For the 2010 Micah Film Festival we’ve found three incredible documentary films to screen this year – one about Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, one about emergency medical work in conflict areas of the world, and one about autism -  along with some amazing non-profit organizations to spotlight.

Check it out:

The Micah Film Festival spotlights excellent documentary films that celebrate justice, mercy, and humility and also serves as a forum for connecting people with non-profit organizations who are making a difference locally and globally.

Our mission is to help restore the human spirit through art and advocacy.

Over the course of one weekend we will screen three award-winning documentaries that compellingly represent the spirit of Justice, Mercy, and Humility. After each screening we’ll have post-screening Q&A sessions and panel discussions about the important topics addressed by the films. Click here to learn more about the 2010 film selections.

We’ll also use the weekend to spotlight several local non-profits that are working working toward these values around the world, and we’ll use proceeds from your ticket purchase to raise money for these amazing organizations. Click here to learn more about our featured non-profits this year!

If you are going to be in SoCal the weekend of Nov 19-21, please consider coming. Your ticket purchase goes toward some great causes, and I promise you’ll be inspired by the films and the post-screening discussions we host.

I’d also like to ask you to help us spread the word. If you’re on facebook or Twitter, please help spread the word.  If you have a blog, please post about it or link to us. We have lots of tickets to sell and every little bit helps!

Thank everyone – hope to see you there!

Technorati Tags: Autism The Musical, CA, Holy Wars, Ikon Community, Living In Emergency, Micah Film Festival, Oceanside

This reminded me of an old post I wrote last year (on an old blog) while I was at The Sundance Film Festival. So, first Mark’s 3-minute rant (if you care to watch it), then my old post below:

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Sundance/Windrider Day 3: Lost in Translation (January 22, 2009)

I’m three days into my time here at The Sundance Film Festival and it’s been amazing. I’ve seen 10 movies so far – 4 shorts and 6 features, plus Q&A sessions with directors and cast members after every film – and I’ve noticed a few surprising things about the culture of film on display here.

There are some amazing artists who are asking important questions about life, and telling incredibly compelling stories of suffering, loss, hardship, redemption, love, joy, and spirituality. Again and again, the common ground that exists between the filmmaker’s values and the values of the biblical narrative have taken me by surprise. There is very little ambiguity in the depictions I’ve seen of yearning for love and security, or the necessity of risking one’s life in order to find it, or the desperate need for justice in situations of appalling human suffering and depravity.

Through cinema, the world is shouting for the things of God. Sadly, as far as the church is concerned, they’re using the wrong language.

Most of these directors and producers are completely secular. I don’t necessarily mean they’re ireligious – many aren’t – but their worldview, and the vernacular utilized to convey their art is utterly unfamiliar to the Christian subculture. I think this makes for a distance between these two groups that is more perceived than actual.

Tonight after the screening of Sin Nombre (an intensely powerful and disturbing film about illegal immigration) an audience member from our group asked the director whether he’d intended to depict contrasting images of “conditional vs. unconditional love” in his portrayal of two specific relationships, one involving mercy, the other betrayal.

It was a good question. The story delved deeply into the complexities of acceptance, rejection, trust, loyalty, and faithfulness between the characters.

Still, the director balked. In a very polite way he basically said he didn’t know what to do with the phrase “unconditional love,” and preferred to think of those character dynamics in terms of “families in flux,” forming on the one hand, and dissolving on the other.

In other words, his answer was “yes.” He absolutely intended (among other things) to depict broken covenant loyalties on the one hand, and faithful covenant loyalties on the other.

The problem, I think, is language itself. “Unconditional love” is conservative evangelical church vernacular for the kind of love that is most valuable or virtuous (and only comes from God). It’s a staple teaching point in most evangelical youth groups. But in my experience secular people rarely ever use that phrase, even if they might be talking about the same spirit.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen or heard this sort of thing in the last few days, either in the films themselves or the Q&A sessions. God is profoundly at work through many of these films, but he’s usually disguised in a culture and a language that is entirely foreign (and often frightening) to prevailing Christianity.

If we want to be conversant with the culture we find ourselves in we’re going to have to go out of our way to learn the language by listening deeply, patiently, and charitably. Once we do, we may indeed find that these powerful cultural prophets only want the things of God, but not God himself. However, we may discover that, at least for some, they were never rejecting God, only what we said and what they heard.

Technorati Tags: art, Avatar, Christianity, Culture, Film, Mark Driscoll

We had a total of 138 entries! Thank you to everyone who became of fan of Pastoralia. We deeply appreciate your support. Even though we fell short of our 500 mark for giving away 2 additional films, giving away cool stuff is fun, so I decided to go ahead and give away a second film (The Least of These) anyway. Both these films are screening copies from The Micah Film Festival.

As usual, we printed out the entrants on folded strips of paper, placed them in a large jar, and drew the names at random. And the winners are…

• As We Forgive: Jennifer Johnson
• The Least of These: Paul Clark

Congratulations to you both! Our thanks to Jen and Paul for becoming fans and helping to support Pastoralia. We’ll be contacting you shortly about getting you your films!

