Imagine the Word

2010-05-27T19:53:00.003-04:00

Just listened to a great podcast at The Noble Heart, a conversation with Brian Golter & Gary Barkalow discussing "Search & Rescue", the need for, and roll of a mentor / "sage" in our lives. Inspiring stuff, give her a listen at: http://www.thenobleheart.com/#/podcasts/4539573809

Orphan Statistics

2010-04-26T12:12:00.002-04:00

Orphan Statistics

It is estimated there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF report.)

The current population of the United States is just a little over 300 million… to give you an idea of the enormity of the numbers… (The current population of Russia is 141 million)

Every day 5,760 more children become orphans

2,102,400 more children become orphans every year in Africa alone

Every 15 seconds, another child in Africa becomes an AIDS orphan

There are an estimated 14 million AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa (a number higher than the total of every under-eighteen year old in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland combined)

This figure is estimated to reach 18 million orphans in Africa alone by 2010 (only two and a half years away)

8 out of 10 children orphaned by AIDS lives in sub-saharan Africa

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…

Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen

Each day 38,493 orphans age out

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

Heading to Edmonton May 7-11th!

2010-04-25T15:06:00.003-04:00

Looking forward to my upcoming trip to Edmonton, AB. I've lived in Alberta for the better part of ten years, so it's a bit of a homecoming each time I make it back to the Prairies. My good friend and former colleague Myron Penner (Myron and I co-authored a book together back in 07 "A Knew Kind of Conversation")has arranged for a number of presentations of Mark's Gospel for the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton. I think Taylor Seminary is also having me present too. Can't wait. Go Flames Go!

fighting fundies

2008-11-10T13:55:00.000-05:00

Newport Half Marathon is Coming! Yikes

2008-09-23T09:34:00.002-04:00

This is the first time i've ever ventured anything like this, and I'm a getting keyed up. A great place to run, along the Hudson River looking out over Elis Island, the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan Skyline! And it's all flat, which is a BIG help. Last night I started getting a percpective on 13 miles as I mapped out how far that would be in relation to places near by my house, thats when fear set in. 13 miles is a long distance! Here is the course I will be running on Sunday.

interview on home 106fm

2008-09-12T15:23:00.003-04:00

Yesterday had a little interview on Spring Arbor's College radio station home 106fm here in Spring Arbor, what a great little station. Tonight I do Mark at the College theatre called the "prop shop" should be fun.

Imagine the Bronx!

2008-09-12T15:12:00.004-04:00

Had a great time at Fellowship Church in the Bronx two weeks ago, haven't had time to post about it, but I did want to mention this ministry date and the great blessing it was to me. My professor at Alliance Theological Seminary in Manhattan Dr. Louis DeCarro is Pastor of this Church, and invited me to come share the Gospel of Mark with his congregation. His wife is an amazing singer and leader of worship, they really made me feel at home, and I was blessed to see this little Church doing the work of God in this place. Five days a week the ladies of Fellowship Bible run a breakfast kitchen for folks in the neighborhood, and the place is packed everyday! An added bonus was being able to bring my old friend from Grad school Chuck Goodin with me, he ran sound and drove me to and from the city.

Let your light shine!

2008-08-14T08:16:00.002-04:00

I've been spending the week with the Salvation Army doing some teaching at their arts conservatory and came across this story. I want to let my light shine like this.

In 1891 The Salvation Army opened its own match factory on Lamprell Street, in Old Ford, London, England, in answer to the pressing social problem of necrosis, popularly known as “phossy jaw”*.

In the match industry the work of making matches was usually done by young women, who hand-dipped the wooden match stems in white phosphorus, a chemical that was very dangerous and potentially fatal. Continuous exposure to this phosphorus on-the-job meant the jaw-bones of workers rotted away, facial skin glowed greenish-white in the dark and eventually led to brain damage. The Army challenged the industry by using non-toxic red phosphorus, providing better working conditions and by paying the workers higher wages.

Before long Army matches, known as “Lights in Darkest England”, caught the imagination of the public and forced the matchmakers to become aware of the social consequences of their work practices. Having accomplished its purpose, the Army closed its factory in 1901, though it took nine years before government legislation ensured that safety matches were indeed safe.

Good times in Wilmington

2008-07-29T09:54:00.003-04:00

Heather and I spent this last weekend in Wilmington, NC where I performed for an event coordinated by Pastor Terry Henry and the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church. Pastor Henry and I met up at Gordon Conwell Seminary in Boston this past May. What a treat it was, they put us up in a hotel right on the beach for three days, while our girls stayed at good friends back in Jersey. We haven't had this kind of time alone since Abbie was born, thats 13 years!

Thank you Terry!

