The Adjustment Bureau

Posted on: 03/3/11 2:01 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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Do we really have free will… or is God a colossal puppeteer manipulating the strings of all of mankind.

Look out John Calvin, here comes The Adjustment Bureau… and they’re making you submit to “the chairman’s” plan.

Last week my 13-year-old and I were out on a delightful daddy-daughter date (pardon my alliteration) and we saw a screening of this new film, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Maybe you’ve seen the previews. Damon’s character falls in love with her, but the “bureau” tries to step in and “adjust” his will. But Jason Boerne uses his martial arts skills… wait… wrong film…

Ashley and I really enjoyed the film. It wasn’t the greatest thing we’ve seen this year, but it was entertaining and had good character development (although it did throw in the typical PG-13 “non-nudity” sex scene, as is so abundant today).

I am not only providing a full review of the film on our MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’s page this weekend (posting it Friday), but I am also providing a discussion adults can use to talk with their kids about free will, the conscious choice to let the Holy Spirit take over our lives, and what that kind of submission looks like day to day. (I’ve loving this new “Quick Q’s” section of our MOVIE REVIEWS & QUICK Q’S page. Each one of our reviews now includes these questions that adults can use to dialogue with young people about what they just saw.)

(SIDE NOTE: If you like those “Quick Q’s, I encourage you to check out a few others I wrote recently on the same page— check out my review of Adam Sandler’s “Just Go With It,” and the Vincint Vaughn and Kevin James flick, “The Dilemma.” I think you’ll find that I provided deep discussions for both of these films)

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Gaga Trying So Hard…

Posted on: 02/28/11 3:24 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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Gaga’s Born This Way video was released today, as announced. And again, she tries to out do herself.

Summary of Video:

– She gives birth to good, then to evil
– She dances around in her underwear, touching herself sexually and carousing with others.

Yeah… that about wraps it up.

We’ve posted a ton of resources about Gaga and this song– I encourage you to check them out.

As for the video now? YouTube has it posted for all to see and the buzz is out. You can bet many of our kids will be watching this in the next few days.

Here’s the YouTube link.

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Born This Way On the Mind

Posted on: 02/24/11 1:04 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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Gaga’s preachy song Born This Way just continues to grow in popularity. It is #1 across the board (iTunes, Billboard… name it) and the brand new music video for the song arrives Monday.

A few resources that I wanted to put at your fingertips for this song:

I hope these tools are a help to you.

 

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Billy Ray’s Hindsight

Posted on: 02/18/11 12:06 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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My mom always told me, “Hindsight is 20/20.

Billy Ray is starting to see clearly in retrospection… and his heart is aching.

Yesterday I read the GQ interview of Billy Ray Cyrus, Mr. Hannah Montana’s Achy Broken Heart. a fantastic article. It really made me feel compassion for the guy. Some great pieces of this interview worth discussing with our kids. (Funny, I read this interview just after blogging about parenting yesterday where I briefly touched on some of these issues.)

TWO OBSERVATIONS FOR DISCUSSION:  (I’ll highlight one today, and one in my next blog)

1. The Highway to Darkness

This excerpt of the article (edited down a little by me below) is an amazing discussion springboard about how we need to be careful what we pursue and who we surround ourselves with:

When they first came to Hollywood for Hannah Montana, the two of them would drive down the freeway together to the studio each morning, and every day Miley would point out the sign that said
ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY
ATHEISTS UNITED
Just before moving out to Los Angeles, the whole family had been baptized together by their pastor at the People’s Church in Franklin, Tennessee. “It was Tish’s idea,” he (Billy Ray) remembers. “She said, ‘We’re going to be under attack, and we have to be strong in our faith and we’re all going to be baptized…'” And there, driving to work each day in the City of Angels, was this sign. “A physical sign. It could have easily said ‘You will now be attacked by Satan.’ ‘Entering this industry, you are now on the highway to darkness…'”
And do you see the show as a big part of what has made things not work in your family?
“Oh, it’s huge—it destroyed my family…
Do you wish Hannah Montana had never happened?
“I hate to say it, but yes, I do. Yeah. I’d take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just be everybody okay, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah. I’d erase it all in a second if I could.”
(GQ.com, Mr. Hannah Montana’s Achy Broken Heart, by Chris Heath, Page 5)

Here are some quick questions– of the top of my head– to ask our kids after reading this:

1. What signs do you see that might be warnings of temptations or influences to avoid?

2. Miley’s mom Tish predicted that they were going to be under attack– what did she do to prepare for attack? Is there something magical about baptism? (Or is baptism, perhaps, a sign of allowing Christ to direct us and clean us spiritually?)

