RELEVANT - Issue 69 - May/June 2014

PETE HOLMES | PHANTOGRAM | ANDY MINEO | CLAIRE DIAZ-ORTIZ | CARL LENTZ | NORTH KOREA FAITH, CULTURE & INTENTIONAL LIVING

RELE VA N T M AGA ZINE.COM

THE HOLLYWOOD ISSUE

THE STATE OF MILLENNIALS A LOOK AT HOW THIS GENERATION IS CHANGING COURSE

FEATURING

THE DELUGE OF BIBLE MOVIES SIX FILMS THIS YEAR— WHAT’S GOING ON?

TYLER PERRY HOW HE OVERCOMES TRAUMA THROUGH FILM

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ANDERSON

A REVEALING CONVERSATION WITH TODAY’S MOST ORIGINAL FILMMAKER

K MA

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ISSUE 69 | MAY_JUNE 2014 | $4.95

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Publisher & CEO | CAMERON STRANG > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Publisher | JEFF ROJAS > jeff@relevantmediagroup.com Account Manager | WAYNE THOMPSON > wayne@relevantmediagroup.com Managing Editor | TYLER HUCKABEE > tyler@relevantmediagroup.com Content Development Editor | SHAUNA NIEQUIST Copy Editor | DARGAN THOMPSON > dargan@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Editor | JESSE CAREY > jesse@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Writers: Kara Bettis, John Brandon, Matt Conner, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Bobby Gruenewald, Kristen Howerton, Carl Kozlowski, Erwin McManus, Emily McFarlan Miller, John Ortberg, David Roark, Kester Smith, Tyler Ward Designer | EVAN TRAVELSTEAD > evan@relevantmediagroup.com Designer | LAUREN HARVILL > lauren@relevantmediagroup.com Production Designer | LINDSEY WEIGLEY > lindsey@relevantmediagroup.com Director of Audio & Video | CHAD MICHAEL SNAVELY > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Photographer & Videographer | MARK KAMMEL > mark@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Photographers: Michelangelo Di Battista, Ben Blood, Dona Bozzi, Helga Esteb, Jeremy Freeman, Ashley Garmon, Tyler Golden, Ernesto Ruscio, Paul Smith Project Manager | AME LYNN DUNN > ame@relevantmediagroup.com Accounting and Operations Manager | STACEY NOLL > stacey@relevantmediagroup.com Ad Traffic Coordinator | SARAH HEYL > sarah@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | CAROLINE COLE > caroline@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | MORGAN BECK > morgan@relevantmediagroup.com Web/App Developer | STEVEN LINN > steven@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | JOSH STROHM > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: www.RELEVANTmagazine.com/advertise

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RELEVANT Issue #69 May/June 2014 (ISSN: 1543-317X) is published 6 times a year in January, March, May, July, September and November for $14.99 per year by RELEVANT Media Group, Inc., 900 N. Orange Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789. Periodicals postage paid at Orlando, FL, and at additional mailing offices.

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first word

A WORD FROM THE EDITOR

BE A MAKER

BY CAMERON STR ANG

have this friend who went to college to study event planning, but got an idea to start a clothing company instead.

Today, she makes some really cool products and gives a portion of sales to making a positive impact.

Because her company sells products but she has a nonprofit heart, there aren’t too many business models she can look to or learn from. Figuring things out as she goes (with mistakes being the greatest teacher) hasn’t always been easy.

I have another friend who was a worship leader at a large church. After about five years, he felt the call to plant a church that would have a really unique model. The reality of leading a new venture in a new city, building community and discipling people over the long haul has been rewarding, but a lot harder than he thought it would be.

Both of my friends had a vision for something unique they wanted to do, and they risked everything to pursue their dreams.

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That’s actually a common thread that goes through a lot of people who read this magazine.

RELEVANT readers tend to be passionate people. They want to live a life that matters, and they want to make a difference. They see how things should be and aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo.

In a recent readership survey, we found more than 80 percent of RELEVANT readers are in a leadership position of some sort. While a very high number, it wasn’t all that surprising to us. We knew this is a group of influencers and changemakers.

With so many of our readers being leaders, thinkers, creative innovators and visionaries, we’ve felt an increasing need to talk about the issues that uniquely apply to that aspect of life.

That’s why in this issue we’re introducing a special section: Maker.

Maker is a place we can talk to the

people who are making a difference—in business, creative fields, church, justice and everything in-between. As Christians, we’re called to reach people and be influencers in whatever God has called us to do. Maker explores the issues and ideas of what it means to be a leader in this generation.

Maker will tell the stories of what other visionaries are doing­(to inspire and inform our own journeys), as well as look to mentors who are a little further down the road.

Not everyone is called to start a business or be a pastor. But everyone is called to make a positive impact.

Maker is the place where the conversation evolves from just being the change you want to see, to actually leading it.

This is a generation that can make waves like never before. Technology is rapidly making the world smaller—giving access, knowledge and influence to everyone. Old models are quickly becoming obsolete.

Lessons learned in the creative world absolutely apply to ministry today. Just like justice should absolutely be informing business models. There are common threads everywhere. Maker will show that.

The great thing about this generation is the desire to do things differently. But that doesn’t necessarily mean having to do it alone. Imagine if we could learn from one another and inspire each other, regardless of what area God is calling us to lead.

Whether you’re someone with an idea for a company, or a creative who wants to shake things up, or someone who just wants to be part of something bigger than yourself, be willing to take the risk and chase the vision God has put inside of you.

Set aside fear of the unknown. Let the uncertainty push you to learn and embrace the fact that there are no shortcuts.

Yes, do it your way—but do it humbly.

Stay committed. Ask questions. Innovate.

Be about people. Lead well.

We are made in the image of a Creator who has put the DNA of new possibilities inside every one of us. What are we going to do with that?

Make a mark. Make others come first.

Make your work matter. Make a difference.

Every one of us is called to be a Maker.

CAMERON STRANG is the publisher and founder of RELEVANT. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @cameronstrang.

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MAR/APR 2014 ISSUE 68

[ T W E E T N E S S ] RE: IS PEACE POSSIBLE

Thank you, RELEVANT, for putting together a balanced summary of what is happening in the Holy Land today, and for addressing the pivotal issue—that we (North American Christians in particular) need to stop “taking sides” and start helping to facilitate healing and wholeness in a constructive and loving way.

K ATHLEEN BERBEC / via RELEVANTmagazine.com

@ TYL E RWS

If you got a 10-year subscription to @RELEVANT and only ever read @cameronstrang’s piece on the Holy Land, it’d be a bargain. #doitnow @ C ON N OR R E JAY

Man, @RELEVANT has been pumping out so much content that is meeting me right where I’m at and speaking to me. It can’t be a coincidence. @ D IC HOTOMYTHE ORY

The new @RELEVANT mag cover is outstanding. Nothing against a person of importance on a cover, but this is making a statement!

Thank you so much for the insightful cover story “Is Peace Possible?” [March/April 2014].

I am a seminary student currently taking a course on public theology for global engagement. Your story was right on point and hit on key issues we as Christians must carry into the world. Your article spoke of how every person is made in the image of God and how every person deserves basic civil liberties.

Thank you for challenging misconceptions about the conflict in the Holy Land.

Loved the article on Needtobreathe [March/April 2014].

Reading their story has made me love them even more!

EMILY SANDERS / Charleston, S.C.

@ WC LIFFC OLE MAN

Thumbing through the March-April issue of @RELEVANT magazine. One article right after the other is hitting me right where I am at. @ A_F R E D E R IC K

@JonAcuff and @donaldmiller in the same @RELEVANTissue? Be still my beating heart!

BR ANDON MCGINNIS / Louisville, Ky.

“The State of Music” [March/April 2014] has me amped up for so much great new music.

Plus the “panel” is amazing. I would have liked to be in that room.

AJ BIANCHI / via Twitter

Seriously impressed with the March/April edition of RELEVANT. This is our first print subscription arrival and my husband and I are hooked. I can’t wait to get through it and share it with our friends!

I really appreciated Angie Smith’s “Chasing vs. Following” [March/April 2014]. It seems to me man-made religion is kept in business as a result of people being defined by shame rather than Christ. I wonder what Christendom would be like if we stopped chasing God, if we really believed the news of the Gospel—that it is finished and because of Christ we don’t work toward victory but from it.

SAMANTHA BUTLER / via Facebook

STEFFAN BARD / Salem, Ore.

@ N E WTONATTHE C RAG

I don’t know that there is a more elegantly done digital magazine than @RELEVANT. Every issue is gorgeous. @ E R IC C N N B E L IE F

I really appreciated Pete Wilson’s article in the latest issue [“Moving Past Your Past” March/ April 2014]. For a while now, I’ve felt weighed down and held back by my past. Pete’s article helped me see that it’s time to move on.

I’m not Catholic, but I respect Pope Francis [“A Pope For Protestants?” March/April 2014]. There are just as many Protestants/evangelicals setting in the pews doing nothing for the poor and needy. Quit criticizing and bickering. Get your love on and go serve!

ASHLEY MORRISON / via email

MARY GR ACE JOSEPH / via Facebook

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Digging @RELEVANT app redesign.

Hats off to @cameronstrang and the whole team. @ E R IC L SAR K

Nice to come home and have @RELEVANT waiting. With Needtobreathe and Bob Goff, no less.

NEW FROM MATT CHANDLER

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[GET YOUR KICKS]

Mars Attacks

THE KICKSTARTER KICKBACK

J E LLYFISH TA NKS

Alex Andon raised more than $160,000 to build tanks designed for jellyfish. The product was a flop—numerous customers reported their pet jellyfish were killed by their new tank.

CROWDFUNDING ENTERS ITS AWKWARD STAGE hen the hyper-popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter launched their campaign to fund a movie based on the mid-2000s TV series Veronica Mars, the Internet largely lost its mind. The show’s old writer turned to fans to fund a film Hollywood execs didn’t care to support. Fans showed up in droves, donating more than $5 million to the cause, and most of them were promised a free download of the film in exchange.

Only they didn’t get a download. Not the download they wanted, in any case. The Veronica Mars movie was made and debuted to largely positive reviews and fan enthusiasm, but the free download was via a streaming app. Fans balked. Many turned to iTunes or Amazon instead, and many more called to complain, saying they’d been cheated. Refunds were issued, and the whole thing ended up serving as yet another reminder of the limitations—and growing backlash—against crowdfunded art.