Extravagant Expectations

2008-07-21T11:25:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday I preached from Acts 19:8-20 and used a quote from the forward of Daniel Boorstin’s book “Image: a Guide to Pseudo Events in America” . I tried to connect the idea of magic, or the manipulation of spirits, (which we see in that Chapter with the Seven Sons of Sceva, who were using the name of Jesus as a kind of magical incantation to get what they want) with our cultures worship of consumerism, hedonism and nationalism. Comparing their idolatry with ours, Boorstin helped, heres the quote:

When we pick up our newspaper at breakfast, we expect --we even demand--that it bring us momentous events since the night before. We turn on the car radio as we drive to work and expect “news” to have occurred. in the evening, we expect our house to only to shelter us, to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but to relax us, to dignify us, to encompass us with soft music and interesting hobbies, to be a playground, a theatre, and a bar. We expect our two-week vacation to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless. We expect a faraway atmosphere if we go to a nearby place; and we expect everything to be relaxing, sanitary, and Americanized if we go to a faraway place. We expect new heroes every season, a literary masterpiece every month a dramatic spectacular every week, a rare sensation every night. We expect everybody to feel free to disagree, yet we expect everybody to be loyal, not to rock the boat or take the Fifth Amendment. We expect everybody to believe deeply in his religion, yet not to think less of others for not believing. We expect our nation to be strong and great and vast and varied and prepared for every challenge; yet we expect our “national purpose” to be clear and simple, something that can be bought in a paperback at the corner drugstore for a dollar.

We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars to be spacious; luxury cars to be economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for “excellences,” to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy. We expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly, to go to a “Church of our choice” and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God, and to be God.

Never has people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.

We are ruled by extravagant expectation:

Thats My King!

2008-07-20T21:01:00.004-04:00

This is an excerpt from the late Dr. Shadrach Meshach (S.M.) Lockridge Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego. I preached this weekend from Acts 19, the passage that includes the story of the seven sons of Sceva who invoked the name of Jesus in an effort to ply their trade as itinerant exorcist mystics. I thought it an interesting counter point to see the way Dr. Lockridge invoked the name of Jesus. I've included two videos, the first one is the one that was shown in church and is shorter. the second one includes the entire excerpt from his sermon.

Setting my sights!

2008-07-15T08:11:00.003-04:00

I live on the Delaware & Raritan Canal Path, and am just discovering what a great place this is for running. Not only is it ever beautiful, with lots of wildlife (yesterday I saw a spotted faun right off the path) But it has great predetermined mileage sites, each site is about two and a half miles apart. This will be great for training for the half-marathon I am hoping to run at the end of August at Liberty State Park, there on the banks of the Hudson, looking over the Manhattan skyline. I don't even want to mention the other running goal I have for later in November.

Yesterday ran five miles from the Weston Bridge to Amwell Rd. By the end of this month I hope to be running from Weston to Blackwell's Mills Bridge and back. heaven help me, I'll need it

Mark 9:42

2008-07-12T11:45:00.001-04:00

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

running lessons

2008-07-12T11:18:00.002-04:00

I’ve been running lately and have been struck again with how much of a mental challenge it can be. I remember a lesson that came to me in my early twenties when rode my bicycle on the Oregon coast. One particular day I put in over a hundred miles, and if you’ve been up highway 101 you know that the roads are steep, circuitous and spectacular. It was the steepness that I was having troubles with. I soon realized that if I focused on the 15 feet in front of me, and just completed that distance, one section at a time, somehow, seeming inexplicably, I was able to move through mountain after mountain, till I finally reached home.

Well the same lesson is impressing itself upon me again as I hoof my way down the Raritan Canal path, it’s amazing how much it helps me accomplish my puny little running goals. A good lesson for me in other areas of my life too, like prayer.

Presentation Zen

2008-07-10T08:23:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking a bit about using some presentation graphics, some visual reinforcements with the lectures and sermons I am called to give now and then, but like many of you I've experience too many death's by presentation to really push me too far along this path. I've used powerpoint very sparingly. Powerpoint kills, has been my unspoken montra. Then my good friend Dr. Jeff Arthurs who is a professor of homiletics at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, inspired me to explore a little further with it. to my surprise he said he had found powerpoint to be helpful with some of his work. I know Jeff is a real word and presentation-smith, so it got me thinking. Then I stumbled upon a youtube from an old classmate of mine from high school named Garr Reynolds, who happens to be a highly sought after guru on matters related to visual presentations; powerpoint etc. He has written a popular blog called "presentation zen" and followed it with a book. The presentation above was given to the folks at Google.

Garr hasn't changed a bit since I last saw him in 1982!

Ecclesiastes 3:4 "...a time to dance"

2008-07-10T08:14:00.002-04:00

I haven't used this site in some time, so I thought I'd kick things off again with this post that I picked this up from NPR this morning, made my day.

“Matt Harding has gained a cult following for making and posting YouTube videos of himself in various exotic locales — dancing badly.

Harding ditched his job as a video game designer in 2003 to backpack around Asia. The recordings of his international jigging soon gained him Internet fame. Corporate sponsorship followed, funding more travels and new dancing videos.

In 2007, with backing from a gum company, Harding announced his intention to circle the globe again. He received more than 20,000 invitations from fans around the world to come dance with them in their hometowns. He took them up on their offers and roped others he encountered on his travels into boogieing with him as well.

