Nu, once again I was dazzled and glitzed by the media church method presented by David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus dot com.
His presentation and scripture sharing was quite elegant. I guess there was a time when we all thought an overhead projector showing the lyrics to our favorite canticles was shunned to some degree but this method whether we are willing to admit it seems very effective.
Has the Church moved into a media based presentation service?

Our lives are inundated by the media. We are a generation caught up in technology of the airwaves. TV, movies, CDs, MP3s, internet, computers, DVDs, these all seem to dominate the eye and ear gates to our souls.
My thought is that maybe, just maybe, Y'shua could be Lord of these as well. Maybe we should dominate the industry and collectively banish the enemy from it.

Maybe we are on the threshold of a serious change. Maybe not. I could only hope that it will not be just another attempt by the enemy to use our own good intentions against us. We are no doubt a society that is plugged in and tuned in to the "media", so if this bears fruit, great. :roll: I will continue to observe and pray if in my own skeptisism I can release the insanity of being in a rut long enough to approve.

Ideas? :idea:

Movies in services? no. Shorts and clips? yes, but only if compelling and not forced. Even then, only kept to a minimum. No spectator churches, please. I'm not sure what you mean by "editorial."

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Maybe we should dominate the industry and collectively banish the enemy from it.

Impossible. We are fallen human beings. We bring the enemy with us. It is God who purges the enemy from a place. Any time Christians talk about "dominating" anything, including "an industry," I cringe. And in this case, I have no idea what you are proposing...

Sure, God can use technology for his own glory. But the more the Church strives to be "entertaining" and to appease the short attention spans of its congregants, the shallower the worship becomes. We like to have things served up to us in pleasing packages. But worship is not about our appetites. It requires work, participation, simplification, and emptying. Those services that broadcast footage of waterfalls and rainbows and such stuff are playing more to our sense of sentimentality than they are challenging us to consider God. Remember: When Christ and the prophets wanted to meet God, they didn't so often go and dangle their feet in a stream and kick back playing a harp... they went to the desert, and didn't eat for days.

Sheesh. After what Jeffrey said, why am I saying anything. That was beautiful.

OTOH, I think that it depends on one's way of worship. I am told that among the dozen or so conservative parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Detroit, only two of us still use the old BCP and we in particular are quite "high" in our form. All of us bowed over our prayer books even in praise is an honorable and elegant way of worshipping in the presence of the King. Others use rousing choruses and overheads and many are blessed as well. I left a vibrant evangelical church precisely to find what I now have, but that is me.

One quibble about overheads: why do they never provide the harmonies? For me, that is half the fun of singing praises to God, particularly when the key strains my upper register. :wink:

כו וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ; וְיִרְדּוּ בִדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל-
הָאָרֶץ, וּבְכָל-הָרֶמֶשׂ, הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל-הָאָרֶץ. 26 And God said: 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth

Nu, Jeffrey: Thanks for a great answer and I suppose dominate was to be taken in the sense of Gen. 1:26. Dominion. I would suppose this "all the earth" phrase may include the "airwaves". Theologically these all belong to the messiah? Certainly.
Shalom!

Hey, wait a minute. At least in colloquial American English (that's redundant, isn't it?) "have dominion" and "dominate" are entirely two different things. So what if they are rooted in the same Latin word. "Dominate" means to control and to command. "Have dominion" implies to have charge of, or be responsible for. Further, it is almost impossible to use the former without pejorative connotations, which I think that Jeffrey was hinting at.

[/quote]Impossible. We are fallen human beings. We bring the enemy with us. It is God who purges the enemy from a place.

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While it is not in our \"old nature\" to eat crow I however find it to be quite tasty on a regular basis and while I tend to agree with Jeffry and do not doubt his motives there is one bone left here so bear with me if I seem to be a nudge here. I mean, oy gvalt! my continuing education and learning is at stake here! :roll:   Question 1: (narration provided at no extra cost to you, the reader!)                Is it not true that God throughout history has used men to accomplish change in any society? Question 2:  By standing by and not taking the responsibility for what our society does have we in effect taken our \"one talent\" and buried it in the ground? Question 3: Who said, and I mis-qoute :roll: \" Evil will always triumph while good men stand by and do nothing?\" Question 4: If I apply the above formula to say, the abortion issue, then why does it seem to lose its lustre? Question 5: Yehoshua the son of Nun stood in front of the great congregation and said, \" Hey, Let's kick back and eat some ba-manna bread and let Yahweh remove the anakim without us.\"?(again, sorry but my view toward the media is like a good land we could have when we do something about it) Last and final question: Are you guys gonna still love me after all this meshugas I just displayed?

News from HollywoodJesus. David sent this note to reviewers. Looking to expand some things. Anyone interested?

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HJ Reviewers: What a great lot we are! I want to say thank you to all of you. This week we will cross the 300,000,000 mark! The hits on the web site have gone from 250,000 at the beginning of the year to over a million a day! Exponential growth. HJ.com has scored an impressive Internet traffic rank of 16,178 HJ was been featured on the front page of the New York Times 6 weeks ago and in the current issue of Christianity Today (Mike Furches and myself) 4 weeks ago I was in USA Today with Abrahan Foxman of the ADL Only one of these items was because of the Passion Because of all this, I thought it would be a good idea to be more intentional with HJ.com This next week there will a television production group coming in from the UK They have asked to interview a HJ person for their documentary Would any of you in the LA area be available for an interview regarding Joan of Arcadia? This will be televised all over Europe. Let me know immediately If any of you can review any of the following movies let me know and I'll get the web pages ready to go: (BTW if your review is to me by Saturday PM, you will be cited on the Christianity Today on their new Movie Site -a nice plus) Hellboy (hey Mike -you up for this one?) Home on the Range The Prince and Me and next week: The Alamo Johnson Family Vacation Walking Tall Ella Enchanted The Girl Next Door The Whole Ten Yards We have a wonderful opportunity to  make even greater inroads into our culture for Jesus. I really want to see what we can do ! Jan Wright will be starting a Lion Witch and the Wardrobe section at HJ.com I pray God will use this in some unique ways Greg continues with the excellent LOTR area (it might be one of the largest on the net) Also the new \"After Eden\" series He has also been working some of the Press Junkets Greg is such an excellent brother Ken Priebe has been putting a special series on Disney! Darrel Manson continues with his fine work of covering the independent films --I so appreciate Darrel [Darrel inserts  :oops: ] Melinda Ledman has been doing great work with a great number of reviews Her Passion review was viewed by thousands upon thousands -even in Islamic countries Maurice has begun a television review section -I love this guy BTW Does anyone know of a Music critic? Also, I am open to developing new sections in HJ -Got ideas? More later God is good --Warmly David Bruce --   Over 290 million hits Hollywood Jesus Pop Culture from a Spiritual Point of View http://www.hollywoodjesus.com David Bruce, web master/conference speaker davidbruce25@charter.net P.O. Box 5259 Central Point, OR 97502-0050 :oops:

"inroads into our culture" -- at least it's "our" culture. I can't imaging MG saying that.

Wait -- a music critic? Maybe they should try here.