It’s a lesson Garden State director Zach Braff learned the hard way when he also turned to

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Kickstarter to fund his next film, despite the fact that he already had wide studio interest in his script.

Braff said involving Hollywood execs would compromise his vision for the film (titled Wish I Was Here), and hoped Kickstarter would give him the funding—and, subsequently, the freedom—to make the movie on his own terms. He raised $3.1 million, but not without incurring the wrath of people who felt Kickstarter should be reserved for unknown artists instead of celebrity filmmakers. Robert Downey Jr. and Tim Heidecker poked public fun at him, and Braff only made matters worse by getting publicly defensive when fans started complaining that they hadn’t received their promised rewards yet.

They’re not alone, according to a 2012 study by CNN, which found that a full 84 percent of Kickstarter’s 50 most popular projects missed their estimated delivery dates. That reality is forcing both the crowdfunded and the crowdfunders to find some happy medium between their lofty promises, stark realities and the diminishing returns in-between.

THE D OOM THAT CAME TO ATLANTIC C ITY

A few friends tripled their funding goal to create a board game based on sci-fi writings, but a year later, they announced the project was canceled.

P OP IP HON E C HAR G E R

The idea—a portable charger for wireless devices—was good, but the team forgot to check with Apple, who shut the project down.

SLICES

IS THE HOLISTIC FOOD MOVEMENT HERE TO STAY? hile documentaries like Food, Inc., Forks Over Knives and King Corn captivate viewers with investigations into the ethics of agribusiness, a new trend is taking hold with diners: holistic food. The rise of socially conscious consumers—aware of both the health and ethical consequences of what they eat—has fueled a food revolution that has inspired restaurants, grocers and farmers to rethink the business of what we eat.

Here’s a look at four companies who are putting high ethical standards, sustainability and health back on the table of American consumers. And it looks to be just the beginning.

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THE DAILY TABLE’S INSPIRED “EXPIRED” REVOLUTION A recent study found nearly 40 percent of the American food supply is thrown out, mostly because of confusion over “use-by” dates. The dates are more about freshness than safety, but many throw out food as soon as the date passes.

Now, a former Trader Joe’s executive wants to change that. His new nonprofit grocery store, The Daily Table, will sell “expired” food items at discounted prices to provide low-income families with healthy options.

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WHOLE FOODS’ DARK RYE

TENDER GREENS’ COMMUNITY ETHOS

CHIPOTLE’S FARMED AND DANGEROUS

Grocery chain Whole Foods has teamed with television network Pivot for a new show based on the company’s popular culinary magazine, Dark Rye. According to a statement from the food retailer, the vision of the show—which features travel, food and profiles of young business owners—is to highlight “topics ranging from artists seeking social justice to entrepreneurs rebuilding Detroit to culinary masters maintaining sustainable food tradition.”

A new chain in California is providing a business model that could revolutionize the restaurant industry by combining community outreach, sustainable food options and healthy menu choices. Tender Greens’ farm-to-table model ensures that all items are grown locally. But the company also has a commitment to hiring and training youth transitioning out of the foster care system, which means their emphasis on community is also changing lives.

The famously fresh Mexican food chain is behind a new show on Hulu that’s positioned as a satirical takedown of the fast food industry. Part of a marketing campaign to encourage people to pay attention to the origins of their food, the four-part comedy series tells the story of a greedy industrial food executive who will stop at nothing to rake in profits from the distribution of chemical-infused meat— even if that means creating exploding cows that threaten humanity.

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RELEVANT’S BI-MONTHLY CULTURE POWER RANKINGS

hen U2 releases their first new studio album since 2009’s No Line on the Horizon, there will be at least one song that most of their fans already own. During a Super Bowl commercial, U2 offered the single “Invisible” for free on iTunes, with Bank of America pledging $1 to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for every download. According to U2 frontman Bono, the campaign isn’t just a way to revive interest in his (Red) campaign— which has raised more than $240 million for the Global Fund since 2006—it’s a way of thanking American fans for fighting AIDS, even if they weren’t aware of it. (Red) has estimated that at least 7 million lives were saved by the United States’ donations to the Global Fund and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

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WORLD CUP [HOTTEST] The Super Bowl of the other football unites sports fanatics around the world for a monthlong mega-tournament/ vuvuzela concert.

BONNAROO [HOTTER] Despite the remote location and hippies, Bonnaroo’s consistently stellar lineup and variety of artsy activities make it one of the summer’s most unique festivals.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY [HOT] Explosions. Shootouts. The streets of London. The smoky voice of Kiefer Sutherland.

What’s not to be excited about?

BRYAN CRANSTON IN GODZILLA [COLD] How do you follow up one of the most acclaimed roles of all time? If you’re Bryan Cranston, with a monster movie.

POOL PARTIES [COLDER] Any activity that requires you wait at least 30 minutes after consuming food cannot get our recommendation.

OPEN LETTERS [COLDEST] An open letter is where you write something anyone can read.

Perhaps you’ve heard it called by other names: “blog” or “tweet.”

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XBOX USES NAS TO GET INTO TV GAME XBOX MAY SOON BE GETTING DEEPER into TV. According to Deadline, Xbox Entertainment Studios will stream a new show that is based on the life of hip-hop star Nas. The series will reportedly focus on the artist’s early days as an up-and-coming rapper in New York in the ’90s. Nas will contribute music and help with the writing, but Street Dreams is being directed by filmmaker Jonathan Levine, the creative force behind the awardwinning drama The Wackness. Industry analysts say the move into original streaming programming is helping Xbox become more than just a device for people who like to get mercilessly taunted by foul-mouthed 12-yearolds during friendly games of Call of Duty.

Nas isn’t the only rapper looking to get his story on the screen.

There’s a rumor that Spike Lee is interested in adapting Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 hip-hop concept album Good Kid. M.A.A.D City for a big-budget film.

[ M I S C ]

Pillow fighting is now an actual sport in Japan. An association is holding tournaments in the country and is even selling officially sanctioned combat pillows. Competitors line up on opposite sides of a court and, shielded by comforters, throw pillows at one another. Next stop, the Olympics ...

I M A G E C R E D I T: H E L G A E S T E B

THE H T LIST

BONO: AMERICAN AIDS RELIEF SAVED 7 MILLION LIVES

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M OVIE M US IC TV

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: RELEVANT’S LOOK AT ENTERTAINMENT WORTH YOUR TIME must listen

Look closely and you may be able to see your house JOHN N Y CAS H

Someone recently stumbled across a collection of songs the Man in Black had recorded and forgotten.

These have now been released as Out Among the Stars, and they capture Cash at his creative zenith.

TO P O F T HE L AK E

Elisabeth Moss is famous for playing Peggy in Mad Men, but she’s never been better than she is in this excellent BBC miniseries.

V ER O N I CA M AR S : T HE MOVIE

If you’re a fan of Veronica Mars, you know the crowdfunded film is actually, impossibly, pretty great. If you’re not a fan, there’s no better time to become one.

JO HN N YS W IM

Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano were making music before they tied the knot, but marriage did wonders for their roots-rock sound.

MIT T

Netflix’s original documentary on Mitt Romney’s political campaign could have gone very wrong—but instead, it came out pretty close to perfect.

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

Led by the buddy cop chemistry of Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher, Nine-Nine is one of the funniest things on TV right now.

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FAITH AND SCIENCE INTERSECT IN COSMOS ust weeks after Creation Museum founder Ken Ham debated Bill Nye in a curt backand-forth that illustrated the widening gap between cultural ideas about religion and science, a new reboot of the show Cosmos debuted in an effort to close it.

The show, with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson filling in for the late Carl Sagan, sets out to explore the wonders of the universe on the “Ship of the Imagination.”

But unlike the hostile tone of debates that pit preacher versus scientist, Cosmos is an effort to explore the unknown—even if it takes acts of faith. “Science gives us

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the power to see what vision cannot,” deGrasse Tyson says on the show.

The series is so dedicated to the idea of merging faith and science that its NatGeo channel debut (which drew 40 million viewers) looked at the story of 16th century Franciscan monk Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for believing in a limitless universe.

The story was a challenge to some overly rigid concepts of organized religion, but not to faith in a creator. Bruno’s (and, to a degree Cosmos’) message to those who see religion and science as enemies? “Your God is too small.”

IS THE POPE REALLY CHANGING ANYTHING? HIS VATICAN REFORMS, TEACHINGS ON HELPING the poor and emphasis on humility have

made Pope Francis a popular figure, but a new poll has found that little has changed when it comes to actual behavior of the Catholic Church at large. The Pew Research Center poll found that while 85 percent of American Catholics have a favorable view of Pope Francis, there has been no discernible rise in the number of Catholics who attend mass or confession. Even the overall number of people who identify as Catholic has remained pretty flat. Despite all that, the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter, told The New York Times, “Since church attendance has been declining since the 1950s, the fact that it did not go down could be considered a victory.”

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THE BEST PLACES TO MOVE ABROAD R

eady to make the jump to a new locale? Given the ease of travel today, there’s no need to limit the options to your home country. Factoring in job opportunities, culture, affordability and even spiritual climate, here are our top global destinations:

2. M E L B O UR N E

3. CA P E TOWN

4. R IO D E JAN E IR O

Rare for Asia, Seoul has a vibrant Christian presence with more than 7,000 churches.

A great creative scene makes this Australian coastal city a hotspot for twentysomethings.

South Africa’s cultural capital is surrounded by breathtaking natural beauty.

Boasting the world’s 6th-largest economy, jobs and internships are plentiful.

5. SI NG APO RE

6. C O P E N H AGE N

7. CA L GA RY

8. D Ü SSE LD OR F

Their “people-first” strategy has made one of the world’s densest cities incredibly livable.

Parks, history, design, bicycling—the Danish capital is revolutionizing urban renewal.

Transplants looking for a fresh start will blend well in one of Canada’s most diverse cities.

Tech geeks will love the German city’s cuttingedge connectivity infrastructure.

1. SEOU L

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were seen as being at odds. The longbubbling streak of temperance that started with folks like Billy Sunday back in the Roaring Twenties led to clear lines between the piety of Sunday mornings and the revelry of Saturday nights.