The video Harding made from these travels, of communal bad dancing, went instantly viral when it was posted on YouTube at the end of June. Fueled by blog postings and e-mail forwards, the video garnered more than 3 million views its first week up.”

My Neighbor's Ministries

2007-02-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

Hear Their Alpha Story!

2007-01-26T20:35:00.000-05:00

Linda and Shelly have been best friends since preschool, hear how their life was changed during the Alpha course.

2006-12-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

Mark His Word Promotional video

2006-10-29T22:04:00.000-05:00

2006-05-19T10:44:00.000-04:00

2006-05-19T10:30:00.000-04:00

2006-05-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

Latest Radio Spots

2006-04-27T16:20:00.000-04:00

Here is the latest radio spot I did for my Church, David A Dean from STAR 99.1 did a great job of producing it. I've been tasked with trying to produce humerous spots, most of what we've used on air up till now has been fairly serious, we thought it good to remind ourselves and the world that we are capable of laughing at ourselves.

The concept behind this one is a recovery group for classic tv junkies.

April is National Poetry Month!

2006-04-27T14:13:00.000-04:00

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Seing that it's Poetry month I thought I read you one by GM Hopkins.

The Man Who Was Thursday

2006-04-27T12:42:00.000-04:00

A web address resurfaced today, and I was delighted to hear Orson Wells and the famous Mercury Radio Theatre telling the Wonder(filled) story of GK. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday". This is one of my favorit of Chesterton's work, am still waiting for the day when I see a stage version of the book. This radio production was originally aired in 1938. Radio is a great vehicle for this story...oh for the glorious days of radio theatre!

The Gospel of Mark over NYC

2006-04-23T21:52:00.000-04:00

Mark airs over NYC! I was given the privilege of performing Mark's Gospel on Easter Sunday at our Church. Our services are broadcast on WAWZ on the following Sunday, so today the Gospel of Mark went out over the air in to the Big Apple!

It's a Wrap!

2006-04-23T21:33:00.000-04:00

My girls were eager to be in their schools spring musical Oliver! So I figured I would use the oportunity to spend some time with our girls by volunteering to direct the show. We had our final performance last night, and after all was said and done the girls had a great time and the folks who came to out seemed to enjoy the show. I was struck again through the whole process how important telling stories are for children and their families, they become an important affirmation of much of what we value, and hope to express to our kids, and the community involvment that emerges from these events become an important expression of our responsibility to one another. I've attached my director's note from the play program below, they express some of these sentinments

Director’s Note:

My three girls (two of whom are in the cast of Oliver) and I have been reading through Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince these last weeks of rehearsal. During these times, I have been struck by a similarity of thought expressed in Antoine’s tale of the Little Prince who fell to earth with that of Dickens orphaned Oliver. Both tales seem to suggest to the world that Love is something to be sought after and nurtured when found.

The Little Prince comes from a tiny star where he tended three volcanoes and a single rose, and the flower becomes an intimate and loving friend to the boy. Eventually the Prince leaves his little planet and his own rose and finds his way to earth, where thousands of roses can be found in peoples gardens. Yet amidst the Little Prince’s travels and amidst all the flowers on earth, the young boy felt a loss of meaning for his life. People where you live the little prince said to his pilot friend, grow five thousand roses in one garden yet they don’t find what they’re looking for and yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, and he added But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.

Of course Jesus reminds us that finding Love is more than just a matter of looking with the heart. For the heart to see rightly, the hand needs to give generously. That’s the deeper wisdom the Little Prince goes on to reveal when he responds to the rose’s simple request, “Would you be so kind as to tend to me?” This gift of Love by the Prince made his rose the only one in the whole world. It’s the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important, the wise fox told him. Take that gift away, and the one special flower blends into 100,000 other roses. In the same way, the character Oliver, one of thousands of orphans littering the streets of Dickens London, was looking for someone to be so kind as to tend to him. Roaming the markets, he questions the world as he sings out the memorable song Where is Love?

For many of you tonight, your attendance at this play is an answer to Oliver’s question. You are tending to your rose tonight and - through many, and late rehearsals, through the sewing of costumes, running sound, giving up work time, free time, missing weekends and spring break, driving, waiting, and more driving - all for the sake of spending time and caring for your rose. The more you tend, the more important they become to you; and the more alive you, we and they are!. The production team thanks you for this gesture. We know that it comes from a heart that is learning such things from Him who loved first I Jn 3:16.

In His Grace,

Hunter Barnes

Black History Month

2006-02-16T10:20:00.000-05:00

My sixth grade teacher Mr. Paterson at Parkside Elementary School in San Bernardino California was a black man teaching in a white neighborhood in 1977, a pretty rare thing even then. He also was a Pastor, preaching on weekends. He had our class memorize Dr. King's "I Have A Dream Speech". Dr. King's life and words have no doubt changed our world for the better, and has even impacted my life. But my sixth grade teacher did more for my sense of justice and the need for all peoples to be treated with dignity then Martin Luther King, Jr. I had a giant of justice in my classroom everyday.

