First let apologize that this site has been primarily a link-o-rama this week. As mentioned earlier, my dear spousal unit shared her wonderful cold with me and I've been trying to both work and sleep - and, it would appear, sometimes at the same time.
Let me see if I can share a couple of stories with you. You might find it hard to make them sensical. I'll blame cold meds and the cold virus for that. (All the other times it happens, I've got plenty of other excuses.)
The afore-mentioned spousal unit (a political correct term that has zero gender bias) and I saw our last Sundance film(s) on Saturday afternoon. That morning, we'd been at an interesting breakfast event with Gabe Lyons & the Relevate folk a few miles outside of town, then shot some interviews on Park City's Main Street, (with Craig Detweiler and some of the students from Biola) and made it to the Shorts Program IV at the Library Center Theatre. We managed to make it through three shorts before we needed to head back to the Mountain Vineyard.
We piled onto one of the enumerable Park City Sundance buses and into the middle of what was apparently "bus evangelism". A big guy with a huge Defined King James Version of the Bible in his hand, was seemingly in the middle of a multi-way conversation with a group of people - sort of talking about Jesus. He was wearing a Jesus Saves beanie, had a cross on the front of his hoody and was passionately threatening the "unsaved" with hellfire and damnation.
At first, Imbi and I thought it was a stunt. I looked around for cameras. Then I asked an older fellow, "is this for real?" His response, "I don't know." I told the gentleman, who seemed a little stunned, that I was a Christian and that I felt this was no way to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. His response, "Oh, you're a Christian?"
Most of the folk on the bus were attempting to ignore the commotion which continued unabated 'til they came to the same stop as us. Then the loud-mouthed jerk person said, "OK street team. We're getting off here." The older fellow/gentleman above was part of the team, as were most of the people engaged in the "conversation." (I guess he felt their mission was only to share certain truths - so lying to me was okay.) Is this stuff EVER effective?
Saturday evening was a great wrap up at Mountain Vineyard for the Windrider Forum. Sunday began with a great morning service at the church and the rest of the day was spent in transit. We hit the doors exiting the Toronto airport around midnight.
Monday, as the cold began to march through my system, I began to catch up on my blog reading (as Wi-Fi access was non-existent where we were staying whilst @ Sundance). I came to a favourite, Letters from Kamp Krusty where I read of a blog comment on Brant's review of Pagan Christianity. The commenter said Brant's blog was "sorry", Brant was practicing "shameless sluttery", the Krusty Sage was an arrogant ignoramus (isn't that redundant) and he was providing his "Imprimatur" for the "two anti-Christs", "Barna and Viol(sp)". (And yes, Sonja is right - enough with the Pagan Christianity conversation, already.) This comment purportedly came from a pastor in Calgary.
Putting my Sherlock Holmes chapeau sur ma tête, I Googled the church, found their site and enquired whether someone was masquerading as the pastor. Apparently someone wasn't. At the end of that 20 something email conversation, said pastor was calling me a hypocrite, chicken and coward. (After I refused to confess that he was right and I was wrong and suggested the conversation come to an end.) And the funny thing is, the church is called Grace Gospel. Go figure.
I gotta tell ya, I think I'd rather spend time with most of the whacked-out filmmakers at Sundance then some of these people who profess Christ as their saviour. At least those filmmakers are honest about their own brokenness.
Of course, it could just be my cold meds talking writing.
UPDATE: Sonja pointed this out to me. It just fits.