However, recent years have seen a growing shift of churches not only accepting beer, but adopting it.

It’s being called “Beer Church” and while exact numbers are hard to come by, it’s attracting an awful lot of attention.

The Huffington Post recently profiled Fort Worth, Texas’ “Church-in-a-Pub,” while NPR took note of Portland’s monthly “Beer & Hymns” gathering.

CNN reported on Allendale, Michigan’s aptly named “What Would Jesus Brew?”—a church-sponsored meeting for fans of craft beer. The idea, as Christian brewer Tom Smillie told CNN, is one of community. “Beer is communal and appeals to the common man,” he said. “Interestingly, the Gospel message is, too.”

While Beer Church might not seem exactly kosher in evangelical culture, the movement does join a tradition of Christian history that stretches back thousands of years. The Mayflower’s Pilgrims, the Puritans and Saint Patrick were all known beer aficionados. But their devotion paled compared to Martin Luther’s, who was well-known for brewing his own special ale.

Contact us today to start your Master of Divinity, Doctor of Ministry, Ph.D., or your choice of 13 distinctive Master of Arts degrees, which can be pursued at our campuses in Wilmore, Kentucky and Orlando, Florida, or through our on-line program.

Call. 800.2ASBURY Click. asbury.to/degrees Visit. asbury.to/visit Learn more. asburyseminary.edu

SLICES

HOLLYWOOD’S GENDER GAP fter Cate Blanchett called out Hollywood’s sexism in casting during her Oscar acceptance speech, she received ample criticism along with praise. “Women have never had it so good in Hollywood” wrote Celia Walden in The Telegraph. With box office hits such as The Hunger Games and Gravity, that may seem true, but the numbers show that Hollywood still has a long way to go. A new study found that females made up only 15 percent of protagonists in the 100 top-grossing films of 2013. And the problem isn’t just onscreen, but behind the scenes, as well.

[ M I S C ]

A

PERCENT OF ALL FEMALE SPEAKING CHARACTERS IN THE TOP 100 FILMS OF 2013

“To those of us in the industry still foolishly clinging to the idea that films with women at the center are ‘niche’ experiences, they are not.”

—Cate Blanchett

SMALL SOLUTIONS TO THE BIG HOMELESS PROBLEM WHILE HOMELESSNESS CONTINUES to be a major problem in cities around the country, some creative architects and innovative nonprofits are hoping that they have found a solution: micro-houses. In areas like Olympia, Wash., where the chronically homeless have created makeshift

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“tent cities” on the edge of town, community groups and advocates are now erecting mini-neighborhoods made up of homes that are often less than 150-square feet. In many of the micro-house villages, homeless individuals pay a small rent (when they are able) to obtain their own one-room house, as well as access to a community building that holds showers, laundry facilities and kitchens. Though the homes themselves are impressive works of design, in an interview with The New York Times, micro-house architect Garner Miller said the project is more than just about creating unique homes—it’s about helping people often forced to live on the fringes. “I’ve done plenty of high-design projects, and that’s not what this is at all. It’s about providing houses for people who were in tents a month ago.”

The idea of having an obedient little person on your smartphone continues, and Microsoft has developed their own, called Cortana.

Cortana will be pretty similar to Siri, but Microsoft is saying it (she?) will learn about you a little faster. Very comforting ...

MICRO-HOUSES — OCCUPY MADISON

30%

PERCENT OF ALL FEMALE DIRECTORS, PRODUCERS, WRITERS, CINEMATOGRAPHERS AND EDITORS ON THE TOP 250 FILMS IN 2013

/

16

%

PERCENT OF FEMALE DIRECTORS OF THE TOP 250 FILMS IN 2013

New research from a U.K. broadcasting network shows that British people post twice as many cat photos as they do selfies.

“Everything’s going according to plan,” said all the cats ...

I M A G E C R E D I T: C AT E B L A N C H E T T — H E L G A E S T E B

6%

A Bible saved an Ohio bus driver’s life when he was set upon by muggers. A pocket New Testament in his shirt pocket deflected two bullets directed toward his chest.

The Bible: Not only is it living water for your soul, it’s also sort of bullet proof, evidently ...

J e s u s wa s n o t J u s t a n o t h e r g r e at t e a c h e r . h e wa s n o t J u s t a m o t i vat i o n a l s p e a k e r . h e c e r ta i n ly d i d n o t c o m e

Jesus Hates Religion is not simply another book about Christianity, but a detour sign on the road of life. Alex Himaya points readers away from himself, and toward Jesus saying, “Don’t trust me. Trust God, and let Him speak for Himself.”

“Jesus Hates Religion focuses on the sole importance of a relationship with Christ— void of legalism, guilt, and feelings of inferiority. The man-made path of religion has no place in the heart of the Christfollower, and Alex Himaya brings this concept to life.”

–CrAig groesCHel Senior Pastor of LifeChurch.tv, Author of The Christian Atheist

Finding G r a c e in a Wo rk s - D r i v e n Culture

t o s ta r t a r e l i g i o n .

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LSTN HEADPHONES www.lstnheadphones.com Sure, the reclaimed wood featured on LSTN Headphones looks beautiful.

But the wood is more than just a quirky flair—the wooden chambers create a natural resonance that contributes to their warm, rich sound. But that’s not all. For each set sold, LSTN works with the Starkey Hearing Foundation to restore the hearing of people around the world.

WEWOOD WATCHES www.we-wood.us Through partnerships with conscientious organizations like American Forests and Trees for the Future, WeWood has committed to planting a new tree for every watch they sell. Made almost entirely from scrapwood, the ultra-lightweight, Italian-designed watches each feature a unique, wooden exterior, giving the contemporary timepieces their eco-friendly feel.

FASHION’S WOODEN REVOLUTION WELCOME TO THE ERA OF SUSTAINABLE WEARABLES ast April, Greenpeace International released an updated version of their “Toxic Threads” report, which showed how several major fashion brands were using cancer-causing dyes in clothing items, polluting waterways with dangerous chemicals and frequently showing little concern for the disposal of hazardous substances used in the manufacturing process. But as concerns

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about the high toll of cheap fashion items on the environment continue to grow, several companies are setting out to set a new industry trend: sustainability.

Whether you’re a fan of fashion or just in favor of ethically minded companies, here’s a look at three brands that are utilizing natural materials—such as reclaimed wood—and giving back to causes they believe in.

WOOED SUNGLASSES www.wooedbywood.com Sure, Ray-Bans are cool or whatever. But real rock stars wear shades made from a tree. At least, they should. Wooed’s classically styled sunglasses are crafted exclusively from reclaimed wood or sustainably harvested bamboo.

And because Wooed is dedicated to environmental responsibility, a portion of profits is used to fund reforestation projects.

SLICES

THE SUMMER FESTIVAL SURVIVAL GUIDE ook, attending a music festival should definitely be on your bucket list—but it’s not something you

want to do without knowing what you’re getting into. Here’s a look at what you can expect from this year’s biggest events:

WHERE: Manchester, Tenn. (June 12-15)

WHERE: Chicago (August 1-3)

WHERE: San Francisco (August 8-10)

BANDS: Elton John, Jack White, Kanye West, Lionel Richie

BANDS: Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex, Kings of Leon, Outkast, Eminem

BANDS: Bruce Springsteen, The Killers, Cut Copy (rumored)

DAY 1 : Bonnaroo is for

DAY 1 : Get some cash,

hardcore campers, so you’ll want to booby trap your tent against bears, wolves, hippies, etc.

because Chicago’s toll roads are a little pricey.

(A few hundred dollars ought to do it.)

DAY 2 : You’ll awake

with the sun around 5 a.m. only to find the music doesn’t start for another seven hours.

WHERE: Mount Union, Pa. (June 25-28) Tri-Cities, Wash. (July 30-Aug 2)

WHERE: Chicago (July 18-21)

BANDS: Needtobreathe, Chris Tomlin, Switchfoot

BANDS: Kendrick Lamar, Beck, Neutral Milk Hotel

DAY 1: Ladies, tailor

DAY 1: The youth group

DAY 1: Black Levi’s. Joy

your water-wicking Lululemon sweatpants Guys, tie a sweater around your shoulders.

can’t always entertain itself, so pop a copy of The Emperor’s New Groove in the bus VCR.

Division T-shirt. Ironic Doc Martins. Sunglasses as big as plates. Full sleeve tats. Whatever.

DAY 2 : Lollapalooza

DAY 2: Hydration is

DAY 2: A common

DAY 2: Ugh. What are

is known for giving emerging acts a shot, so be prepared for 70 bands you don’t know.

important, so make sure you’ve got a Camelbak of kombucha on hand, and maybe a coconut husk.

meeting point just never seems to work. We suggest surveillance drones instead.

all these phony bros even here for? Not My Bloody Valentine, that’s for sure.

DAY 3 : You’ve slept four

DAY 3 : If you got a hotel

DAY 3: Worn out?

DAY 3: In a pinch,

DAY 3: Day one was

hours in three days, and you’ve got a ways to go.

Bonnaroo is a four-day festival, Bear Grylls.

close to the festival, enjoy your last day. If not, get out now or be stuck in traffic forever.

Start the day early with a deep tissue massage and some yoga. What a magical weekend.

several WWJD bracelets can be strung together to fashion a handy leash to keep the group together.

really cool. Day two wasn’t terrible, but day three just totally sold out.

Lollapalooza

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I M A G E C R E D I T: A S H L E Y G A R M O N / L O L L A P A L O O Z A

L

Completely Online Master of Divinity Earn a Master of Divinity completely online from Moody Theological Seminary.

Get the seminary preparation you need to serve in ministry while enjoying the flexibility of keeping your current commitments to family or work. You can also choose from six other graduate degrees.

If you have a Bible college degree, you may qualify for up to 18 hours of advanced standing credit.

Get more information www.moody.edu/relevant | 800-588-8344

MOODY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FROM THE WORD. TO LIFE.

STATEMENT

issued to us in the Scriptures over and over again. The author of Hebrews says, “we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

The temptation when we’re feeling overwhelmed is to focus on our problems and circumstances—the things that got us stuck in the first place. However, when we

I was looking to Jesus to change my circumstances; He was trying to change me.