"Artists as Reconcilers"

2006-02-16T09:56:00.000-05:00

International Arts Movement is hosting its 2006 15th Anniversary Conference next week in New York City. I'm really looking forward to what should be a very interesting conference. The keynote line-up is impressive, and the organizers must be applauded for selecting the like of Miroslav Volf author of "Exclusion and Embrace" and professor of Theology at Yale Divinity. I picked up "Exclusion & Embrace a couple of years ago, and continue to go back to it. Volf's theology is a deeply personal exploration into the call and costs of a Gospel of reconcillation. I'm eager to hear what he has to say to artists and the role we play in the Gospel as reconcilers. Other guest include; poet & chairperson of the national endowment of the arts, Dana Gioia; two time emmy winning actress Patricia Heaton from "Everybody Loves Raymond" and founder of IAM, painter, and member of the National Council of the Arts; Makoto Fujimura! There is still time to register to the conference.

Pennyroyal Caxton Edition of the Holy Bible

2006-02-09T09:14:00.000-05:00

Stepped in to borders books the other day to pick up a book on Adobe's "Audition" software for sound recording, and found a book on the clearance rack for $9 dollars, a paperback version of the Pennyroyal Caxton Edition of the Bible! I first heard of this Bible back in early December when I went into Manhattan to pick up our visas for India. We had a few hours to wait till we could pick them up, so on a whim I called the American Bible Society offices which are located on 61st and Broadway right off Columbus Circle, to see if we could get a tour of their rare books collection, and low and behold they said yes! Pastor Nash and myself were given a personal tour of the second largest historic Bible collection in the world, second only to the collection held at Cambridge. And one of the Bibles that caught my was the Pennyroyal Caxton, illustrated and designed by the artist Berry Moser. This was a recent publication, the newest in their collection of rare Bibles, and the price tag of the copy they showed us was a $30,000 edition one of fifty copies, on handmade paper with original drawings a book that took over four years to create, done in the same tradition of those who created the illuminated Bible's in the middle ages, with true craftsmanship and artistry. And what artistry there is in Moser's work. Catharine Madsen described it in her article in Crosscurents entitled A Terrible Beauty by saying:"No artist since Rembrandt has handled biblical subjects with such intimate confidence and such trust in the unbeautified human face; no illustrated Bible has so rooted itself in the modern sensibility." And I would whole heartedly agree. I've often hoped for an illustrated bible to share with my children, that would awaken their imagination to the wonders of the text, and away from the cheap plasticization of disney like sensibilities. Something that will stir their souls, even haunt them, anything but trivialize. Moser has taken the risk and through his illustration made the Bible both utterly strange and more strangely familiar. And I found my large paperback (10x17in) on clearance for $9.00 bucks! Something very disturbing about that which I wont get into now. You can purchase a Trade Edition of the Caxton edition for $250.(first edition) or a second edition Trade for $120 here or individual prints. or keep your eyes on the clearance racks, you never know what you'll find.

Screwtape Letters

2006-02-05T15:44:00.000-05:00

Went in to the City to see Max Maclean perform in an adaptation of C.S Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters". The performance was at theatre 315, a new space owned and operated by the Salvation Army. it's located between 44th and 7th Ave. right off of time square. The city is always a charge, we drove in this time and parked right outside the Lincoln tunnel, and walked our way through the theatre district on a rainy night, ended up buying little black umbrellas from some Nigerian folks on the street corner. You can always count on being able to get your incliment weather essentials on the street if ever you forget to bring your own. Things were still clipping along even with the weather. We actually ushered for the show, the director is an aquaintence of mine, and we got an email mentioning the need, and we were happy to oblige. Enjoyed the show, the material is deeply layered but, the ideas, the arguments great reading, theatrically challenging. Bringing the monologues to some type of physical life proved tough, but for the initiate, lovers of Lewis were no doubt pleased with the offering. And Max Maclean seemed entirley suited for the role. Great voice.

Tommy Lee Jones & Flannery O' Conner

2006-02-04T09:08:00.000-05:00

In December, Barry Pepper talked about the influence of the Bible and the works of Flannery O'Connor on The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, written and directed by Tommy Lee Jones. Now Jones himself discusses the subject in the Boston Globe:

Flannery O'Connor matters to this movie first because Jones wrote his cum laude thesis at Harvard on her. Second, family members of the film's coproducer, Michael Fitzgerald, are executors of O'Connor's literary estate. ''So we both knew our O'Connor rather well, and it was just a natural approach for me."

''O'Connor is important to the way this movie is constructed," he continues. ''What you do is you consider some so-called religious thinking without the didacticism of the classical approach. You look for the allegorical intentions of what we're taught in the Bible, and then find some way to have it revealed or expressed by common experience. You'll find this happening over and over again in O'Connor, who was a rather classical Catholic thinker who wrote about nothing but backwoods north Georgia rednecks."

''Ecclesiastes is essential to the movie as well," he says. ''It has to do with the passage of time. You want to start thinking as an actor that the past, the present, and the future are occurring simultaneously, and God requires an accounting of all three."

