Diary of a Young Pastor

I had the pleasure of going to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspain with my brothers today, and I want to share my thoughts on the movie by sharing my likes and dislikes.

Likes:

• First, I liked the fact that this film was quite a bit more gritty and dark than the first.  This, in my opinion, made the story seem more “real”.
• I liked the fact that this movie dealt with the nature of humanity and incorporated fantasy, instead of dealing with fantasy and incorporating humanity.  Does that make sense?  It could just be the differences in the subject matter of the books.
• I liked the fact that this movie is based on one of the “non-defining” books.  Meaning, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the defining classic of all things Narnia.  Fans of the series (me) know that book from front to back.  Its story is legendary in our minds - and as a result, you are not allowed (in the minds of the fans) to mess with it.  During L,W&W, I cringed every time the story deviated from the story line in the book.  But in Caspian, I was much more tolerant and forgiving of the liberties taken in the story.  I can only assume that this is because the story is not as cemented in my brain.  It was enjoyable to be able to think, “Well, that wasn’t in the book….but I can see why they put it in the movie,” instead of, “WHY DID THEY DO THAT!!”
• The three older Pevensie’s were allowed to act more grown up.  In L,W&W, Skandar Keynes grew up a lot from the beginning of production to the end, but his character (Edmund) wasn’t allowed to.  There were some scenes where it was obvious that we were watching an older Keynes playing a younger Edmund.  In Caspian, his character was allowed to be older, which made the acting much more believable.
• I applaud Andrew Adamson’s decision to give Susan a much more active role in the movie.  Her character was tough, and to re-use some adjectives, gritty and “real”.  This may be my “Wesleyan-ness” coming out.

Dislikes:

• Caspian’s character development could have been better.  This is a Disney movie, after all, and don’t they like to play up characters whose parents have died (see: Cinderella, Bambi, Nemo & every other movie…).
• The “Lucy sees Aslan” scenario was always vital for me in the book.  I feel like they severely underplayed that part.
• William Moseley looks freakishly like Keira Knightley.  That was a bit of a distraction.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, the likes dramatically outweighed the dislikes.  I really, really enjoyed Caspian and left with a completely different feeling than when I left L,W&W.

Your thoughts?

~Pastor Matt

Staples Envelopes, originally uploaded by crashingtothesea.

I noticed this the other day at Staples. When buying envelopes in bulk, you would expect to spend less money than buying a small box. Right?

Not Staples Security Envelopes.

I spent some time the past couple weeks throwing this video together for our district kids camp.  Thankfully, this was not an extremely difficult process.  However, my next project - working for South Mountain Retreat and Conference Center - will be a lot tougher.  This is the first time I’ve added any kind of film effects to a video beyond simple cropping/pan&zooming, and I thought it turned out ok.

Enjoy!

Kids Camp Promo (Final) from Matthew Tietje on Vimeo.

Snake attack, originally uploaded by crashingtothesea.

Walked by this beauty monday night. It was right at my head level, and I heard something rustle near me. There was a bird’s nest right above the light with eggs in it. The eggs are gone, and needless to say, the snake gave his life for that meal.

I was quite frightened when I looked and saw him right at my face, but at least it didn’t go down like this:

Ok… I’m going to say it…

I have never liked church signs.  Yeah, my church has one - and no, I don’t like it.

Why?  Because they are dangerous.  They are the only window through which our community outside the door sees us.  They have become the statements of who we are as a church - and what do we choose to do with them?  Either put up some kind of cheesy saying like, “Where do you prefer to sit in eternity?  Smoking or Non,” or we do something stupid, hurtful, derogatory, and even immoral.  In my opinion, church signs make us look like fools.

I came across one such fool of a church on digg.com earlier today.  Pastor Roger Byrd of the Jonesville Church of God in Jonesville, SC put up this wonderful little ditty earlier last week:

Foolishness!

What opinion do people now have of a church that calls its self a “Church of God”?

Somewhere, sometime, someone had the bright idea that a lettered sign could be useful to a church…and at that same moment, 10,000 people had the idiotic idea that the sign should make a statement of who we are as a church.

Pastors, if you’re reading this and you, like me, have a church sign — be careful.  And in my opinion, if you don’t have anything useful to say to your community (ie, an announcement that is beneficial to them, service times, etc.)…

just leave it blank!

P.S. - read the thoughts of the digg users here. Warning though…may contain foul language.