LIFE CHANGE STARTS WITH YOUR FOCUS

BY PER RY NOBLE

live in a world that seems to focus on problems, uncertain situations and the absolutely ridiculous. In the past several weeks, I’ve watched the news at night and heard reports about how our economy is about to go from bad to worse, how solar flares from the sun are going to make airplanes crash, how an asteroid barely missed Earth and how to survive a zombie attack.

(No, I am not making this up!)

Some of those situations are pretty extreme. However, some of the overwhelming situations in life aren’t “out there”—they’re real, and they’re right in front of us on a daily basis. Getting laid off at work, experiencing struggles in your marriage, having your first child, not being able to get over a past full of mistakes—life can easily become overwhelming!

If you allow them to, your overwhelming circumstances will always be overwhelming.

WE

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Change begins with a decision: overwhelmed or overcome? Some people never make it out of the current of their circumstances. Instead, they surrender to stress, anxiety and fear— simply because they don’t know how to take the first step out.

The path to victory is paved in making the decision that life is not going to overwhelm you anymore—period.

I know this may sound simplistic, but it’s true. What gets our attention ultimately determines our direction. If we are constantly focused on our circumstances, we will be overwhelmed.

Let me be very clear that I’m not saying that if you simply think you aren’t in bad circumstances, they’ll just go away. However, it’s a fact that as we shift our focus from our circumstances to Christ, everything in our lives can change. We see this challenge

do that, we give our problems more weight than they deserve and we end up even more overwhelmed than before.

As crazy as it may seem, the best way to conquer feeling overwhelmed is to take our eyes off what’s consuming us and get a bigger picture of what’s really important. One of the main ways we accomplish this is by changing our perspective so we can get a true sense of God’s character. We no longer have to feel defeated when we remember that God is even bigger than whatever big thing we’re facing.

All too often in my battle with fear and anxiety, I keep looking at my situation and my struggles, thinking things will never change, when my focus should be on my Savior. After all, Jesus didn’t just die on the Cross so I wouldn’t have to go to hell, but also to give me an abundant life on this earth (see John 10:10).

I know what it’s like to live outside this abundance, I had the incorrect focus for more than three agonizing years, and this resulted in a season of crippling fear, anxiety, worry and even a dark depression.

I was looking to Jesus to change my circumstances; He was trying to change me.

And He’ll do the same for you, too. It’s possible to stop the hamster wheel of feeling overwhelmed day in and day out and embrace the full, satisfied life Jesus planned for you.

PERRY NOBLE is the founding and senior pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina. For more information, please visit www. overwhelmedbook.com.

Taken from Overwhelmed by Perry Noble. Copyright © 2014. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

STATEMENT

YOUR PURPOSE IS NOT YOUR JOB

BY LIZ HENDERSON

ast Monday night, I invited a group of women into my home to talk about how to discover your purpose and passion in this life. The room was filled with people with impressive professions: accountants, doctors, bloggers, teachers, trainers and more. A who’s who of the most influential vocations in our culture.

Margaret Meade once said that “a small group of thoughtful people can change the world.” And these women truly could change the world.

But at the end of the day, no matter our profession, we all long for more in this life.

We all want to know deep in our hearts what our true purpose is and what that looks like lived out.

But what if you were told that your life purpose is not your profession or role at home?

What if the job that you spent years of

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college learning about and countless hours training for was not the total sum of your purpose?

For many of us, this kind of statement shakes us to the core. But for others, it’s extremely liberating knowing that there is more to this life than our 9-5 job or our role at home.

Our life purpose goes far beyond that.

Our real purpose is lifelong. It’s not solely defined in our career, but rather it’s a life statement that is lived into our titles, roles and every aspect of our lives. And it’s up to each of us to come up with our own purpose statement beyond our vocations that incorporates the talents God has given us.

For example, my friend Lisa’s purpose statement is to “create environments where life transformation can take place.” While this is lived out in

her job as a church small group director, it’s also lived out in the ways she entertains in her home and interacts with people on a daily basis. This life purpose goes past her job title and marriage status. It’s infused into every part of who she is and what she does.

If our life purpose was restricted solely to our profession or role, it would end just there. It would be compartmentalized into a very small picture of the big picture of life and it would create extreme pressure to find the perfect job. And anything short of the perfect job could become a fertile ground for dissatisfaction or disappointment. But God’s purpose for our lives goes far beyond us.

In the book A Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren says: “The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment ... If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by His purpose and for His purpose.”

So how do you find your real purpose?

Begin by asking yourself, “What do I care about? Who do I enjoy serving? What would I do even if I didn’t get paid to do it?”

The things you think about and do during your free time are a good indicator of what you should be doing with your life.

We make this whole idea of finding our purpose in life much harder than it

Our purpose is all about tapping into the unique gifts God has given us. really should be. We spend hours upon hours looking for the perfect job to never feel truly fulfilled.

In reality, it’s quite basic. At the end of the day, our purpose statement is all about tapping into the unique gifts God has given us, finding a way to live those out here on earth and, in the process, bring glory to Him. And that’s much, much better than any job could ever provide.

LIZ HENDERSON is a freelance radio and television producer and writer. She’s been featured on HGTV, MSNBC and more. Follow her on Twitter @hendersonliz.

TREVIN

WAX Ph.D. Student

EQUIPPING STUDENTS TO SERVE THE CHURCH AND FULFILL THE GREAT COMMISSION.

MARY ANN

McMILLAN M.A. Graduate Ed.D. Student

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Wake Forest, NC

THE SOUNDTRACK OF SUCCESS HOW EVEN DECIDEDLY UNCOOL MOVIES HAVE FOUND A NEW WAY TO ATTRACT THE COOL KIDS ven in an age where we expect big movies to come with behemothic ad campaigns, the marketing for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was immense. But one particular bit of marketing stood out: the music. The film recruited current pop music kingmakers Pharrell, Kendrick Lamar and Alicia Keys as a sort of super team to write music for the movie. It’s the latest in the recent trend of movie franchises injecting a little extra cool into their brand by virtue of their music.

Although the practice is as old as James Bond, the Twilight movies were the first in recent years to significantly up the ante.

The studio heads knew their saga’s anemic love story was suffering from a potentially fatal lack of hipster cred, and they had a

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novel solution: an achingly hip soundtrack for the New Moon sequel. Death Cab for Cutie, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Grizzly Bear and Thom Yorke himself contributed original songs to the soundtrack, and it had even the most avowed Pitchfork aficionado drooling.

Ever since, it’s been par for the course for YA franchises to recruit the industry’s hippest musicians to their cause, hoping to lure music nerds who otherwise wouldn’t be caught near a blockbuster. As to how they talk these bands into signing on, that’s anyone’s guess. There’s certainly budget to go around.

The Hunger Games had Arcade Fire and The Civil Wars. Divergent boasted A$AP Rocky, Tame Impala and Ellie Goulding. But the Spider-Man sequel’s soundtrack sets a new bar for hyper-cool collaborations. And it certainly can’t be worse than Spider-Man: The Musical.

MASON ENDRES WAS ONE OF MORE

than 20 people injured when a drunk driver plowed through a crowd of people at this spring’s SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas—an accident that also killed two others. It put a dark cloud over one of America’s pre-eminent festivals and threatened to completely ruin the experience for Endres, who is just 18. Even though she spent the rest of the festival in the hospital recovering from surgeries after suffering a broken leg and nose as well as a fractured neck, she still got to see her favorite band perform. After hearing that she was a devoted fan, rising folk outfit Jared & the Mill made a few calls, loaded their gear into her hospital room and gave Endres and a few friends a private show. Endres told the Austin Statesman, “I think the pure excitement of everything has gotten me through today. Today, I felt better than I ever imagined I thought I would feel in a hospital.”

SUMMER TUNES SOMEHOW, IT JUST

doesn’t feel like summer without the perfect upbeat tunes to blast with your windows rolled down.

Here’s a playlist of our favorites: relevantmagazine.com/summertunes

I M A G E C R E D I T: M I C H E L A N G E L O D I B AT T I S TA

Noted Spider-Man enthusiast Alicia Keys

SXSW BAND STAGES HOSPITAL SHOW FOR HIT-AND-RUN VICTIM

ARTISTS TO WATCH

get what Noah Gundersen is about, your best bet is actually to head over to YouTube and look up his live videos. His studio albums and live shows deserve your attention too, but there’s something about the performances he’s posted that feel like an especially candid look into his deeply felt conviction.

He was raised in a religious and very musical family, the sort where secular music was not allowed, so much of his early work centers around dusty spirituals. His take on “Down to the River”—mixed with his original “Poor Man’s Son” in gorgeous four part harmony—is heartfelt enough to inject that old song with renewed wonder. It’s an incredible performance.

But his Christian music inspired childhood was a long time ago, and Gundersen is

TO

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a different person now. He says he struggles with feeling like he’s labeled as a “postChristian songwriter,” but his roots have only grown deeper.

He isn’t singing many spirituals anymore, but his latest album, Ledges, is haunted by the spirit of pre-Civil War America just the same, with plenty of winding fiddles and wheezing harmonicas.

And although he’s now mostly in the business of creating new songs instead of re-interpreting old ones, the secret of what makes a great song tick remains his goal. It’s not one that comes particularly easy. But, according to Gundersen, he’s OK with that.

“It’s elusive,” he says. “That’s what makes it so magical and also so frustrating. I’m learning to accept that. That’s the challenge for me as a songwriter—to accept the times when the muse may not be there and give the music space.”

WHY WE L OV E HIM: Every generation needs musicians like Noah Gundersen.

He sounds like a man out of time—the sort you’d expect to find hitchhiking across America, guitar slung over his shoulder, rejecting the oppressive system and creating beautiful music. In actuality, his sound isn’t so much vintage as it is timeless: a welcome reminder of just what it is that’s so special about folk music.

NOAH GUNDERSEN’S LEDGES

F OR FANS OF:

William Fitzsimmons, Glen Hansard, Joshua James, Jenny Owen Youngs

SARAH JAROSZ

[ S T R E A M I N G N O W ]

Sarah Jarosz has been playing music for as long as she can remember. Adept at mandolin by the time she was 10, Jarosz got hooked on songwriting in her early teens. Now 22, she has put out three albums. And like many songwriters, she draws most of her lyrics from personal experience, which, she admits, can make them difficult to share.