And on this NPR interview Jones says:

People ask me to describe Huey Calloway, the character you just heard, and I've found it convenient to describe him as a Buddhist soul in a Calvinist world, and I haven't yet thought up a catch phrase for Three Burials, but it has something to do with the consideration of the mechanics of faith.

And from there he starts talking about Flannery O'Connor again.

2006-02-03T12:20:00.000-05:00

kids, cricket and trains through the night

2006-02-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

Attended the dedication of a new prayer hall in the village of Nandigama. About 120 kids and 8 widows and their children live here. Most of the children’s parents are poor farmers, some only have one parent and can’t afford to raise them, some have no parents at all, orphans. This is a great place, the widows each have their own little apartment, and are allowed to live here till there children are all in school. There was quite the celebration, once again we were ushered in to the complex with showers of flowers petals. And the highlight of the day was the baptism of 38 people. While here we took photos and biographical information from each child and compiled them into a database with a sponsorship card. After two weeks back at Zarephath we were able to have over 60 kids sponsored from the home. Also got to play a hybrid game of baseball/cricket with the boys, they had a much easier time hitting my baseball pitches than I had hitting their cricket bowling. That night we left Khammam for a two day trip to Chennai, formerly known as Madras. Took an overnight train departing at 12:30am and we arrived around 11:00am. What a trip, ended up getting after the steward in our train car, he sold our reserved beds before we boarded the train. Our group of 11 were standing in the little isles of the train, in the dark with our luggage, wondering where we were going to sit, let alone sleep for the night. I chased the steward down and demand that he evict those who were occupying our bunks, we went back and forth with one another, but he eventually found bunks for all of us. My guess is that double selling bunks is a common practice on these trains. The train was quite an experience, now I feel like I’ve really been to India.

The Mission

2006-01-31T09:58:00.000-05:00

Heather had a present for me when I returned from India, something I've wanted for a long time: Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for the film "The Mission". "Gabriel's Oboe" is an all time favorite. If you havent heard it, you can buy the song for a buck on itunes. well worth the dollar.

Back to my journal entries from India

2006-01-31T09:43:00.000-05:00

Today a church dedication in the most rural setting to date. Farmers out threshing and winnowing the rice crop in the field, the same way they have for thousands of years. The church we are visiting is made of Indian Gypsies. They have vibrant costumes, and are known for being charismatic followers of Jesus. When we arrived they processed us in with trumpet, drum, clarinet and folk dancing, showering us with flower petals all the way. The Pastor is known as a faith healer. Not sure what to think though, he wanted to show me his abilities by laying his hand on a young boy who seemed to swoon backwards in an almost rehearsed way, then fell to the ground, then the boy rose to his feet to repeat the gesture. Then the Pastor slapped the boy across the face as he swooned backwards, lifted him to his feet by his hair and repeated this again. I grimaced, tried to embrace the boy which probably confused everyone. I was confused and found myself getting angry and a bit of an attitude toward the pastor.

Ended the day with another church dedication outside of Khammam. Here over 200 people waited till dark for our arrival. The Pastor was moved to tears expressing his gratitude to God for sustaining him through two heart attacks, one year of Bible College and the construction of his small church. Amazing service, amazing people. Mosquitoes bout killed me.

Email from Mako Fujimura

2006-01-29T23:18:00.000-05:00

I just recieved this email from Mako Fujimora, the founder of IAM (International Arts Movement). I'm looking forward to the upcoming conference in New York. Listen to what is on Mako's heart
"I have a fifty year vision for the church that I will be sharing with artists at the conference. Today, if you interview anyone on the street with a question: "What do you think of when you think of the Christian church?" you can imagine what the answer would be...

"political extremism..."
"It's where I find the most segregated group of people..."
"It's where people boycott stuff they don't agree with..."

Or maybe for a few...

"It's where I found salvation..."

I am praying for that in fifty years, people would say:

"It's the source of my creativity, and it's where I experience beauty both in art and in my life." and for the blessed, "and I found the True and only Life through her in Jesus."

Now, my eldest son is 17, and in fifty years he will be 67 (and I will be,if I am still around, 95)! So this is certainly beyond our immediate influence. Which is why I like praying for something beyond our time. This means that we will have to train future leaders to think and teach this way,and that their off spring will be the one to see it happen. Would you join me in praying for that to happen? Yes, this is certainly God sized and we will not be able to make this happen except for God's power. Let us know what you decided to do, or how we can serve you in any way.

And, while you are at it,...pray for our 500 year vision! I'll be sending our more about that in the future...

Blessings upon your faithful service,"

Mako Fujimura

How Do Actors Remember Their Lines? or "I could have told you that"

2006-01-28T21:24:00.000-05:00

This is an article I pulled off of boingboing. Interesting and well...obvious really.

How do actors remember pages and pages of lines? Apparently, it's usually not through rote memorization. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her actor/director husband Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have spent twenty years studying the psychology of actors and their techniques. What they found could potentially be used by elderly individuals whose cognitive abilities are declining. The Noices report their latest results in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. From an Association for Psychological Science news release:

According to the researchers, the secret of actors' memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words' meaning -- the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them -- as well as on the physical and emotional dimensions of their performance.