Technorati Tags: As We Forgive, facebook, Giveaways, The Least of These

(BTW: These are friends of my daughter Savannah – this is her previous school):

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Drugs, Videos

This week I’m going to give away the amazing and award-winning documentary, As We Forgive by Laura Waters Hinson. Here’s the synopsis:

Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? This is the question faced by the subjects of As We Forgive, a documentary about Rosaria and Chantal—two Rwandan women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. The subjects of As We Forgive speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans in 1994. Overwhelmed by an enormous backlog of court cases, the government has returned over 50,000 genocide perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution: Reconciliation.

But can it be done? Can survivors truly forgive the killers who destroyed their families? Can the government expect this from its people? And can the church, which failed at moral leadership during the genocide, fit into the process of reconciliation today? In As We Forgive, director Laura Waters Hinson and narrator Mia Farrow explore these topics through the lives of four neighbors once caught in opposite tides of a genocidal bloodbath, and their extraordinary journey from death to life through forgiveness.

I first saw this film wonderful and thought-provoking film at the 2009 Windrider Forum at Sundance, and later screened it for the Oceanside community at our first ever Micah Film Festival last summer. It is an amazing testament to the power of mercy among broken and victimized people.

Here’s how the giveaway works:

1. Visit the Pastoralia.org page on Facebook by clicking here.
2. Become a fan by clicking the “become a fan” button at the top.
3. Suggest your friends become fans too by clicking the “suggest to friends” link under the image in the left-hand column and following the instructions. That’s it!

Bonus giveaways:

If our Pastoralia.org facebook fans reach 1000, we will draw two additional winners to receive copies of the other films we screened at The Micah Film Festival. One will receive The Least of These and the other will receive Shooting Beauty. These amazing and important films represent the best in conscientious documentary film-making today.

Giveaway ends at midnight on Monday morning Feb 22. The winner(s) will be chosen at random from among the Pastoralia.org facebook fans only and announced Monday afternoon.

Technorati Tags: As We Forgive, Christianity, facebook giveaway, Micah Film Festival, Shooting Beauty, The Least of These

• The first book is Sermon on the Mount, New Testament scholar Clarence Jordan’s commentary on Jesus’ most seminal teachings. Few Christians in history speak with the weight of authority that Jordan does, having given his life to the practice of these radical teachings.
• The second book is Willard’s now classic bombshell The Divine Conspiracy, which contains his interpretation of The Sermon on the Mount. If you haven’t read this, you need to. Please Note: Both these books are used, so you’ll have to live with annotations and underlines : )

Here’s how the giveaway works:

1. Follow me on Twitter @pastoralia
2. Tweet this message:
   

   Don’t miss! @pastoralia giving away 3 amazing Christian books by Dallas Willard & Clarence Jordan & a documentary DVD http://bit.ly/bYTyzr

3. The winner will be randomly selected and announced a week from today on Monday, February 15, from among my Twitter followers who Tweeted the message above. Please Note: You must follow and Tweet that message in order to win.

Bonus giveaways!

If the number of Twitter retweets reaches 1000 I will also give away one of each of these bonus prizes to two additional winners:

• Dallas Wiillard’s new book, Knowing Christ Today in audiobook form from Christianaudio.com, and
• A DVD copy of the fantastic documentary Briars in the Cotton Patch, which chronicles the story of Clarence Jordan’s Koinonia Farm in the turbulent race wars that led up to the civil rights movement.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Clarence Jordan, Dallas Willard, Giveaway

Q: This book, which isn’t revealed to be the Bible before you see the film, but is clearly noted as the Bible close to the beginning, is being described in the synopsis as a work that “provides knowledge that could redeem society, and the source of all their pain knowledge,” what is that knowledge exactly, and how is that more important than knowledge of building an irrigation system, or medicine or anything survivalist?

Albert: It depends on what you believe. It could be about irrigation, if you want that kind of irrigation for your mind. Some people need to read to stimulate themselves. It could be that book or another book. That character [Eli] believes that he was told to take it somewhere. I can agree with the intent of that question, you know? But as a filmmaker, you have to believe in the story and that translation. If you’re making Lord of The Rings, you have to believe in Middle Earth. If you are making Star Wars, you have to believe that there are spaceships up there going around in space, even though it’s not reality. You have to believe in the mythology of that movie in order to do it.

I love how the interviewer can’t grasp the illogical quest for spiritual knowledge as being somehow more important than “irrigation systems.” I also love how Albert gives him “mythology” as an answer. This conversation probably couldn’t have happened ten years ago. Click here to read the whole interview.

Technorati Tags: Book of Eli, Evangelicalism, Films, Hughes brothers, Propaganda

As I mentioned last week, my resurrected posts about the Sundance Film Festival have been in anticipation of an exciting announcement. Because I believe art in general, and film in particular, are an unheeded prophetic voice in our culture I wanted to find some way to missionally engage with that vital expression.

Hence, for the past several weeks our little community of faith has been working diligently on a project we’re very excited about: The Micah Film Festival.