“There’s always kind of that daunting moment when you realize this song that’s just been yours since you’ve written it is let out into the world and other people are going to experience and share in that. Maybe it would be comparable to if you had a kid and you let them out into the world. When you write songs you become very close to them.”

These albums (and a lot more) are streaming on The Drop at RELEVANTMagazine. com/thedrop. Listen in!

AMY S T RO U P

Tunnel

WHY WE L OV E HE R :

With her soothing voice and masterful songwriting, Jarosz has been hailed by some as this generation’s Gillian Welch. Her classical training and natural talent shine through on every track of Build Me Up From Bones.

JARS O F C L AY

Inlandia (Remixes)

FOR FAN S OF :

Nickel Creek, The Wailin’ Jennys, The Lone Bellow

SL EEPI N G AT L AS T

Land (EP)

Calm Down, Everything is Fine

I M A G E C R E D I T: N O A H G U N D E R S E N - B E N B L O O D

/

S A R A H J A R O S Z- A L L E Y E S M E D I A

MIKE MAINS & THE BR ANCHES

JONNY P

Right to You

THE BR ILLIANCE

The Road Recordings

KYE KYE The trick with synth-pop is to make it in such a way that it reminds people that there are actual, breathing people behind all the shimmer and glow.

Kye Kye achieves this in two ways: First, by virtue of their production values, which are meticulous, but not so perfectionist that you lose a scrappy human element to the proceedings.

Secondly, with achingly heartfelt lyrics, which could come from no place except the bottom of an honest-to-goodness heart.

“If you listen to the music, we sing about life and faith and love and our journey—figuring ourselves out,” says Olga Yagolnikov, one the band’s vocalists. “We try to keep it very simple. We sing about what we sing about. People can figure that out. People are smart.”

WHY WE L OVE THEM:

Why wouldn’t we? Kye Kye is the perfect blend of ear candy, poignant pop and creative innovation. These guys blend a dazzling number of genres into something utterly fresh.

FOR FAN S OF:

The Naked and Famous, Foster the People, The xx

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

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PROFILE

JOHN MARK MCMILLAN

ON AUTHENTIC WORSHIP AND MUSIC’S IMPACT

hen you talk to him, you see how he earned the nickname “John Mark McChillin.” McMillan’s songwriting is searingly passionate, but McMillan himself is a hard man to faze. He speaks about his work and art with a measured calm—so measured, you almost miss just how deep this guy really is.

W

Q: YOU OFTEN GET SHOEHORNED INTO THE WORSHIP MUSIC GENRE. DO YOU FEEL LIKE THERE ARE CERTAIN EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT THAT SHOULD SOUND LIKE?

It is really funny because it happens on both sides of that conversation. People are like, “this is not a worship song.” Then on the other hand, you have people who won’t let us get past the idea of being a worship band.

I don’t think people realize how much the commercial side of things has created people’s definition of what is and isn’t worship. I don’t think people realize how much big companies have to do with what they consider to be worship music and not worship music. So I really like to push people’s buttons when I can, just to make them think about what really is worship. So I like that, though it is a little frustrating sometimes from a practical standpoint with how to explain to people what we do.

A:

Q: SO HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE WHAT YOU DO?

“I REALLY LIKE TO PUSH PEOPLE’S BUTTONS WHEN I CAN, JUST TO MAKE THEM THINK ABOUT WHAT REALLY IS WORSHIP.”

I think that music—when it’s pure, when it’s good, no matter what genre or where is falls—is basically one person trying to write lyrics or make sounds that cause another person to know they exist. People are not meant to be alone. I think that you create music for the same reason you listen to music: You really want to feel that there are other people in the world who feel the way you do, who validate who you are.

A:

Q: AND YOU THINK THAT’S WORSHIP, TOO? A: Worship is not music. Worship is the system of value itself. If I’m a believer, the things I value are hopefully the things Jesus valued: relationship with

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one another, relationship with God, the way you treat people, all those things. If that’s what you value and your music is pure than that’s what will happen.

Q: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORSHIP MUSIC THAT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED PROPAGANDA AND WORSHIP MUSIC THAT’S AUTHENTIC AND HEARTFELT?

I think it has to do with context. It’s really hard to say just flat out that this is on this end of the spectrum and that is on the other end of the spectrum. For me, it’s more about trying to create music, art and worship. Not separating those things, but trying to create expressions around different systems of value that become the end to themselves.

I try and create an approach where the music is not just trying to sell a product: the music is what I’m trying to produce, it is what I’m trying to make. And any success that comes around that or from that is a bonus. I just think things get really squirrely, especially in church, when worship becomes a means to an end or a way to propagate a message, even a good message. It cheapens the experience itself.

A:

Q: HOW ARE YOU HOPING YOUR MUSIC IMPACTS PEOPLE’S LIVES?

ON THE IPAD EDITION Watch two of John Mark McMillan’s music videos

What I would hope ... is that I just simply supported something good or that they heard themselves in my music. I like this idea that I have a relationship with the people on the other side of airwaves, as if somehow we can communicate back and forth. That we’re sort of in it together.

A:

REJECT APATHY S U STAIN AB LE C HA N G E. SA C RIF IC IA L LIVIN G.

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he U.N. Commission of Inquiry recently released a report on human rights in North Korea, and it is harrowing.

The nearly 400-page report catalogs story after story of atrocities almost hard to believe: A woman forced to drown her own baby. Children starving to death even

as North Korean leaders spent millions erecting monuments.

Tens of thousands thrown in prison camps for things as small as criticizing the ruling family or practicing religion.

The organization Open Doors, a nonprofit that advocates for persecuted Christians, has ranked North Korea as the No. 1 most extreme persecutor of believers in the world for 12 consecutive years. They estimate between 50,000-70,000

But for a country as closed off and unwilling to cooperate as North Korea, it can be difficult to know how to help.

The organization Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) is working to help the people of North Korea from the outside in. LiNK works to raise awareness about the plight of the North Korean people and assists refugees who have escaped, building connections with those still in the repressive country.

RELEVANT recently spoke to Hannah Song, the CEO of LiNK, about the challenges of trying to support people from the world’s most reclusive country, how her organization is helping individuals escape, and why North Korean refugees are playing an important role in helping to change North Korea:

GET INFORMED E SCAPE FROM CAMP 1 4

by Blaine Harden Shin Dong-hyuk was born and raised in a North Korean political prison camp before escaping to the west. In this book, journalist Blaine Harden tells Dong-hyuk’s story, providing an insider’s perspective on the horrific life inside the camps.

Q: HOW DID YOU PER SONA LLY GET I N VOLV ED

N OTHING

W IT H AC T I V ISM I N NORT H KOR E A?

TO ENVY:

I happened to read the book The Aquariums of Pyongyang about a boy who was 9 years old, and he and his entire family were put into a political prison camp in North Korea.

He lived there for 10 years, and he witnessed and experienced horrific things. I remember reading this book and just being shocked that something like this could exist today.

To think that something like this was happening and so few people knew—in fact, I had no idea this was happening—just really shocked me. So I did everything I could to try to research the issue, to learn and understand more and try to find out what was going on.

My grandmother is actually from North Korea, but I never knew much beyond that. She left the country right before the war. I only recently found out that she had left behind her husband and children, not knowing that she would never be able to return. Sometimes I think about the family I might still have in North Korea.

A:

Q: HOW DOES LIBERTY IN NORTH KOREA HELP?

One of the biggest challenges is the perception of North Korea. The public’s perception is generally surrounding the nuclear issues, the security issues and the Kim family regime.

The reality is that North Korea is far more than just Kims and nukes, if you will. It’s a country of 24 million people who are living under one of the most repressive regimes in history.

We need to look beyond the politics to the North Korean people to identify real opportunities for progress on this issue.

OR DINARY LIVES IN N ORTH KOREA

by Barbara Demick Barbara Demick followed six North Korean citizens over a 15-year period during the rise of Kim Jong-il. Her depictions show how families struggle to survive under a repressive regime that is ultimately limiting their potential.

THE AQ UARIUMS OF P YONGYANG

by Kang Cholhwan and Pierre Rigoulot Kang Chol-hwan was 9 years old when his family was thrown in a labor camp. Now a journalist living in South Korea, he shares the fascinating and chilling story of the 10 years he spent in the camp.

A:

Christians are currently imprisoned in labor camps in the country.

“The suffering and tears of the people of North Korea demand action,” the U.N. commission’s chairman, Michael Kirby, told reporters when presenting the inquiry report.

U NDER THE LOVING CARE OF THE FATHERLY LE ADER

by Bradley K. Martin Based on extensive reporting and insider accounts, Martin gives a historical overview of the Kim regime and takes an in-depth look at Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

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REJECT APATHY

and if they are caught in China and forcibly sent back, they could face severe punishment.

How incredible it is to have this opportunity?

So our networks actually help North Korean refugees escape safely through a sort of modern-day underground railroad that extends from China all the way through Southeast Asia. It can be up to a 3,500 mile journey from start to finish—that’s longer than the distance between New York and LA.

Q: T H AT $2 , 50 0 COUL D H AV E A N E V EN

Q: W H AT H A PPENS IF T HE Y’R E A PPR EHEN DED BY C HI N E SE OFFICI A LS A LONG T HE WAY?

Hannah Song

A: They will be arrested, detained, interrogated and then forcibly sent back to North Korea. Who they came in contact with in China oftentimes determines the level of punishment they could face when they’re sent back. For example, if they were in contact with South Koreans or Christians, they may receive the most severe punishment, which could include brutal beatings, torture, forced labor or being put in a political prison camp.

Q: ONC E T HE Y A R E OU T, C A N T HE Y

“WE NEED TO LOOK BEYOND THE POLITICS TO THE NORTH KOREAN PEOPLE TO IDENTIFY REAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROGRESS ON THIS ISSUE.” A big part of what we try to do, even before we get to the part of helping the North Korean people, is work on changing that perception. There are these stories of the people inside the country that you and I would relate to. Stories of families that are being separated, young people worried about their futures and people who are just struggling to survive. Fundamentally, the North Korean people live in a country where they can’t even really pursue [their human] potential.

Q: W H AT D O YOU D O TO HELP T HE NORT H KOR EA NS T HEMSELV E S?

Some of the work we’re doing to actually help North Koreans is assisting refugees after they have escaped into China. Leaving North Korea without state permission is illegal,

A:

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CON TAC T T HEIR FA M ILIE S?