To get inside the character, an actor will break a script down into a series of logically connected "beats" or intentions. Good actors don't think about their lines, but feel their character's intention in reaction to what the other actors do, causing their lines to come spontaneously and naturally. The researchers quote the great British actor Michael Caine: "You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor's face."

The key, the researchers have found, is a process called active experiencing, which they say uses "all physical, mental, and emotional channels to communicate the meaning of material to another person." It is a principle that can be applied off-stage as well as on. For example, students who studied material by imagining conveying its meaning to somebody else who needed the information showed higher retention than those who tried to memorize the material by rote.

Tree at My Window -- Robert Frost

2006-01-28T10:21:00.000-05:00

The tullip tree out my window, the girls refer to it as "Godzilla".

Jan 2nd

2006-01-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

Started things off with a visit to a school our Church funds, About 150 kids all together at the school all very thrilled and appreciative to have us there. After this we went to a day school for children with special needs, mostly mental, some with physical needs too. Then at about 4pm. The big event…driving back to Hyderabad to pick up Gladwyn who was arriving late, from the airport. This involved another hair raising ride, for four plus hours, IN THE DARK! The roads truly are treacherous here. Carcasses of vehicles litter the road all the way back. I prayed, then after a few minutes assumed a kind of strange fatalism toward the whole thing, began wondering how they would get my dead body back to the states, would they freeze me in a sitting position and purchase a seat for me on an airline, ship me back on ice in the cargo hold, or just cremate me here and send my ashes. Well the trip was thankfully uneventful, and my driver Ravi and I had a bit of an English class along the way. We arrived back in Khammam at around 3:00am. Roads all but empty as we hit the town, lots of dust, people sitting by open fires along the road, monkeys scavenging. Good to have Gladwyne with us.

Fear

2006-01-27T11:10:00.000-05:00

Joseph was afraid to return to Israel even after an angel appeared to him in Egypt telling him to return. Hearing that Archelaus, Herod's son was now the king, he instead went to Nazareth. God even uses our fear for his purposes, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that the move to Nazareth was a fulfillment of prophecy "he will be from Nazareth.."

Jan 1st 2006

2006-01-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

Had water buffalo milk with my cornflakes this morning. then made a two hr. drive to a little church outside of Khammmam in a rural village. Monkeys, mongoose, water buffalo, rice patties, cotton, palm trees and harvest time filled our windows on the way out. 400 people sat on the ground outside the Church under a colorful cabana, listening to their children recite scripture and sing. The ladies all arrived in their most colorful saris, it looked like a beautiful quilt, something Heather would love to see and make.

Driving in India

2006-01-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

I thought Taiwan and Mexico City would be good preparation for driving in India, both are frightful in their own right, but nothing can really compare, India tops them all. 5hrs. of white knuckle, nail biting, on the verge of disaster driving. Our drivers seemed to enjoy this immensely. We arrived in Khammam around 2:30 in the afternoon, we were served a meal then taken to our first visit to a leprosy colony. Nothing prepares you for this, even if we had been given some rest from our trip (which we had not). Around 100 were sitting when we arrived; they were waiting patiently on the ground outside. With apprehension I reached out and touched them, thinking all the while of one of my favorite stories in Mark, "Jesus full of compassion reached out and touched" the leper.
Azariah had each of us say a few words. I tried to convey part of this passage to them. I mentioned my girls inability to keep a secret from their mother at Christmas, and what a joy it is to watch them try and yet fail to keep that secret, and wondered whether Jesus felt the same way, the same joy, when he asked this leper who had just received healing from Jesus, NOT to "tell any anyone about this", and instead he "went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news!
Never a new years like this!

New Years Day India 2006

2006-01-27T10:21:00.000-05:00

Arrived in Hyderabad yesterday morning after over 24hrs of travel from London. Our route took us over Baghdad, Afghanistan and Iran to Delhi, from there we flew to Bombay, now officially referred to as Mumbai. We had a 5hr lay over before catching our last flight to Hyderabad. While wainting in Mumbai, I finally got the courage to ask a man who was part of an enormous group of (Muslim) pilgrims, all dressed in white, traveling together where they were going. A gentleman about my age, he politely told me that he and his family were making a "haj" to Mecca & Medina. They asked me where I was from and I had a brief moment of hesitation before I told them America. There was a noticeable hesitation in this man's face, but the simplicity of the gesture, two travelers simply curious about one another’s destination, quickly overtook our apprehensions, and we shook hands and wished each other well.
Arrived in Hyderabad around 9am. Moved from a small baggage claim area directly on to the streets where you are summarily overwrought with people moving in and on you; first the noise, then the heat, then the beggars; children, women draped in black, filthy, reaching out, "sir, please sir" placing their bony fingers to their mouths, a gesture of their need for food. The children riding on the hips of their mothers or sisters, seemed thrilled, enjoying a kind of game it seemed. Tom almost immediacy stepped in to a pile of human excrement. The beggars followed us to our car continuing their plea for money. I knew that the moment I offered one child money I'd be overwhelmed from all of them. My plans was to empty my pockets right before we left. Things work slower in India however, even things as simple as driving away, so after I pulled the money from my pockets, we had to endure the interminable tapping of our rolled up windows of women holding children, pleading for more. We were all still dressed for London, sweaters etc. noise, heat, smog, filth, excrement, beggars tapping...sealed up in our oven like car waiting to get out of there. welcome to India!