Our mission is to celebrate excellent documentary films that advance the causes of justice, mercy, and humility, thereby connecting people with organizations that are working to affect redemptive transformation in the world.

For 2009 we’ve assembled an amazing group of films. Each, in its own way, spotlights issues that are at times painful, contentious, and even overlooked – and each does so with art and grace.

This is more than a movie series. We aim to create a collaborative learning environment where great art becomes the catalyst for the redemptive transformation of our world.

We’ll be screening three amazing, award-winning documentaries over the course of three nights. Each night we’ll begin with an opportunity for attendees to learn about non-profit organizations that are doing important work locally and globally, and each night we’ll end with post-screening Q&A’s or panel discussions on the topics and issues broached in each of the films.

You’re all invited. : )

Technorati Tags: art, Culture, Film, Micah Film Fest, missio dei, mission

This is the last in a series of older posts from an older blog that came out of my trip last January to the Sundance Film Festival. This series is in anticipation of a new gathering our community is hosting later this summer around the medium of film (details coming soon).

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I’ve had a blast at Sundance with the Fuller folks, but I’m glad to be heading home to all my girls. I’ve been blogging about “suffering” as a theme in many of the films here, and this will be my last post on the subject.

So if some of the Sundance Films are suggesting that suffering can be good, and others are calling for a certain kind of suffering, exactly what kind is it?

When it came to depicting the complex nature of suffering through dramatic film this year, none was better than Cary Fukunaga, the writer and director of Sin Nombre. The journey of determined immigrants from Guatemala to the United States, becomes the vehicle for Fukunaga to explore the depths of human determination as he chronicles the explosive collision between a family seeking solace in the U.S. and a Mexican gang in violent transition.

Throughout this highly realistic and emotionally impacting film the journey atop a moving train becomes another powerful character in the story, bearing it’s passengers methodically across the Mexican landscape in spite of the terror and hardship occurring all around. Indeed, the dangers faced by immigrants seeking to reach the U.S. from Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico are frighteningly real, even before one reaches the American border. Once there, a whole new set of dangers await through the trip over the desert.

In fact, the brutality and grief experienced by the characters in Sin Nombre inevitably leads one to ask the obvious question: why? Why would anyone willingly suffer so and risk everything to make this journey? The only possible answer is that the suffering of the journey pales in comparison to the suffering of remaining behind.

Therefore, for many, though the journey is extremely difficult the choice itself is easy.

It’s the willingness to suffer in the short run that opens up new horizons of possibility for life in the long run. Wisdom teaches that life is not a choice between suffering and happiness, but rather a choice between one kind of suffering and another – one that progresses forever toward a terrible attrition unto death, and one that lingers temporarily in order to birth a new life.

The only way to spurn suffering is to embrace it. The only way to find safety is to chance danger.

Marine Corps Colonel Mike Strobl knows this lesson well. Based on a true story, the incredibly timely and powerful drama Taking Chance shows us how Strobl wrestles with the growing guilt of not having served as a combatant in the Iraq war. Every night in his comfortable and well-tailored home, he checks the Department of Defense website’s casualty list, hoping not to find the names of friends who chose to serve in combat while he remained behind to analyze stats.

When a soldier named Chance Phelps turns up on the list, Strobl volunteers to accompany the body home, hoping this service will gain him the relief from guilt he seeks.

But the trip only exacerbates his guilt.

The film itself is one long study in honor. What is honor? Who deserves it, and what does it take to earn it? Every step of the way Chance’s body is given intentional and incredible honor. There is literally no point on the transition from Iraq to Wyoming when Chance Phelps isn’t treated with loving, formal, and even ritualized respect in the highest possible form. This depiction of honor for the fallen contains practices never before seen on film, and constitute some of the most emotionally enduring images I have ever witnessed in my life. They make for a powerful (and ironic) statement about esteeming life, and how ritual can effectively carve out space for indelibly expressing our deepest held values.

For Mike Strobl, all this honor for Chance painfully reminds him of his own lack of honor. This internal suffering becomes worse when he begins traveling in public, using a commercial flight to take the body home. At every stop along the way someone gives Mike Strobl honor because they assume by his uniform that he has served in the war. People stop him and express their gratitude for his sacrifice. People cry and offer gifts. People salute.

Strobl politely demurs, but the tension mounts as Chance increasingly becomes Mike’s vicarious source of honor. Where Mike chose safety, Chance chose danger. Where Mike chose comfort, Chance chose sacrifice. Throughout the film, there are poignant images of comfortable people giving honor to Mike because they believe has made a sacrifice on their behalf.

Honor is for those who have given themselves sacrificially for others, and this is exactly the kind of suffering that is virtuous; suffering on behalf of others.

Because Mike Strobl never really suffered, he had no real honor – indeed, no real life. His life of ease and comfort was slowly destroying him. By giving himself sacrificially to Chance and the Phelps family – even for a short while – Mike Strobl hitched himself to Chance’s honor, and gained a measure of his own in the process.

Technorati Tags: art, Culture, Film, gifts, Gospel, missio dei, mission

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Technorati Tags: art, Culture, Film, gifts, Gospel, missio dei, mission