Smuggled Chinese cell phones are being used inside North Korea right along the border, utilizing Chinese cell phone towers. Refugees who have escaped and are now in countries like South Korea are able to get in touch with family members inside who have access to these smuggled phones.

Once they get in touch, they’re able to communicate and tell them, “Hey, I’m OK. I’ve gone on to America or South Korea. This is what my life is like.” And not only that, they’re sending money back in to their families.

That money actually serves as a way for their families to survive.

We estimate the cost to rescue one North Korean refugee is $2,500. Our supporters are literally helping to bring people to freedom—completely changing not only their lives, but also the future of their children and their families to come.

A good friend of mine defined legacy this way: He said, “legacy is leaving behind something that is life-giving.”

A:

MOR E LONG -T ER M EFF EC T?

Absolutely. These refugees play an important role. We actually launched a campaign last year called “Bridge to North Korea.” Refugees are serving as this metaphorical bridge back into North Korea. They have families inside that they’re sending information to. They’re also getting information out and are even able to send money back into the country through brokers and other private networks.

And with this money, families can buy food and goods in the markets, and sometimes even invest into entrepreneurial activities that allow them to continue supporting themselves. So you see, it’s having this ripple effect. Rescuing that one life is not just affecting one life.

The North Korean government knows that something has to change. The current system is untenable. Most of the change we have seen happening inside that country in the last 12-15 years has been driven by the people from a grassroots level.

So our opportunity on the outside is to find ways that we can empower the North Korean people. By assisting refugees in their escape and supporting them in their new lives, or by providing information and ideas to people inside the country, we can help to accelerate some of these irreversible, bottom-up changes.

A:

Q: W H AT A R E T HE BE ST WAYS FOR PEOPLE TO GET I N VOLV ED?

I think the first step, the most basic step, is really just learning about the issue. There are so many resources out there now— whether it’s books or documentaries on Netflix. We also have two documentaries that we have produced and other resources available online at our website, libertyinnorthkorea.org.

The next thing is to figure out how you want to be involved. You can actually help rescue one refugee and bring them to freedom, and then support them as they begin their new life the U.S. or in South Korea.

You can also help to raise awareness in your local communities. You would be surprised how many people still don’t know what’s happening in North Korea. Just a few years ago, I was one of them.

A:

REJECT APATHY

THE REAL TOLL OF THE SYRIAN CONFLICT

2.5 MILLION REFUGEES March 2014 September 2013

syria agrees to hand over chemical weapons

IN

2M

August 21, 2013

1,400+ killed in chemical attack

May 2013

1.5 million syrians now refugees

IN THE MORE THAN THREE YEARS since anti-Assad protests first

ignited the civil war, atrocities have been committed on both sides.

Here’s a look at major events in the conflict so far and their impact on the growing number of refugees:

February 21, 2013

80+ killed in damascus bombings 1.5M

August 2012

UNREST BEGINS March 2011

war crimes committed on both sides

July 3, 2011

March 2012

crackdown on hama demonstrations

free syrian army flees homs

July 29, 2011

free syrian army forms 0

2011

2012

THE SYRIAN PEOPLE VICTIMS OF: Ongoing violence, mass displacement, collapse of infrastructure and health care system

126,000+

SYRIAN CHILDREN VICTIMS OF: Abductions, sexual violence, combat recruitment, torture

1 MILLION+ CHILDREN ARE REFUGEES

of Syria’s pre-war population has been displaced

2 MILLION+ are refugees in

neighboring countries

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES VICTIMS OF: Targeted attacks, forced conversions, the destruction of churches

450,000+

40%

of Syrian children are not currently attending school

11,000 CHILDREN have been killed in the conflict. Some were specifically targeted or used as human shields

10%

MAY_JUNE 2014

of the Syrian population are Christians

[GET INVOLVED]

ORGANIZATIONS ON THE GROUND These organizations are helping the Syrian people during the conflict: WORLD VISION WorldVision.org

THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME WFP.org SAVE THE CHILDREN SaveTheChildren.org

OVER 60 Christian churches and monasteries have been destroyed

*Numbers based on UN Reports, an Oxford Research Group Study, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Interfax, Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch

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CHRISTIANS FLED HOME

KILLED IN THE CONFLICT

40%

2013

ON THE IPAD EDITION A list of resources and more information on the Syrian conflict

number of refugees who have fled syria

March 2011, the military forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on protestors seeking government reforms. Violence between police and demonstrators sparked a rebel movement seeking to ouster Assad, and the nation soon became embroiled in an ongoing civil war that’s left millions displaced. Peace talks between opposition leaders and Assad’s government have repeatedly broken down as the people of Syria continue to suffer.

30%

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MAKER LEAD THE CHANGE

S E A S O N

O F

HOW HILLSONG NYC PASTOR CARL LENTZ IS KEEPING PERSPECTIVE UNDER PRESSURE

BY K AR A BETTIS

P

astor Carl Lentz strides though his Williamsburg loft apartment, a brightly lit home overlooking the East River. “Let’s get comfortable,” he

says, planting his Starbucks on the coffee table—easier said than done, since we’re surrounded by a bustling team of producers, technicians and cameramen.

CNN is doing a story on him and the explosive growth of Hillsong NYC, the church Lentz pastors. Producers and

cameramen are scurrying around both the apartment and his office, located only a floor down.

It’s not a normal day, but nothing to be surprised by, either. In the past three years, 35-year-old Lentz has watched over 240,000 people walk through Hillsong NYC’s doors.

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MAKER

An average of 5,050 New Yorkers and visitors attend five Sunday services weekly.

Perhaps most jaw-droppingly, almost 41,000 men and women have given their lives to Christ.

A NEW YORK APOSTLE

QUICK FACTS: LENTZ’S FAVORITES We asked Lentz to share some of his top books, music and hangout spots Q : I F YO U C O U L D M A K E E V E R YO N E R E A D O N E B O O K , W H AT W O U L D I T B E ?

A : The Bible, The Book of Basketball by

Bill Simmons, Jesus Is by Judah Smith.

FAVO R I T E T V S H O W ?

A : The Wire.

FAVO R I T E A R T I S T S? A : Jay-Z, Pearl Jam ... (I’m 35).

FAVO R I T E B R A N D ?

A : Jordan Wunder leather jackets, En

Noir, KD shoes (Kevin Durant).

The thread to that needle is that all three are a part of our church. And that makes it really special because you know the journey and sacrifice each went through to actually have a clothing line.

FAVO R I T E P L AC E T O H A N G OUT? A : Chelsea Piers FAVO R I T E R E S TAU R A N T I N T H E CITY? A : 40-40 Club [owned by Jay-Z]—

because it has giant TVs, and it has this awesome chicken that I love. And two guys that go to church run that.

W H E R E D O YO U F E E L M O S T AT HOME? A : Williamsburg, rivaled by wherever

my mom is.

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In person, Lentz presents an intimidating figure, tall and resembling a sort of hipster Greek statue complete with a scruffy beard, long chain necklace and biblically themed tattoos.

Labeled a “celebrity pastor,” “Jesus Christ’s Superstar” and “apostle of cool” among other things, Lentz lives a lifestyle of constant scrutiny and pressure, yet his congregants and staffers say he’s one of the most humble men they know. He has faced controversy from every side: criticized by both the secular world for his Jesus talk and by fellow Christians for his controversial style; a style that includes, among other things, a commitment to not talk about “behavior modification” from the pulpit.

His charisma and message have gained the attention of media outlets, such as Details magazine, The Huffington Post and the Associated Press. He even did an interview with Katie Couric. He posts exuberant messages to his vast (and star-studded) collection of Twitter and Instagram followers.

But he puts everyone at ease with encouraging words. To me, he jokes: “You look like you belong—do you live in Brooklyn?” No, but that’s high praise coming from one of the most stylish boroughs in the city.

You can learn a lot about a person by what they value. If you spend more than five minutes with Lentz, you quickly pick up on what seem to be his four defining loves: Jesus, family, other people and basketball. One of those things will bleed into any conversation he has—and it’s usually the first.

FAMILY TIME For Lentz, each week has time set aside for these four loves. One day a week is reserved for highly protected family time.

Lentz often talks about his love for his

wife, Laura. They met while attending Hillsong Leadership College outside of Sydney, Australia.

Hillsong NYC doesn’t believe women belong in the background at church.

“Laura’s voice is just as strong as mine, and that’s cool for a lot of women to see that,” Lentz says.

The couple has three children: Ava Angel (9), Charlie (7) and Roman (4). Raising three kids in New York City makes family conversations lively and interesting. Lentz will often sit down with the girls after school and ask: “How was your day? What did you hear? How are you feeling? What did you learn?” It’s his single favorite pastime, he says: sitting with them and listening to their interpretations of life.

It’s one of Lentz’s more endearing traits: his refusal to put his family in his career’s backseat.

“Balance is a funny word,” he says. “I don’t want to do it all at the same time. My calling is not to Hillsong NYC, my calling is to serve Jesus and be a good husband and a father. If I do that right, the church ends up being fine.

“On Sundays, there are church services and children priorities—both important in this season of life. Only one is urgent.”

CELEBRITY SPOTTINGS The day I visit Lentz is staff day, where he “keeps the pulse of the church” by meeting with

LEAD THE CHANGE

“I talk to him every week,” he says. “Justin is a friend of mine, and I love him. Ailments, wounds and all. Just like my friends love me.”

Of this friend in particular, Lentz is deeply protective.

“To the critic of Justin Bieber, I would say ‘Let’s follow you around for a day, shine a light on your soul ... Matter of fact, let’s go back to when you were 18, 19. How were you living?’” he asks.

HIS TESTIMONY

key leaders in the church’s apartment-turnedoffice. He sits on the couch facing a circle of 20-plus staff members—only eight of them on payroll—and guides the meeting along jovially.

The CNN cameras don’t change the atmosphere much. I pass The Carrie Diaries’ AnnaSophia Robb in the hallway talking with some other staffers. She’s an involved member at Hillsong NYC. Movie stars and famous athletes are regular attendees at Hillsong NYC, and while that’s become a popular talking point among media outlets, Lentz gets defensive when discussing his celebrity friends. He hates to be called a celebrity pastor. “Who’s a celebrity? Who’s not? Why does it matter to you?” he asks. “We believe everybody should be celebrated.”