3. Why do you think Billy Ray is regretting the path the family took? (Some of his regrets are detailed in other parts of the interview)

4. What do you think a family can do in this “dark” world to be prepared for temptations we’ll face?

Read Romans 12:1,2.

5. What does this passage say to not be conformed to?

6. How does this passage say we are to be transformed?

7. What can we do to better allow God to transform our minds? What are some of the distractions we might need to unplug from our head? What might we need to put into our head more?

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Gaga “Born This Way”

Posted on: 02/7/11 6:03 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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For someone typically so immersed in mystery, her lyrics are crystal clear on this occasion:

I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

Lady Gaga has posted the lyrics to her upcoming song, “Born This Way.” The message of the song is hard to miss. So we dove into the lyrics and provided our two cents in our new Youth Culture Window article, Born This Way: The Theological, Moral, and Scientific Revelations of Lady Gaga’s New Song.

I wanted to let you– my blog subscribers– know first. Our entire EZINE list will receive an email tomorrow morning!

Here’s just a snippet.

If we were to sum up this song’s message, we’d say, “Lady Gaga believes homosexuals are born that way, so let them live that lifestyle because they cannot help it.” As lovingly and respectfully as we can, we must say, there’s a lot about this song, and its message, that’s intrinsically wrong and internally incongruent. Just take a look at some of the key lyrics in this song to see for yourself.

For starters, Lady Gaga encourages her listeners to “just love yourself and you’re set.” Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as that. Honestly, we sometimes wish it was! But it’s simply not. If a guy goes around shooting other people – but loves himself – is he “set” by cultural standards? Just ask anybody impacted by the actions of Jared Loughner. You’ll get a resounding “no!”

Is the woman who displays wrathful anger to everyone a perfectly capable benchmark for civility…so long as she loves herself? Is the kid who steals from others (to sustain a drug habit) off the hook because he loves himself? Nope and nope.

Although a healthy self esteem is a good thing, I’m not “set” just because I happen to love me. Neither are you. Neither is Lady Gaga.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE

I’m eager to see your comments on the bottom of that article!

Last week I asked for your prayers as David and I worked on this article. Thank you for your prayers and the emails/comments of encouragement. It’s a delicate subject in today’s “politically correct” world. Frankly, much of that is our (Christians) own fault because we’ve been unfair to homosexuals in the past– holding them to an even higher standard than the rest of us sinners.

That opens up a whole nother can of worms. So… you’re getting a double-whammy this week. We also posted another article from David and I: Coming Out of the Closet…and Into the Church: What Should the Church Do About Homosexuality? This article tackles the issue of homosexuality for the sake of youth leaders and adult mentors who need to provide answers to the questions that our teenagers are asking us– questions like, “Isn’t homosexuality okay now? Can’t they NOT help it?” Adults need to be able to answer these questions and provide a Biblical basis for compassion AND the unchanging truth of the Word of God.

Happy reading!

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Fox Rejects John 3:16 Ad

Posted on: 02/4/11 9:19 AM | by Jonathan McKee

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Wow… that’s too bad.

Fox just rejected a Super Bowl commercial that shows a guy looking up the meaning of John 3:16– good commercial by the way. Check it out:

(If you don’t see the embedded video, jump on my blog to see it)

Hmmmmm. How do you feel about this?

According to the Hollywood reporter, the network rejected the spot because it advanced specific beliefs. I guess there are several ways to look at this. First- we might think that’s really unfair. But on the other hand… how would you feel if there were commercials for Buddhism or Hinduism? (Funny side note: I had to ask my son Alec how to spell  Buddhism. He spelled it right the first time. I asked him, “How did you know that?” He said, “Well, after seeing that in our school textbooks a million times, I know how to spell Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, etc… but I’ve forgotten how to spell Christianity!”  LOL)

(ht to Todd Pearage)

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Super Bowl Party Confusion

Posted on: 01/31/11 2:43 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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The Super Bowl is this Sunday. (My son and I will be at the Chicago Ohare airport waiting for our flight home- we’ll only catch the first half of the big game. DOH!!)

For years churches in the U.S. have loved to use the “Big Game” as a tool for connecting with people. Whether youth ministries, men’s ministries or church-wide events… we’ve seen them… Super Bowl parties.

A few things you should know about these parties.

Years ago some churches got into some trouble with the NFL. The short of it was this– the NFL wasn’t allowing live showings of the game on anything over a 55 inch screen. People threw a tizzy fit. So in 2009, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell changed that.

Some people are still confused about the rules and restrictions. No worries! Here’s a law abiding Texan with a mullet who will make things crystal clear for you:

CLICK HERE IF YOU CAN’T SEE THE IMBEDDED YOUTUBE VIDEO.

