A Waste of Time

Review: In Time

It was bottom of the ninth at Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals, and they were losing 7-5 to the Texas Rangers in the World Series, Game 6. The Cardinals had 2 players on base, but they also had 2 outs and after 3 pitches David Freese was looking at 1 ball, 2 strikes. Everyone assumed it was over. Until Freese hit a triple, sending the 2 players on base home to tie the game. The Cardinals were taking the game into extra innings! 

Buffalo Wild Wings went crazy. Fans gathered around the ridiculous number of televisions shouted, jumped up and down, and hugged their waitresses. I was so enveloped by the atmosphere I almost tossed my basket-full of wings in the air. Then I checked the time. “It’s 11:50,” I reminded Mike. “The movie starts in 10 minutes.”

Let the Activity Begin!

Review: Paranormal Activity 3

The first Paranormal Activity was something of a phenomenon; a little known movie made for $11,000 in 7 days received some interest at the 2007 Screamfest Horror Film Festival, was picked up by Paramount Pictures, had the ending changed at the recommendation of Steven Spielberg, and went on to gross almost $200 million worldwide after an intriguing “Demand It” distribution program.

Paranormal Activity 2 pulled off the same feat of grossing lots of money, while being made for very little. And its prequel/at-the-same-time-as-the-first-movie timeline was interesting. But unfortunately most of the scare tactics were the same old bumps in the night and viewers, while scared, were disappointed that the second film didn’t explore new make-‘em-jump territory. The second film was also criticized for taking too long to introduce any really good scares.

"Love in Action" - 2011 Summer Recap

I spent this past summer interning with the Student Ministry at Bethel Baptist Church, in Yorktown, VA. I had a blast working with the youth pastor, Jeff Mingee, and the female intern Jennifer Blackwell. It was in fact our second time working together, as Jen and I had interned last summer as well. That first go-round was certainly a learning experience. The unofficial theme of that summer, as we now joke, was “Welcome to Bethel; we’ll date you and then hate you.” Of course, that wasn’t our official theme, but it certainly seemed to be an accurate description of all of the middle and high school drama that had gone on. In actuality, we had no theme last summer, which I felt led to a bit of its chaos.

So, when Jeff, Jen, and I began to talk about what we wanted this summer to look like, I immediately suggested that we have a theme, one unifying purpose to unite us as a leadership team that we lacked last summer; an attempt to be responsibly proactive rather than frustratingly reactive. And so, with the drama of the previous internship still weighing on our minds, we settled on the theme of “Love in Action,” a challenge to the youth to seriously consider how we develop our earthly relationships in light of our heavenly relationship with Christ.