Since New York City draws celebrities and the spotlight, it’s not surprising that many celebrities need a place to call their church home without being treated differently. One of Lentz’s best friends is NBA star Kevin Durant.

Tyson Chandler, Jeremy Lin, Vanessa Hudgens and Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber’s manager) are regular attendees, as well.

As for Bieber himself, his friendship with Lentz has been well-documented. Pastor Judah Smith, Bieber’s pastor, is one of Lentz’s best friends, and Lentz says that he has been able to be a friend to Smith by being a friend to Bieber.

“Who’s a celebrity? Who’s not? Why does it matter to you? We believe everybody should be celebrated.”

There was a time when Lentz probably wouldn’t have wanted someone examining his life.

He was raised in Virginia Beach, Va., taught to know Jesus personally, beyond simply religious rituals, by his deeply religious parents. He sums up his story in a simple phrase: “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return.”

But in high school, while attending the First Baptist Church of Norfolk, he began to feel disconnected. Like many teenagers, he attempted to “do his own thing,” while church became optional.

But, “I always knew there was something better than that,” he says.

Around his sophomore year at NC State, Lentz realized that he was missing some part of the goodness of God. He rededicated his life to Christ and felt God telling him to leave NC State. “What’s it worth it if I go to NC State, play basketball, and lose my soul?” he recalls.

Back in Virginia, he dove into church work and studying the Bible afresh. At age 20, he crossed the country to The King’s University Seminary in Los Angeles, Calif., eventually moving to Sydney’s Hillsong Leadership College.

Lentz met Laura at the college and the couple returned to Virginia Beach, Va., where they taught at Wave Church. His friend (and current co-pastor) Hillsong United’s Joel Houston, approached him one day and suggested that they start a Hillsong church in New York City.

(A-)TYPICAL SUNDAY Loving people is Lentz’s heartbeat. He preaches both from the pulpit (figuratively—there is rarely a physical pulpit in sight) and to those around him that Jesus said the most important thing in life is to love God and love your neighbor.

“We get lost in other things all the time. To me, following Jesus isn’t easy, but it’s simple,”

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LEAD THE CHANGE MAKER

the Savior’s grace/ Dance the night away/Your light is taking over me.”

During the mid-service meet-andgreet, ushers pass around cups of water and gummy bears. Lentz dishes out a lot of memorable one-liners: “You don’t even have to believe what we believe here to belong here,” he says.

If his goal is to make the many visitors feel welcome and intrigued—and shocked out of their stereotypes of Christianity—he accomplishes it.

Although energy and passion pour out of any Hillsong NYC event, not all have a concert feel. Lentz’s favorite meeting is the Exchange Bible Study.

In an old Lutheran church building, Lentz perches on a stool up front and leads a Q&A for over an hour.

With thousands of new believers to equip, the leadership staff has their work cut out for them. At the Exchange, a simple acoustic set leads into an evening of teaching. “It’s very, very unspectacular,” Lentz says. he says. However, love doesn’t mean just letting things go, he says, it means discerning whether to open your mouth or shut your mouth, open your door to another person or shut your door.

This message is what seems to draw thousands.

One New Yorker who had been attending Hillsong NYC for two and a half years says she chose the church because she was able to get involved quickly and because she loves Lentz.

“He’s humble and passionate,” she says.

He’s able to maintain his zealousness for over 12 hours at the five different services on a Sunday, either leading services or preaching.

Last March, Hillsong NYC celebrated their third year in the city. In that time, the church has outgrown their famed “church in a club” venue at Irving Plaza, and moved uptown.

The new venue hardly affects the expected environment. As a music video plays in the Manhattan Center ballroom, the room darkens and the techno pop music soars. Visitors snap pictures, and a miniature mosh pit forms at the front of the room. A burst of confetti shoots into the audience and the worship team comes onto the stage, with an informal choir energetically dancing and singing upstage: “Dance the night away/We have found our place/In

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HARD DAYS It’s hard to believe that there are any unspectacular days at Hillsong NYC, which caters to a city that never sleeps. But there are hard days.

In the beginning of starting Hillsong NYC, Lentz preached at seven services in one day, the last one ending at 11:30 p.m.

“When you think about going on an extended camping trip and you hate camping, you know it’s time to slow down,” he says. Quickly, the church raised up a strong team, and now Lentz rarely speaks more than three consecutive Sundays.

When a movement explodes like Hillsong NYC has, the city takes notice. And when New York takes notice, the world takes notice.

Although this opens up ministry opportunities, it also subjects Lentz to criticism from all sides.

“My biggest challenge is to remain compassionate but have thicker skin, because I have a desire to be understood,” he says.

Although many Christians judge his unorthodox tactics, Lentz restrains himself from rationalizing his choices because the Gospel itself is unexplainable.

“My prayer is that I remain compassionate and receptive to the need, but I don’t let things waver my own faith and convictions,” he says.

As a Christian, he knows he has chosen to be an ambassador—a “moving commercial” as he calls it. As a teacher, he knows he is called to an even higher standard: “The Bible says this is my job: to be under the microscope. I feel like I was born for it. Just like we all are.”

A famous church was never part of the plan. Lentz’s goal is to have a faithful community of believers.

“Faithfulness sometimes is in the shadows. Sometimes it’s in the spotlight. We don’t have control over the spotlight part of it, but we have control over our job, which is to be faithful to what is at hand,” he says.

For Lentz, faithfulness also requires him to reach out. Occasionally, he will visit clubs (with discernment, he’s quick to clarify) for a few short minutes to be part of his friends’ lives. He feels that if Christians can invite their friends to church, they cannot be opposed to being a part of other someone else’s world, as well.

“I go to some places not to ‘reach out to people,’” he says, “I go because that’s what you do when you are friends with people.”

In New York City, isn’t it hard to find the line? Is there a line? Lentz says Christians who might be susceptible to certain temptations should not place themselves in a vulnerable position.

“This has to be conviction from heaven, not rules from this religious earth,” he says.

And everyone’s line is different.

He says his priority is to stay consumed with the Great Commission.

“That is my weight, that is my focus, that is my passion,” he says. “The Gospel rules are to wear Jesus wherever you go. That’s our call.

That’s not a burden to me, it’s a joy.”

K AR A BET TIS is campus editor for The Empire State Tribune, a contributor for Christ and Pop Culture and a regular freelancer on Christianity, news and culture.

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MAKER

T H E

DEMOCRATIZATION INFLUENCE O F

THE DIGITAL WORLD ISN’T JUST CHANGING HOW WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IT’S CHANGING WHO CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. B Y C L A I R E D I A Z- O R T I Z

was while living in the ground floor apartment of an orphanage in Kenya that I first became a leader.

Indeed, 170 of the noisiest children I’d ever met served as the backdrop to my shaky foray into leadership.

I had gone to Kenya to climb a mountain.

It was the end of a yearlong trip around the world, and I yearned to hike in a country I had long dreamed of visiting. When someone recommended I spend a night at a guesthouse near the base of Mount Kenya to rest up for the trek, I readily agreed.

A nearby orphanage owned the guesthouse, and after an hour in that orphanage, I made the decision to stay. I lived in the orphanage for a year, and I never did climb that mountain.

In the beginning, I led the children. With only three full-time staff members for the scores of kids living in the children’s home, I handily got the job. My primary qualifications? I was there. When I asked the

IT

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LEAD THE CHANGE

orphanage elders what I should do with the children while I wiled away a year in their midst, they said clearly, “Teach them to run.”

I was a marathon runner, sure, but I was the slowest one to ever be seen around the Kenyan highlands. Any local could outrun me with a bag on his head. This was not a job I was suited for. But once again, my primary qualifications won out. I was there, and the orphanage elders saw that.

The months I spent training 18 teens to run a marathon and holding the hands of the dozens of younger children who ran for the sheer pleasure of the chase turned me into a coach. A leader, if you will. I pointed and directed and orchestrated and executed and inspired. Or at least I tried to.

Along the way, I brought together the athletic and educational programming I was running under the direction of a nonprofit I started: Hope Runs. We ran it from that orphanage apartment, kids screeching and laughing in the background of international conference calls.

And then, just when I thought I had become comfortable in the one leadership role that had been foisted on me, another one came along.

My leadership—for lack of a better word—grew.

At that time, a blog I had started while traveling around the world for a year had become popular, and my recent updates about living with the children in Kenya had continued to reach thousands of readers. People were listening to what I said. Joining Twitter, a then-tiny platform, seemed the next logical step for a digital nomad like me. Even though with my painfully slow connection, I could spend 20 minutes sending one tweet.

It was worth the trouble, I would come to find, and soon I had many more people listening to me than I ever imagined.

Together, these early tools of my blooming “online presence” (a phrase someone else suggested for me), started to change my nonprofit organization, the lives of the kids I worked with, and then my own life.

The kids I led in running practices through my nonprofit weren’t the ones reading my posts. It was the other people, the folks far away, helping to fund the athletic and educational endeavors we were running that were reading them.

And by reading, they learned, and by learning, they spread the word, and by spreading the word, a whole legion of people I didn’t know were supporting the work of Hope Runs.

This was my first lesson on what leadership in an online world could look like, and what it could do to change the world.

I would come to see that my digital presence was essential to any growing notion I had of my own personal ability to lead. Although I didn’t have grandiose notions of my influence in the crowded world wide web, I was beginning to see

I would come to see that my digital presence was essential to any growing notion I had of my own personal ability to lead.

that I had a growing platform.

Then, I heard something else. Leaders lead from platforms, someone told me. Platforms?

I asked. Is that what I had? And if so, did that make me a leader?

The first time someone called me a leader, I scoffed. At the time, I had no one who worked for me. I hadn’t yet graduated from business school or made it to Silicon Valley. I was single, without kids, and nary a pet in sight. Who was I leading?

And that’s how I started to learn about what the leaders of today really are, and what the leaders of today really do. We lead by being thrown into it. I led by scrambling to do all I could. And then I led by being told what I had become in the process. By becoming a, yes— reluctant—leader. A leader who could barely say the word without a sheepish grin and a quick glance over my shoulder to see if there was someone else—a real leader—standing behind me.

