Tumblr

Just a word for the 2-4 people who check this, I've been posting alot more stuff at http://brittonlatham.tumblr.com

KiteBoarding

I remember the first time I saw someone kiteboard on tv. And I remember the first time I saw someone do it in person.

"Mirrors" - A Flat Water Dream from Flysurfer Kiteboarding on Vimeo.

Epic Kites - Get Outta My Way from Big Fall Productions on Vimeo.

There are few things that I want to do more. Don't bristle at that. I'm not including things like having kids and reaching the world. There are few things I'd rather do with some free time on a Saturday. I've got to try it. Christmas present buyers take note.

Tumblr

I've been posting on Tumblr recently. Its just easier with everything that's going on. This blog is still live and will continue to house my longer pontifications. There's much to be said for brevity. Check it out.

Mr. and Mrs. Stricklin

Saturday I had the honor of officiating the wedding of my sister-in-law Rachel and her now-husband Drew. It was simply awesome.

The week before, the whole family came out to Texas to see me graduate and be ordained. We spent the weekend exploring the small corners of DFW that Jessica and I have come to love. It meant so much that they would all take off work, move exams around, and then drive all the way over here. Sunday we caravaned (sp?) back to 'bama. A side window in the Reynolds' van exploded on the interstate. My grandmother hypothesized that someone in LA shot at us because of our AL plates. Once we were back it was wedding week. I'm not going to lie... I was nervous. More nervous than I was at my own wedding. It was an outdoor ceremony. Everything looked beautiful. My father-in-law used a blower to blast pollen at the astoundingly lazy owner of the place.


I spent a great deal of time preparing for the wedding. I thought about what I would say, how I would say it, how people should move, how the music should transition, how to keep D&R from crying, how to remember to do all the major parts (vows, rings, kiss). I never thought about the vantage point I would have. Standing right in front of two people being joined together forever was humbling. Leading them through the vows that will direct and guard their marriage impacted me. It was an honor to be a part of.

I've been typing and deleting alot. I'll just say that its hard to express how excited I am for them.

Anticipation

There are some big changes coming our way. In two months (God willing)

• I will have graduated from Southwestern
• Jessica and I will be living in another city in another state
• I will finally be doing ministry full time
• I will be ordained
• I will have married two couples (so crazy)

To be honest, the anticipation of it all is pretty rough. I've loved our time here. I've built some great relationships, seen God do some amazing things, and learned more than I'd like to admit. Jessica and I have really made this place our home. But now, two short months away from a new chapter in the Ballad of Britton Latham, I'm having a hard time staying engaged. In fact, at this very moment I'm at a coffee shop "writing a paper." You see how well that's working.

Remember that scene in the first Matrix when Neo is rescuing Morpheus? (Yes I'm about to compare myself to Laurence Fishburne). He's running for the helicopter, trips, and basically tumbles toward the helicopter. I sort of feel like that... mixed with a little Buzz Lightyear.

The bottom line is (literally) that I'm crazy excited about what God is doing and where he's taking us.

Social

The stats on social networking use are staggering. I personally think that their success can be attributed to our desire for real connections with others. But real connections take time and effort... Twitter is much easier and seems almost as good. Right. Well, I think it is important for me, as a youth pastor, to understand developments in how we communicate and relate to one another. Consequently I have an ever-growing collection of social networking accounts. Most are under the name brittonlatham. You can find a list over on the right. I hope some of what you find while poking around in the links is interesting or helpful. If nothing else, you'll see what some of the networks look like.

For more information about social networking stats and trends, go to www.mashable.com. Better yet, get an RSS reader, or use Google's free GoogleReader, load it up with useful stuff, and let it track everything for you.

Lying

Jessica and I just saw The Invention of Lying. If you been holding your breath waiting for it to come out and the slightest spoiler would crush you… you may want to read this later. Otherwise, the movie is based on a fictional world where no one has the ability to lie. One man figures out how to do it, and changes the world because of it. The film deals with issues of morality, as you might expect, but goes quite a bit further into the realm of religion. In the film, the main character finds himself sitting next to his dying mother’s hospital bed, listening as she tells him how afraid she is of entering an eternity of nothingness. It is at this moment that the main character, Mark, tells yet another lie. He tells his mother that when she dies, she will go to the greatest place she can imagine, be given her own mansion, and will see everyone she’s ever loved. The news spreads quickly and Mark winds up inventing a fantastic story of a Man in The Sky who controls everything, causes all good and bad things to happen, gives an eternity of happiness (complete with mansions) to all who do three or less bad things in their life. Mark doesn’t have all the answers, but tells everyone that he is hearing directly from the Man In The Sky, so they don’t worry too much about the details. Later, Mark is seen answering his door with long hair and a beard with his bed sheet wrapped around him, looking conspicuously like a pudgy Jesus impersonator. One of the final scenes is a wedding in small country church with a monstrous steeple. The sign out front reads, “A quiet place to think about the Man in the Sky.”

Basically, the movie mocks what some consider Christianity. It will make any believer feel uncomfortable. Religion in general is not being mocked. One specific religion is. Honestly, my first reaction was to respond defensively, blasting the movie and its ignorant stance. That, however, is not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I’ve been fixed on the reason why such errant views of Christianity exist.

If all you knew about Christianity is that it teaches that there is an invisible guy somewhere in the sky controlling everything, arbitrarily sending some people to heaven and some to a place called hell, and that there was a guy named Jesus who fits in there somewhere… well you’d probably mock it too. Christianity would seem juvenile, inane, and manipulative. You would compare it to social ideas of the day and matters of scientific investigation and find it woefully inadequate. Christianity like that is not worth your time. It is stupid.

In fact, it isn’t even remotely Christian. Not even close. That idea of religion is just as ridiculous to me as it is to those who wrote the movie. It doesn’t make any sense.

Christianity is valid. Really. Those who think otherwise are uninformed. They do not have adequate information to decide for themselves whether or not it is worth believing. They’ve heard a whisper distorted by the wind. That is what the world rejects as intellectually irrelevant.

We have created this situation ourselves. Christians have withdrawn from the arena of viable ideas for fear of being disagreed with. The world, your classmates and co-workers, have no idea what Christianity really means. They’ve been fed a parody and spit it out. Movies, pop-stars, and sitcoms have propogated a mutilation of the truth, and no one has corrected them. This is the view that has been rejected, not Christianity.

Watching this movie has reminded me of the importance of deep Biblical teaching and study. The junior high and high school students that I work with every day are largely unprepared to explain, let alone defend, what they believe in a logically consistent way. Can you explain the Gospel clearly? Could you tell someone why they need a savior, how Jesus is that savior, and what they should do about it? For those unbelievers out there, can you explain that? If you can’t explain my view, how can you be so ready to reject it? I know your position. I lived it.

We have a responsibility to think critically about our faith. The world mocks Christianity because it believes it is nonsense. The problem is that too many of us are unprepared to show them otherwise.

Mark did lie. Be able and willing to explain why.