Travel the world.  Shoot one second of footage at each location. Put it all together…and this is the result.

Amazing.

Absolutely love the creativity.

And I love to travel.  So I’m uber jealous.

Marriages.

Families.

Friendships.

Churches.

Coworkers.

Neighbors.

Teammates.

Politicians.

Countries.

Every relationship, at one time or another has conflict. It’s inevitable.  It’s unavoidable.

Conflict isn’t a choice.

Our response to the conflict is.

• Choosing steps towards restoration – or steps towards further division.

• Offering extensions of grace, honesty, openness, hope, and forgiveness – or responses of bitterness, self-protection, defensiveness, alienation.

• Seeing mistakes and brokenness – not only in others, but in ourselves.

• Identifying hurt and pain – not only in ourselves, but in others.

The response is the choice.

And the choice…difficult, easy or both – is yours.

My opinion? This may be one of the most important areas Jesus followers must wrestle with. Broken relationships are EVERYWHERE.  Painfully fractured, heals-dug-in-the-ground, kick-you-to-the-curb relationships are EVERYWHERE.  And when believers authentically choose to embrace a posture of forgiveness and restoration, they not only reflect the restorative heart of Jesus, they make an unbelieving world marvel.

The choice is yours.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. – Galatians 5:13-15

Something this special just needs to be shared. Mark it down…you’ll be telling your grand kids where you were when you first heard the classic “Tow Truck Paradise”.

We showed this last Sunday at Westport as part of our Soulflix series (Cars 2). Straight up – tons of fun. I can now cross “be in a cheesy 80s rap video” off my bucket list.

Huge props to Taylor “Gangsta” Grover, Devon “Mad Dog” Proctor, and “DJ Jazzy” Jamie Niebergall. Great work guys!  Oh, and my favorite – the cameo by Garrett “G man” Bell.  Watch it again, share it with friends – we’re expecting about a million hits by, oh – next Wednesday. :)

Mater would be so proud.

We’ve just launched our new series – Soulflix. We’re looking at current movies…specifically the stories movies tell.  Everyone loves a good story!  But we want to put the story through the right filters – so we’re exploring what these stories say about us, and what they say about God.

What a thrill to have some of our Port Kids join and lead us in worship last Sunday. Shane kicked off the series (uhh…pun intended) with Kung Fu Panda 2.  Missed it?  Great message – catch it online here.  And a few pics from the weekend:

This Sunday we’ll have our Fuel Students helping lead worship, and Cars 2 is up to the plate.  I read recently,  “all movies preach. Some more than others. Some more effectively than others.  And Cars 2 preaches an effective 113-minute sermon on…friendship and the quality of a person, er, a car.” Jazzed to look at the story within the story in this summer blockbuster.

Have you seen the new Cars 2: V12 TV spoof clip?  Loved “American Idle”. Enjoy. :)