The other night I caught Avatar in 3D with my cousin.  I don’t recall this movie being promoted very much (especially not with the vague trailer) but it has been getting a lot of great review and selling out at the theatres.  I didn’t know what to expect from the story but as the movie went on the plot was pretty predictable.  This movie was packed with everything: some comedy, romance, and a lot of great action.  The final combat scene reminded me a bit of Lord of the Rings when all the tribes joined forces.

What surprised me the most was how artistically brilliant the film was.  It was very well done, especially for a movie in 3D.  From the vibrant colours to the organic movement of Pandora’s nature, I found myself holding my breath many times while taking the wonders of this fantasy world.  My favourite parts of Pandora would definitely be the floating puffs that remind me jellyfish and the bark that lights up when it was stepped upon. This artistic direction in this movie is definitely on par with, maybe slightly surpassing, that of Pan’s Labyrinth, another one of my favourites.  The director, James Cameron who also gave us Titanic, waited years before finally releasing another movie.  He needed the right technology to bring his ideas to life…and boy was it worth the wait! Avatar has definitely shed some light for me on what the future of the movie experience may look like.

Check out the preview below (but I would skip it and just go watch the movie in theatres!):

Day 3 of the advent calendar, and it’s time for a Popular Favourite to return; yes, it’s that none-more-Christmassy effort by Val Doonican and his festive pals, which you can read some amazing behind the scenes facts about here.

This is a video made of me open air preaching at ISU after the Origin Into Schools Book Distribution.  It is a video experiment of sorts because the audio was bad so I overlaid the audio from a recorder I had on me.  This is the first time I have tried that and it was hard to see my mouth, so I hope  it got overlaid properly.  I also experimented with adding some text to point out a window being closed because I am such a loud mouth

Praise God He gave me a loud voice and put me in a country where you can freely read His Word and preach His Gospel!  Not only that, but He made me hard of hearing so the hecklers don’t bother me either!

Fonte: jornal O Dia de 27.11.2009.

Here’s the next band participating at the festival in 2010!!!

Spirit of Woodstock Festival 2010 – Artist-Spotlight: Nighttrain

Website:  www.nighttrainmusic.de
Myspace Seite:  www.myspace.com/nighttrainmusic05

Nighttrain-Konzerte beim Spirit of Woodstock Festival 2010:

Freitag, 30.07.2010

Samstag, 31.07.2010

Band-Info: Unsere Musik basiert auf starken Einflüssen wie Maiden und Whitesnake sowie Metallica und Snot, bleibt jedoch stets eingängig und vorallem eigenständig.
Auf der Suche nach Spaß, Anerkennung und Erfolg wurde Anfang diesen Jahres unser neuer Proberaum eingeweiht, in dem wir im Mai unser erstes Demo aufnahmen, welches im Dezember 2009 offiziell präsentiert wird.
Gegründet hat sich Nighttrain im Oktober 2008 und setzt sich wie folgt zusammen:

Kevin  (vox)
Dominik ( lead guit + vox)
Tobias (guit)
Simon (bass)
Benjamin (Drums + vox)

Wir stehen ein für gute Musik, für eine grandiose Show und dem Ansporn jedem Publikum einen beeindruckenden Abend zu schenken: Wir repräsentieren die Jugend, die den Metal für sich wieder entdeckt hat!

Kontakt: Toubsn@nighttrainmusic.de

darkfloor@gmx.net

Nighttrain: Our style is based upon impressions like Maiden, White Snake, Metallica and Snot, but always remains independent. Meanwhile our search for fun, authentication and success, we just finished our new studio, where we recorded our first tape we’ll publish in December 2009.

Nighttrain was founded in October 2008 and contains following members:

Kevin  (vox)
Dominik ( lead guit + vox)
Tobias (guit)
Simon (bass)
Benjamin (Drums + vox)

We stand for good music, for an awesome show and have the effort to donate an impressing evening to the audience: We represent the youth new founded the Metal!

Website:  www.nighttrainmusic.de
Myspace Seite:  www.myspace.com/nighttrainmusic05

Contact:  Toubsn@nighttrainmusic.de

darkfloor@gmx.net
Spirit of Woodstock Festival 2010 – concert dates Nighttrain:

Friday, 30.07.2010

Saturday, 31.07.2010

I hope to blog out my thoughts about EmergingUmc2: Restoring Missional Methodism over the next several days.  Here is my second attempt to summarize my experience at the conference. Here is my blog post from yesterday about the conference.

After our walking/missional tour of downtown Indianapolis, we returned to the church, had lunch, and finished up the official part of our Friday at EmergingUMC2.

We spent that afternoon talking about the early Methodists and the church structure that had developed since then.  Ultimately, it was this way of doing church that got us into the ditch  that we United Methodists now find ourselves in. 

One thing is clear; John Wesley and the early Methodists were the Shane Claibornes and ordinary radicals of their time and place.  Their ministries started in prisons, coal fields, factories, in the farm fields, etc.  They spoke out against injustice like slavery and industrial reform and primarily worked through small groups called classes.  Along with the social activism and small gatherings, these early Methodists also put emphasis on personal piety and discipline. 

According to Taylor Burton-Edwards, the EmergingUMC2 conference leader, the prevailing  spirit and structure of the early Methodists started to dissipate with the creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, especially as the church gained economic and political power and became part of the dominant, mainstream culture by its 100th birthday in 1884. 

The numbers lie sometimes but the United Methodist church is fading.  We are about to be passed by the Mormons for third place on the largest American denominations list, continue to lose hundreds of thousands of members each decade, and now the percentage of Americans who consider themselves United Methodist  have nearly been cut in half over the last forty years. (6% in 1970, 3% today).