For those of you looking for some fun resources for the “Big Game” (see… I listened!), we provide a quiz with some fun “Big Game” party ideas every year (Here’s last year’s BIG GAME QUIZ and ideas).

This year we’ll be sending out the BIG GAME QUIZ to our EZINE LIST Tuesday morning (if you aren’t a subscriber to our free youth ministry EZINE, you can jump on TheSource4YM.com and easily subscribe at the top of any page). We’ll probably also post a link for the quiz on the WHAT’S NEW section on the front page of our site as well.

Enjoy the “Big Game!”

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Gaga Releases “Born This Way” Lyrics

Posted on: 01/28/11 11:33 AM | by Jonathan McKee

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Lady Gaga’s Twitter fans received a tweet from her yesterday saying, “Maybe I should leak the lyrics to Born This Way today…” A few hours later, she released the lyrics to her song that will release February 13th.

MTV just covered the tweeting event, with the headline, “Gaga sings about love and equality…”

For those of you who haven’t heard, Gaga has become a huge advocate for LGBT (an acronym referring collectively to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people), specifically speaking against the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell,” and speaking loudly for LGBT rights, after all, she claims, they are “born this way.”

A glimpse at these newly posted lyrics:

DON’T BE A DRAG -JUST BE A QUEEN…

IN THE RELIGION OF THE INSECURE
I MUST BE MYSELF, RESPECT MY YOUTH

A DIFFERENT LOVER IS NOT A SIN
BELIEVE CAPITAL H-I-M (HEY HEY HEY)
I LOVE MY LIFE I LOVE THIS RECORD AND
MI AMORE VOLE FE YAH (LOVE NEEDS FAITH)

CHORUS:
I’M BEAUTIFUL IN MY WAY
‘CAUSE GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES
I’M ON THE RIGHT TRACK BABY
I WAS BORN THIS WAY

David R. Smith– my good friend, co-author of my new book, and author of many of our Youth Culture WIndow articles (including the brand new expose’ about Lil Wayne launching this weekend) — and I talked this morning for about an hour about Gaga’s release of these lyrics and upcoming song. We discussed the ramifications of speaking out about this issue. It’s an emotional issue for some, a political issue for many.

We’ve decided that we’re going to address the issue of homosexuality, despite the criticism that might come. Pray for us as we write a Youth Culture Window article this week. Pray that it would clearly communicate God’s compassion for everyone, but not stray from his unchanging call to holiness, even when it’s not politically correct.

You’ll see that article in one week.

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MTV Goes Too Far?

Posted on: 01/26/11 6:10 PM | by Jonathan McKee

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When I was in Korea, I quickly blogged with you about MTV’s new show Skins, a racy look at teen partying, sex and drug abuse.

I promised you more.

This week, we’ve featured an entire Youth Culture Window article about the show. I encourage you to take a peek at this article, and chime in with your own comments. Some great discussion already about whether MTV is just portraying reality (don’t students always lay around in a pile like this?)… or is MTV simply being irresponsible once again.

One thing for sure, MTV is definitely taking some heat with this one. Who knows. Maybe the execs are secretly giggling, welcoming the controversial publicity. But I wouldn’t be so sure. Being accused of “violating child porn laws” is a serious onslaught.

Take a peek at our article HERE.

UPDATE: Another article about MTV “standing by” Skins, despite the number of advertisers pulling out and despite the U.S. government investigation into possible violations of laws on the sexual exploitation of minors. Read about that here: http://reut.rs/eLhjbJ

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And Your Mom’s Gonna Hate It

Posted on: 01/19/11 6:42 AM | by Jonathan McKee

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It’s no secret that controversy can be a good marketing tool.

Maybe that’s why the makers of Dead Space 2 are trying an interesting viral video approach to market their new violent video game. (So is my blogging about it helping them? Hmmmmm.)

The game creators sat down hundreds of moms and filmed their reactions to the most violent and horrific scenes from the game, showing us their facial expressions in a commercial. Then they provide comments from some of the moms, comments like, “It’s horrible!” “It’s demonic!” Then the commercial finishes with the slogan, “It’s everything you love in a game, and your mom’s gonna hate it!”

Here’s the video.

Creative marketing, I’ll give it that. It just worked for MTV’s Skins earlier this week. When the Parents Television Council deems your show “the most dangerous show for teens,” it helps create a hype.

Remember when churches tried to ban Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. The film didn’t even need previews. Every news station was chatting about the controversy.

Video games have been the center of controversy for decades. This week on our web page David provides an amazing insight into the recent gaming world in his brand new Youth Culture Window article, The Dominance of Video Games: And What it Means for Today’s Teenagers.

(ht to Jon Forrest)

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