In the Spirit of the Day

The day after Helen Chenoweth-Hage’s death it doesn’t feel appropriate to make a post on Idaho politics. Let me say this, though. I do appreciate what has been a gracious response from the left in Idaho to her passing. Even the Grant campaign took note on the Grant campaign blog. I’ve got some things I’d like to say to Idaho dems, but feel today would be inappropriate to do so, so I’ll save them for tomorrow, which may also have been a good idea for Robert Vasquez as well.

Life, Man, and God on the Silver Screen

One of the most profound movies to hit the silver screen in recent years wrestles with profound issues of God, faithfulness, and success. The film comes not from Hollywood but Albany, Georgia.

Facing the Giants opened in 441 theaters across America and in that limited release was the 12th highest grossing film in America. What caused hundreds of thousands of America to watch a film featuring actors no one has heard of from a town few outside the South have heard of?

A Different Type of Christian Film

With the notable exceptions of the Passion of the Christ and Jonah: A Veggie Tales movies, Evangelical films have focused to a great extent on the end of days with movies featuring B-actors who work to turn the Lord’s return into a mega-hit. Smaller budget films have had an entirely evangelistic focus.

Writer and star Alex Kendrick has gone another route and produced a far more profound film that is about ordinary people and an extraordinary God.

Kendrick plays Grant Taylor, a football coach at a Christian High School with six losing seasons under his belt and a school whose boosters are rapidly losing confidence in him. At the same time, his car is constantly dying, his house is in a bad state of repair, and he and his wife are struggling with infertility. In the midst of these real problems, Coach Taylor reaches a crisis point and with the encouragement of a faith man of prayer, Taylor takes his life and his team’s in a different direction.

The Power of Attitude

Taylor realizes that his team’s play is purposeless and sloppy because they have no purpose in what they do. Taylor offered a new purpose that he placed as the team’s top priority: bringing glory to God. “We need to give God our best in every area…If we win, we praise him, if we lose, we praise him.”

The team also struggled with an attitude that pre-supposed defeat. In one of the most powerful scenes ever in a sports movie, Taylor takes on the lackadaisical attitude of his team’s Captain. The Coach focuses his efforts on changing the minds, hearts, and attitudes of his team, and the results come forth on the field.

This has led to some to allege that the movie preaches a prosperity doctrine. But it does nothing of the sort. It’s a movie about faith as a living substance, and God working through the life of the faithful. One character spends years upon years praying for a revival in the school before seeing it come to pass. It’s not a movie that promises you a fortune if you serve God, it’s a movie that says God is worthy of our praise in our best and our worst moments, but also that God is faithful.

It’s a movie that leads to reflection on your own life. As I sat in the theater, I realized in many areas of my life, I go out defeated before I’ve even started and fail to do my best. The movie made me ask, “What if I went out and held nothing back?”

While Taylor’s team has to tangle with the three-time state Champion Giants, the movie is really made for those who face “the giants of fear and failure:” all of us. Facing the Giants offers the hope that, in whatever area we face them, we can slay our own giants.

It’d be easy for a movie like this to become saccharine, sappy, preachy, and corny. But Facing the Giants avoids this for the most part with a cast of real people playing real people that turns in heartfelt, endearing, and in some cases, humorous performances. Kendrick turns in a versatile performance through the highs and lows of Coach Taylor.

Whatever happens to the movie from here, Kendrick has faced the Giant of Hollywood and our popular culture with a powerful message of faith, love, and dedication. In the process, he has produced a film that everyone should see.

For theater information go to http://www.facingthegiants.com

Playoffs Midweek Open Trackbacks

Baseball’s playoffs get underway today. I don’t have a dog in this fight, so all I ask is that they make it a good one. I’m thinking this will end up in a Subway Series but we’ll see.

Now, onto the Party. First, the rules:

1) Post about anything that’s in good taste. No porn, no spam, no profanity.

2) Send me a trackback of any tasteful post you want and as soon as I check my blog, I’ll update this post with your link provided you link back to this thread. If your software won’t allow you to send trackbacks, just use the Wizbang Standalone Pinger
3) Deadline is Sunday at 11:00 PM MDT. Further trackbacks won’t be posted after that time.

For your convenience here’s today’s here’s today’s link and the trackback:

http://adamsweb.us/blog/htsrv/trackback.php/2592

Below are other great parties:

Linking in:

Planck’s Constant:

Islam and the Amish Massacre
I can no longer read any updates to the Amish School shooting when they start mentioning the ages of the children.

Planck’s Constant:

Redneck Yoga
Yoga from India [image]
Yoga from Tennessee [image]

I am sure the Tennessee version is not the best Yoga for back pain.

Tel Chai Nation:

9-11 Memorial for NYPD officer vandalized by Turk
Yesterday, a Turkish Muslim living in New York vandalized a memorial for a slain NYC policeman (via Michelle Malkin):

The Florida Masochist:

The Spotlight
What to do now? Captain Ed doesn’t think the sanction route will work. I agree, North Korea is already isolated, what will increased sanctions accomplish? Very little in my opinion. The only other choice is escalation, and this comes at a mighty risk…

The Florida Masochist:

The Knucklehead of the Day award
Today’s winner is Florida Marlins Baseball team owner Jeffrey Loria.

The Florida Masochist
People should know better
Only by the grace of God and a source of anti-venim being nearby is this man alive. Maybe I should have given the The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission today’s knucklehead award. If I hear of them giving a similar license, they will g…

Planck’s Constant
OTA – Converting to Islam – The Big Lie
We are all familiar with the sad plight of naive, ignorant young girls from Minnesota who come to New York looking for glamorous jobs as starlets on Broadway or becoming famous models.

123beta
Slam Dunk
According to a report by investigative ‘journalist’ Bob Woodward (check out his body language – everytime he speaks he looks down, implying that what he is saying is not the truth) in his book,”Plan of Attack” – Tenet privately lent his personal ……

Open Trackbacks

The Bryan Fischer Interview

Here Bryan Fischer provides his thoughts on the passing of former Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-Id.) and the Ten Commandments Issue.

If I had the camera running, I could make a sitcom episode on the events that led up to this interview. I discovered that even after 7 on a Monday Night, parking in Downtown Boise is an incredibly rare find.

I met Bryan Fischer at the Keep the Commandments Office. As always he was a true gentlemen, which would be helpful as a Prima Dona political figure wouldn’t put up with my wife and I as we worked through the bugs of being brand new film makers. Then a true Prima dona would have little to do with us once they saw the camera, a tiny DXG 2.0 Megapixel model.

My wife sat in one chair, behind a pile of books and after much meticulous work was able to get both Rev. Fischer and I in the same shot and away we went.

A few hours of editting later and we’ve got our first video. The good news about this is that subsequent efforts will be better.

I took away several lesssons. Probably the next time I do an interview, my subject will be on camera, but I will not be. If I’m going to inteview a subject side by side again, I’ll probably need either: 1) a bigger room or a 2) bigger camera.

Another big thank you to Bryan Fischer to taking time out of his incredibly busy schedule to educate the voters of Idaho and serve as my first (but hopefully not my last) video interview subject.