Burton-Edwards argument on this Friday afternoon made a lot of sense; The church as congregation model hasn’t worked out very well and its well worth looking at what those early Methodists were up to! You cannot recreate the past, of course, but there is much to learn  from the pre-Methodist Episcopal Church Wesleyan movement.  

Much more could be said, but most importantly, returning to a model that emphasises the small group/class could add the vitality needed to Keep Wesley’s hope that the Methodist movement “[would] not only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.…” He wrote that two years after the formation of the Methodist Episcopal church.  

To back this up, Burton-Edwards quoted the following in his presentation:

•GBOD research– discipleship grows and deepens  primarily through an experience or a group outside the congregation (Dan Dick)

•Missiological observation– “communitas”–a “band of brothers and sisters who have each other’s backs struggling through a common ordeal– is the environment most conducive to missional action and multiplication (Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways)

A positive endorsment of open air preaching.

This is a video of me doing open air at Illinois State Universiy.  This is the first time I have actually had someone along to do video! 

The Leipzig-based KARO Architects realised this 24 hours open air library southeast of Magdeburg, one of the urban areas in Eastern Germany which are characterized by abandoned industrial plants and fallow land. After temporary installation made of used beer crates in 2005, this summer the finished library opened officially.

The open air library, we established in 2005 in an abandoned district centre in East Germany. The project has been started with a public intervention, using beer crates as building material: On the fallow site of the former district library a 1:1 model of a possible Open-Air-Library has been build up for two days and the shelves have been filled with book donations. The residents took over the energy of the temporary project and opened up an informal district library near the site which now offers more than 20.000 books. The outdoor space as an addition has been designed together with the residents and opened in June this year.

See and read more at DAILY TONIC.

Hey Mann! Am Samstag, den 7. August 2010 schallt er wieder über die Finkenberger Wiesen – der launige Schlachtruf der legendären Schürzenjäger.

Denn beim Hey Mann!-Open Air zwischen dem schönen Mayrhofen und der Hochebene von Tux im Zillertal treten der Mitbegründer der Schürzenjäger, Alfred Eberharter, und sein Sohn „Alf“, der auch schon viele Tourneen der Schürzenjäger als Schlagzeuger begleitete, mit ihrem gleichnamigen neuen Bandprojekt in alte Fußstapfen.

Dann laden die Hey Mann! Band und ihre musikalischen Gäste zur großen Sause unter freiem Himmel ein – wie es einst die Schürzenjäger schon liebten. Dort, wo eine große Karriere begann, zwischenzeitlich sogar 100.000 Fans die Finkenberger Wiesen bevölkerten und den Begriff vom Alpen-Woodstock prägten, dort wo die Schürzenjäger 2007 ihren Abschied von der Bühne nahmen, wird nun die Hey Mann! Band an Traditionen anknüpfen und wieder einmal die Alpen rocken.

Hey Mann! Der 7. August 2010 wird der Auftakt einer neuen Open Air –Geschichte im Zillertal und ist damit ein Muss für jeden Schürzenjäger-Fan und alle Freunde des folkloristischen Alpen-Pops. Ein fetziger Mix aus brandneuen Kompositionen des aktuellen Albums der Hey Mann! Band und natürlich den wahren Schürzenjägerklassikern liefert den Soundtrack für eine unvergessliche Alpen-Fete. Wenn sich dann – neben den Eberharters – der Sänger und Gitarrist „Stevy“ Stefan Wilhelm, der Gitarrist und Chorsänger Johannes Hintersteiner, der Bassist und Chorsänger Andreas Marberger und der E-Gitarrist Georg Daviotis in die Herzen der Fans spielen, feiern alle zusammen ein Fest der Freundschaft.

Hey Mann! Auf geht’s am 7. August 2010 zum ersten Hey Mann!-Open Air nach Finkenberg ins Zillertal!

Karten zum Preis von 29 € inkl. Gebühren sind ab sofort erhältlich an allen bekannten Vorverkaufsstellen und unter

A Tel. Nr. 05 12 – 34 10 34 Internet www.oeticket.com

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Kinderkarten (bis 11 Jahre einschließlich) kosten 1 € und sind in ausreichender Zahl nur an der Tageskasse erhältlich.

Die aktuellen Informationen finden Sie unter www.handwerker-promotion.de und unter www.hey-mann.at

I made it back out.  This time the reading was from 2 Timothy Chapter 3 with a Gospel message wrapped around the text.

10/29/2009 Open Air
Click the play button below to listen to the audio:

If you have problems with the audio playback or would like to download the MP3, right click on the following links and the select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer:
10/29/2009 Open Air

I finally did my first open air!  I loved it!   I have been going to the local college to witness and hand out tracts and as I would see the hundreds of kids go by when class let out, God had been convicting me to do more.  I knew that while I was only getting tracts to 30 or 40 of them while they walked by, I could get the Gospel to many more by open air preaching.  It took me a while to work up the courage to do it, especially since I didn’t have anyone to go with and would be flying solo, but I was being heavily convicted to do it so, I prepared got up with much trembling and started reading the Word.  Almost as soon as I started reading, God calmed my nerves and I was able to open air three times that day, a chapter of the Bible and then a 5 minute message!  I think I am addicted!

First Open Air (Reading Acts 17 Only)
Click the play button below to listen to the audio:

Second Open Air Reading Acts 17 and Giving a Message
Click the play button below to listen to the audio:

Third Open Air Reading Acts 17 and Giving a Message
Click the play button below to listen to the audio:

If you have problems with the audio playback or would like to download the MP3s, right click on the following links and the select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer:
First Open Air (Reading Acts 17 Only)
Second Open Air Reading Acts 17 and Giving a Message
Third Open Air Reading Acts 17 and Giving a Message