I can’t tell you what the last few weeks have been like for me. There have been many moments of unspeakable joy. There have been moments that have given me pause. I’m learning a lot about myself and why older churches and long time Christians have a hard time seeing evangelistic fruit born of their labors.

I’ve had great early morning conversations, phenomenal lunch meetings, and have had the privilege and joy of welcoming wonderful couples into our home in the evenings. I’ve sent emails, written blogs, watched movies, talked with Boards of Directors, engaged in commerce, toured facilities, drank Rocket Fuel, read great books, shed tears, gotten angry, and just about everything in between.

And you know something, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. In the year leading up to planting here in Jefferson City, I heard a lot of church planters gripe and moan and bemoan the situation God had placed them in. They talked about how this was the hardest thing they had ever done and how I just had to wait that there’d be days I’d feel like quitting and days I’d hate my church etc. They talked bad about the people in their church frequently.

Is it hard? Yes. Is it tough at times? Yes. Are there times where you question whether God actually called you to do this? Yes. But for the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. And I pray that for the next 50 years or however long God sees fit to keep me on this planet, that I always labor for the Gospel in Jefferson City with a passion and a joy that is unmistakable.

I love the people of Eternity and I’m looking forward to a long life spent together…

First, you have to appreciate the money quote.  The folks at Eternity will hear this repeated time and time again and it may be like a recited statement at every Sunday gathering or something:

The church is not a theological classroom.  It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and sanctification center, where flawed people place their trust in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he has designed.  The church is messy and inefficient, but it is God’s wonderful mess–the place where He radically transforms hearts and lives.

It doesn’t get any better than that and it is that precise understanding that drives the whole counsel of the book which is pretty thorough (300 + pages including appendices).  I read a ton (500 - 1000 pages a week) and I have to say that this is the first book in a while that I truly felt a strong desire not to put down.  I’ve been pouring through it for a week and have just now come to the end.  It has more highlighted sections that not which means it hit me hard.

Tripp takes you down amazing roads and provides great insight into practical strategies (developed solely from Scripture) that will aid anybody in the church in counseling others.  Now before you read that and think “I’m not a counselor”, Tripp would beg to differ.  He believes, as do I, that we are all counselors.  We are all counseling others every day and typically every hour.  Tripp says the question isn’t whether you will be a counselor or not, everyone is he believes, it’s what kind of counsel will your provide?

Will you provide counsel that helps people discover who they are, who God is, what their true condition is, and how Scripture helps them move forward or will your provide counsel that trades behavior for behavior, thought for thought, emotion for emotion, but eventually produces no lasting change.  Tripp is a realist and very honest about the fact that we don’t change anybody.  God changes people.  Our job as Christians is to help them see all of life, their interactions, emotions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and measure them in light of Scripture.

This is definitely not a one read and on the shelf kind of book.  This is a reference.  A book to be poured over.  A book to be mastered.  A book to be ingrained into the heart of your being.  But it will be effort well spent.

The story is about Caleb (a firefighter) and Catherine (a PR professional) encountering marriage problems and crises and eventually finding themselves on the brink of divorce. Through the loving intervention of his father, Caleb is led through a journey that would see him accept Christ, take responsibility for his part in ruining his marriage, and ultimately being the catalyst for the conversion of his wife which results in the reconciliation and restoration of his marriage. The plot line as they say is fairly simple.

It’s when you start looking at the movie beyond the plotline that it really begins to show its flaws. Before I get to those, I want to say that I, like Challies, thought the screenplay for the most part was adequate given the budget and resources that a film like this has at its disposal. You didn’t feel, except for about the first ten minutes of the film, that you were watching something that is one step above a college performing arts play. The dialogue of the film, for the most part, was realistic and engaging and it moved along at a decent pace. Meaning, you weren’t left waiting for the scene to change because it was clearly already done. There were also some very humorous scenes mixed in that made you genuinely belly laugh. You put all this together (budget, screenplay, dialogue, special effects, humor, etc) and that’s where it goes from a zero to a five for me.