Retro Blog (Dec 29th)

2006-01-27T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to go back to my written journal of my recent trip to England and India and enter it here. Here goes:
Today went Downtown London, enjoyed the sights, dined in the West End at an Opera themed restaurant off of Covent Garden. Had Lamb for Diner. Rode the "London Eye", amazing vistas of the city, can't believe I was on and above the Thames today. Found the Cormorant fishing from above the river as magnificent as the city skyline below. I've heard the Chinese will domesticate these birds, tying a string around their throats, so they cant swallow, then sending them down to go fish, when they surface back to the boats they pull the fish out of their mouth. Smart way to fish! We walked by the Museum at County Hall, where Salvatore Dali is on display. Took a few photos of some larger sculpture on the river Thames, accessorized the skyline in quite a dreamy way. Was asked to perform parts of Mark's Gospel in the little old Chapel in Hendon, what a treat, the space is an old Anglican monastery which our church has owned since the 1930's. We leave for India tomorrow at 5:30 am.

Birches - Robert Frost

2006-01-27T09:24:00.000-05:00

A few years ago a student friend of mine Josva Halseide read this poem for me, and it kneaded it's way into my imagination.

2006-01-25T08:52:00.000-05:00

Hunter's Bio

2005-09-15T19:05:00.000-04:00

Hunter's background includes professional work as Actor and Writer. As an actor he was the recipient of Portfolio Magazine Best Actor Award, as well as the Regent University graduate theatre program's Best Actor Award for his performance of Stan in the American premier of Gillette Elvgren's Paper Wings. Hunter has a deep interest in narrative theory and orality and scripture, and has been working on a project in the performance of scripture through the Gospel of Mark for the past three years.

Film credits include Spencer & Venus, Love is Blind and ultra low budget Indie sleeper "Kung-Fu Made Easy". Hunter's latest writing project, the film short "Pavel's Chariot", was the recipient of a CINE Golden Eagle Award. The film has been screened at numerous film festivals throughout North America, including a screening at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles.

Hunter's teaching experiences have included stints at the Governors School of Performing Arts in Virginia, Christ's College in Taipei, Taiwan, Ketchikan High School, Ketchikan Alaska, and Prairie College in Three Hills Alberta, Canada. Hunter received his MA in Communication/Theatre Arts from Regent University in Virginia. Hunter lives in Zarephath New Jersey with his wife and three daughters, and is the Creative Arts Director for Zarephath Christian Church.

Leaving our Little House On The Prairie

2005-07-10T02:38:00.000-04:00

Five years ago when we were looking at moving to Three Hills, we started reading the “Little House” books with the girls, imagining what it would be like living in a little Prairie town with long cold winters. Well, it was even better than we imagined. We had long cold winters, good neighbors, and even got a dog named “Jack” just like the Ingalls dog. And to top it all off my good friend Royal Sproule, who also directs my Mark show ended up playing the shop owner in the made-for- TV mini-series of Little House on the Prairie! We sat eagerly in front of the TV each week waiting to see our friend Royal help our “friends” the Ingalls whenever they came to the town of Independence for supplies. Our journey to New Jersey began last summer when we toured the east performing for Compassion Canada. We scheduled a performance at Zarephath Christian Church and after our short time there we started a conversation with Pastor Rob about coming to New Jersey to work with the Church. I had been looking for an opportunity to work more directly with the local Church, and for a way to expand what I am doing with Mark, and this seemed to be a good fit for our family. So we made our decision this Spring and are now in the last stages of getting things packed up and ready. Soon we will be heading out with our Uhaul moving truck to New Jersey, to work with Pastor Rob Cruver and his team, as creative arts director. This is familiar territory for Heather, she grew up in this little community and Church, in fact we were married there 14 years ago!

Book Coming Soon!

2005-07-10T01:35:00.000-04:00

Last week my good friend, fellow parishioner and colleague at the college, Myron Penner and I signed a contract with Authentic Media & Paternoster Press to write a book! For Myron this is no surprise, in fact he just published a book with Brazos entitled “Christianity and the Postmodern Turn”. But for me this is something new altogether. Fears aside, we have started work on a unique writing project that will see the authoring of a book taking place on a blog site, then eventually moving into a print form. On August 1st you can be a part of this project yourself by going and contributing to the conversation at www.anewkindofconversation.com & www.pomofaith.com. We have teamed up with five of the brightest minds discussing Christianity and Postmodernism. Our contributors include Brian McLaren, author of “A New Kind of Conversation”, Bruce Ellis Benson, Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton, Ellen Haroutunian, writer & speaker, Mabiala Kenzo, Professor of Theology at Canadian Theological Seminary, and Myron B. Penner, Professor of Philosophy at Prairie College.
These five will be our main contributors to the blog, and any online reader can add their thoughts to the conversation and possibly be published in the book!
What am I doing in this auspicious crowd, you ask? Well, I’ve asked that myself and still haven't figured it out. The best I’ve come up with, or what I tell everyone, is that I am kind of the “idea guy”, and they believed me. The plan to do this book sprang from some of my ideas, shared in conversation with my good friend Myron. I’ll be co-author/editor with Myron, a project manager of sorts, and occasional blogger on the site too.
Be sure to check out the site. This is a brand new kind of book publishing project. We’ve received a lot of attention from our publisher, and have some big hopes for the quality of the conversation that lies ahead. Would love for you to be a part of it.

