otherwise my next blog will probably be from home sometime during next week.

God bless,

J.

Prayer

Thankyous

- For a great time for everyone at the Refresher Course
- For the two girls who gave their lives to Christ
- For increased numbers (at least last week) at Time for Praise

Pray for

- The Youth Club Trip this weekend
- Time for Praise this weekend and for me leading worship
- The Youth Team’s Time for Praise and for me doing the talky bit
- A good week’s rest at home for me!