Unfortunately, that’s where it stops and why I rated the film in a post-screening survey a 5. I’ll discuss the major issues that I have with the film…

First, Caleb and Catherine are show to live in what is clearly a three car garage all brick house and the movie is set in Albany, GA. So given that, doing some basic research, that was at least a 250k - 350k house. So right off the bat, I wonder what percentage of American marriages this is representative of? How many Americans live (a) in their own home and (b) if they do own a home live in a suburban nice development expensive house.

Second, we are presented with Caleb as a firefighter and Catherine as a PR director for the local hospital. Once again, doing some basic research for both Caleb and Catherine, we discover Caleb probably made about $50,000 and Catherine probably made about $130,000. This notion of money being plentiful is definitely not refuted in the movie. So, my question is, what percentage of American marriages have combined incomes of 175k-200k.

Third, Caleb and Catherine are presented as having no children. While this is an interesting character choice for the movie, it was probably done to cut down on having to develop extra characters (the kids) in an already low budget movie. But once again, what percentage of American marriages have no kids?

Why do I bring these things up? Because you put them all together and we’re given a marriage to watch that has very few external pressures other than a porn addiction for the husband and a flirting rich doctor at work for the wife. No money problems. No kid problems. No external surrounding issues. No extended family issues (in fact, both extended families have both parents living and are presented as being there to support this couple as they work through their problems). Those are all neatly taken care of for us and we’re left to watch a very affluent, externally comfortable, self absorbed couple work through their marriage problems. Sorry to say, that may be representative of about 5% of marriages in the United States. And that ain’t how it is in the real world.

What I’m left wondering is why weren’t we presented with a couple that’s been married for five years, has two kids, the husband just got laid off and the house their living in needs serious work but they can’t afford to do it because money is tight. Why weren’t we presented with that couple and shown how the Gospel helps that couple get through life and their marriage. You may say that it’s not important and that I’m nitpicking, but if this thing is going to be billed as a MAJOR outreach tool, I have to believe that most people who have no connection to Christianity are going to go watch this film and see a couple and a marriage situation on the screen that they cannot identify with. It’s a lot easier to work through problems when you have nice neighbors, a lot of money, food on the table, two cars, good jobs, and a good education. Most American marriages don’t have that luxury.

Not only that but we’re presented with a lost couple that yells at each other and never swears and we’re also shown an angry husband, yelling at his wife in her face, but never hitting her. This is an interesting choice considering that between 1/3 and ½ of all women in America have been abused by their partner at some point in their life. I realize it was all probably done the way it was to keep the PG rating on it and the fact that a church ministry is producing it but real life is real life. It seemed all to vanilla and put together to really make a huge impact.

I know I’m going against the grain here, not to mention Challies, but while I hope and believe that God can use this film to change a marriage (I’ve received an email already testifying to that very fact), I suspect that this film will appeal to Christians mainly and will have very little appeal to the larger segment of non-believers. I hope I’m wrong,

There is comfort in your moment of greatest mystery. This is encouragement in your time of greatest confusion, and hope in your moment of greatest discouragement. Your world is not a world of constant chaos controlled by impersonal forces. Your destiny is not in your hands or in the hands of other people. You are held in the hands of your heavenly Father, who rules everything! You are a child of the King of Kings and you live under the shadow of His wing. You are part of His plan. That means that the exercise of His power and authority is for your blessing.

I wonder how many people who attend churches in Jefferson City actually know a Jesus that can provide comfort, encouragement, and hope? Do they know that Jesus? Or do they know a Jesus that tells em to get their crap together and try harder. Or do they know a Jesus that is ready to drop some divine smackdown the instant they screw up?

And if they do know a Jesus like that, is it because that is the Jesus that the people in their church are modeling for them? Are they seeing that Jesus in the people that are supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ? Are they seeing that Jesus in leaders in their church? Because you see, ultimately how you live says everything about the Jesus you see…

At Eternity, I pray that we see Jesus providing comfort in our greatest mysteries, encouragement in our greatest confusions, and hope in our greatest discouragements. That’s the Jesus I see. That’s the Jesus that I know. And that’s the Jesus that I will talk about.