Small House Photos

2005-07-09T02:52:00.000-04:00

Mark His Word
The Canadian Badland Passion Play began today, this is the start of their 11th season. I performed in their little black box theatre, which has been staging shows for two years now. Interesting that I performed the role of Jesus for their first two seasons 11 years ago, and now with the advent of this new stage, I have performed the gospel of Mark for the first two years of their black box season. These are some photo's of the house. My technical assistant, was a former student of mine, Eric Forbes. Eric has been working as the technical director of the passion play for the last two years.

Year end review?

2005-07-07T10:43:00.000-04:00

Strange to have a year end summary/review in July, but it was in July three years ago that I had my first performance of Mark's gospel for the Prairie Bible College homecoming celebration. So summer becomes a marker for us (excuse the pun)ever since. Hard to believe we have performed this on both coasts over 100 times since that first attempt at Prairie. Lots has been learned, it's been fun looking back at how the show has and continues to evolove from those early performances. And the involvment from my directr and friend Royal Sproule continues to inspire me. This has been a really full and amazing year for Mark His Word. There have been over 50 performances since this time last year, with travels from Three Hills to Virginia and stops along the way in Ontario, New Jersey and California. And we finally got into the recording studio to produce a dramatic audio version of Mark. Our website has been redone and I’ve included a blog site which will allow me to keep in better touch with supporters and friends, as well as allow folks who have been to our shows to continue conversations that started at our performances. check things out at www.markhisword.org and click on the blog link.

Country Roads

2005-07-07T00:52:00.000-04:00

One week from today we will be trading these country roads for the New Jersey Turnpike!

Alberta's big skies have a few words of their own

2005-07-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

Small Houses

2005-07-05T13:40:00.000-04:00

I've just wrapped up my last performance at the Canadian Badlands Passion Playand all but two of the shows had fewer than 15 people in attendance, and it was what you might call an "intimate" performance. The two shows that exceeded this were sold out to the Society of Saint Vincent DePaul, for their annual convention being held in Calgary. These were great folks, and they are doing a great work helping the poor.

The previous photo is of the Canadian Badlands Passion Plays outdoor natural amphitheater in the Red Deer river valley in the town of Drumheller, Alberta. The geography in this beautiful part of Alberta is truly amazing. These Badlands are full of Dinosaur bones and audiences are surrounded by a Palestinian like landscape that transports you to a first century Israel. This is a cultural gem, and it has a team of artists that have been working together to produce powerful theatrical events for over ten years now. The costumes are exceptional, they are designed and constructed by Daniel Van Hyeist from Kings University in Edmonton. My show is NOT in the Amphitheater, it is in the adjacent black box space, an intimate little space that seats around 65 people. So for this run I have parked my Charlton Heston voice and am enjoying the nearness of a small house

I am performing the passion narrative of Mark's Gospel for the next three weeks (chapters 9-16). This is a great place, my association with the Passion play started 11 years ago, when I performed the role of Jesus in their inaugural season. I was 29 at the time and it was an incredible experience for me. Little did I know that it would in some ways be a precursor to the work that I do now with Mark's Gospel. I remember how satisfying (spiritually and artistically) the performance was and thinking that I was content as an actor and would not have to perform any other work again, that anything beyond that point was just gravy. Well, that was naive of me, but it did reflect what was and continues to be the most satisfying material I could ever imagine working with. This is my gig. I have done and will continue to do other kinds of work, but I believe that this is the core of my creative efforts. What a privilege to have been given these opportunities, to be a part of telling the most important story imaginable.

Mark In the studio!

2005-07-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

Mark is in the Studio! last week I began working with Mark Koop and Craig Learmont at MuzikHaus Studio here in Three Hills to record an audio version of the Gospel of Mark.

This project has been a long time in coming. We have had designs on doing an audio version of my Gospel of Mark performance for a couple of years now. Finally things have come together for me to work with Craig Learmont, a friend of mine here in Three Hills to produce this project. There will be two versions of the recording, one that will simply be the recorded voice and the other that will have the same music from my show soundscaped into the project. I owe the sound composition and design to my very talented director and friend, Royal Sproule . Royal has done so much in the creation of this ministry. His sound design has elevated the quality of the work in some very important ways. Most of the work was done using Garage Band software from Mac, that and some ingenious recording of he and my wife Heather's voice in a grain bin made for some very creative work.