Still shaky, I grew in confidence. These were, after all, my first wobbly steps towards leadership. Later, when I would make it my business to hear the stories of how leaders became who they are today and what they did to shape and direct their own stories, I would see that this common thread unites all of them.

Or, rather, all of us.

Along the journey, I’ve learned that leaders of today—the “new leaders” as I call them— need to push the envelope of what it means to truly lead in today’s world.

Here are the four key rules, as I see them, to being a new leader in today’s world.

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LEAD THE CHANGE MAKER

Claire Diaz-Ortiz

1

POWER LOSES, RELEVANCY WINS

Most leaders today will agree that leadership isn’t about “power.” This outdated notion of authority simply isn’t what the new leaders of today seek, or what the new leaders of today aim to cultivate.

Instead, what leadership does offer—and what leadership does beg—is relevancy.

Engagement. A need to stay in constant communication with the populations and communities a leader can most impact, so that he or she can best understand the pertinent needs and where he or she can be most effective in meeting these needs.

No longer do leaders desire to sit at the head of the table directing a meeting, or stand on a podium addressing their adoring employees. Although this may happen at times by result of their position, the new leaders of today proactively take an entirely different tack. By working alongside their teams, by asking for constant feedback from those who seek their insight and by consistently seeking to better equip themselves with new knowledge, the leaders of now find that relevancy and engagement beat power any day.

2 58

TRIBES, NOT FOLLOWERS In a world where power is dead, you can be sure that the notion of “followers” has fallen by the

MAY_JUNE 2014

wayside. Leaders today don’t want sheep to flock to them, but tribes to encourage, equip, bolster and change the nature of their work.

The new leader seeks a vibrant group she can count on to regularly give her new ideas that will transform her business and life. A group ready to engage, debate and wrestle with the issues at hand, and not just accept the authority of a leader’s thoughts and ideas. A tribe ready to push back when a leader is wrong, and stand up for her when she is right. A group not intimidated by their leader, but supportive of her.

A leader today recognizes that he doesn’t know everything under the sun, and that the knowledge and wisdom of his tribe is essential to growing his leadership.

3

LEAD DEEP, BUT ALSO LEAD WIDE

The new leader of today doesn’t limit her passions.

When I became a leader of my nonprofit organization, I didn’t hang up my leadership hat. I kept going. I did graduate from business school, I did move to Silicon Valley and start work at Twitter, a then-fledgling startup. I did write books. I did become a digital influencer, writing a business blog that many thousands read daily.

I reinvented what leadership meant for me, several times over. I went deep—caring about the work I did and doing it well—but I went wide also, casting a net that could encompass several parallel passions. Yes, I work in Silicon Valley, but I also started a nonprofit organization dedicated to uplifting the lives of AIDS orphans.

I’m also a wife and a mother to a new baby and to a Kenyan foster son. And I’m also an author, recently publishing a memoir about the story: Hope Runs: An American Tourist, a Kenyan Boy, A Life Redeemed.

My passions in leadership run deep,

but they also run wide. And they’ll continue to do so.

4

OLD LEADERS MUST BE NEW LEADERS

If you are a conventional leader—you have employees, say, or you regularly give the opening remarks at quarterly board meetings—that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck when it comes to the new rules of leadership.

Firstly, remember that your leadership is not confined to the walls of the office. The boardroom doesn’t create a barrier. Instead, your leadership and your ability to influence others extends beyond the office. You are responsible to those you lead at all times— even on your off days.

Secondly, remember that you can be a leader in different aspects of your life by highlighting different strengths. Leaders in the office make leaders at home and leaders on the playing field and leaders in the yoga studio. Find leadership opportunities everywhere around you, no matter how conventional the leadership you exert in your day job happens to be.

Ultimately, the new leader of today sees the potential in these changing times, and finds unique ways to lead in the face of change. For some, this means taking the old ways and throwing them out the window.

These leaders build online presences that attract devoted, clamoring tribes.

Others reshape old models. They create entirely remote companies where employees only see each other face-to-face a few times a year, but where the organizational structure remains hierarchical. Either way, the challenge for the new leader of today is finding the best way to create change and build movements in a world where the rules of leadership are being redrawn daily.

It’s an exciting, rewarding and thrilling time, and one I’m deep in the thick of. Come join me, you leader, you.

CL AIRE DIAZ-ORTIZ is an author, speaker and technology innovator who was an early employee at Twitter, where she was hired to lead social innovation, and where she still works today.

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IMPOSSIBLE I D E A

INSIDE HUMBLE BEAST’S PLANS TO DISRUPT THE RECORD INDUSTRY was less than five years ago that Christian rap was sort of a joke. It was something the goofy youth pastor did for summer camp gags and various Christian comedy groups parodied.

At some point between the legendarily earnest attempts at serious hip-hop from dc Talk’s earliest days and now, the genre had fallen into severe disrepair. While mainstream hip-hop at large became one of the most daring and innovative genres in the world, Christians remained wary of the genre.

Since 2000, five of the top-selling albums in the world were hip-hop. Guess how many hip-hop albums topped Christian charts over the past decade?

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But there’s been a surprising, heartening change over the past few years. Starting with the staggering success of Reach Records and led by the creative endeavors of its founder Lecrae, Christian rap is becoming more than just respectable—it’s a force to be reckoned with.

It’s an impressive feat, but Christian hiphop’s biggest and brashest transformation may lie in a little hip-hop studio in Portland, Ore., called Humble Beast.

It was started in 2010 by Bryan Winchester and Thomas Terry—who go by Braille and Odd Thomas, respectively. And it isn’t just innovative in the hip-hop scene—it’s a gamechanger for businesses of any kind.

In short, their mission is to “create music ... for the expressed purpose of glorying

God, edifying the Church, engaging current culture and making the Gospel of Jesus Christ known.” And they give all that music away for free.

“All of our early meetings were held in living rooms and coffee shops right here in Portland,” Odd Thomas says. “[Braille and I] have a shared passion for creativity and ministry, so everything was built up from that foundation.”

It’s as straightforward as it sounds, and while it might come across as a little idealistic, here’s the thing: it’s working.

The idea, according to Thomas, is to “remove any variable that might prohibit people from having access to [the music].

This also helps us keep a balance between striving for excellence but also promoting

LEAD THE CHANGE

[ B E A S T

M O D E ]

Humble Beast’s strategy wouldn’t work if they weren’t churning out great music. Fortunately, that’s the last thing these guys need to worry about.

P R O PA G A N DA

Excellent

B E AU T I F U L EULOGY

Satellite Kite

ESHON

humility and generosity.”

The logic is simple. If nobody’s getting rich off of having their album on Humble Beast, the musicians are more free to commit to the purity of their art instead of mucking up the process by worrying about profit margins and “accessibility.”

“There’s something about giving your art away for free that gives you an edge,” Thomas says. And while an edge might be of value, it doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Fortunately for Humble Beast, paying the bills hasn’t been as hard as you might think.

“About seven months into it, the fan base was so into it, they’d basically underwritten it all,” Thomas says. In that sense, Humble Beast’s experiment has been successful.

To hear Thomas talk, however, the finances have been an unexpected perk. Humble Beast’s idea of success was never based around what kind of profits their music was bringing in. For them, success has always been entirely based on the quality of their work.

In that department, they can hold their heads high. Humble Beast is behind the genuinely thrilling studio output of hip-hop artists like Propaganda, whose new album, Crimson Cord, will release at the end of April. They’ve also churned out topnotch work from artists like Eshon Burgundy, as well as Thomas and Braille’s own hip-hop collective, Beautiful Eulogy.

So, by any measure, Humble Beast has defied expectations. But the road has been a demanding one.

“We often miss our own deadlines due to being under staffed and under resourced, but it has kept us in a place of dependence,” Thomas says.

“IT GOES BACK TO CONTROL AND TRUSTING GOD RATHER THAN MYSELF TO SUSTAIN THE WELLBEING OF EVERYONE WE ARE WORKING WITH.” “We constantly get reminded that we aren’t in control, which is a good thing, because the most memorable moments of the last few years have all caught us completely off guard. It’s only by God’s grace and kindness that we still exist.”

Odd Thomas apologizes a few times for “overspiritualizing everything,” but it’s clear that this is who he is: Someone who sees every part of his life—including his business—as a divine calling, and it is all very spiritual indeed.

Case in point: when asked what he wishes he’d known when he started out, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Honestly, I wish I knew how important it was for me, personally, to be praying for all of our artists regularly. Not just saying it, but really doing it. It changes the way I relate with everyone and eliminates a ton of unnecessary stress.

“It goes back to control and trusting God rather than myself to sustain the well-being of everyone we are working with. And also everything we are working on.

“We have also been blessed with a great team of artists and a loyal base of supporters. We find the most joy in our work when we focus on our mission and serving others.”

BURGU NDY

For God’s Sake

A L E R T 31 2

Of Vice & Virtue

BR AILLE

Native Lungs

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FEELING FREE TO FAIL B Y B O B B Y G R U E N E WA L D

witter co-founder Evan Williams can claim credit for changing the face of social media, as well as starting successful companies such as Blogger. He can also claim credit for Odeo, a failed attempt to revolutionize podcasting.

Before you assume this is another one of those persistence pep-talks encouraging you to hang in there through adversity, let me tell you this: it might be time to take a long, hard look at your beloved idea, project or initiative and chalk it up as a failure.

That doesn’t mean you’re throwing in the towel altogether. But it does mean you need to embrace the failure.

Great, innovative ideas always involve some level of risk, and risk implies there’s a chance for failure. If you’re doing things no one has done before, failure is inevitable at some point. But even though many famous innovators like Thomas Edison and Steve

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Jobs have long failure resumes, it’s not unusual to find ourselves paralyzed by the fear of it happening to us.

We hear about the fear of failure that can keep us from starting something, but not as much about the fear of failure that keeps us from stopping something. When something clearly isn’t working and we refuse to acknowledge it, fear is often what’s driving us forward. We fear losing the money we’ve spent, the time we’ve invested or losing face with others as our lack of success becomes visible.

It’s only when we embrace failure that we can learn from it. Instead of being something to fear, failure can become our fuel as it energizes us to try a different approach.

If I had been afraid to embrace failure, the YouVersion Bible App might never have been born. You might

know YouVersion as an app for your smartphone or tablet. But probably none of you know it started as a website that supported community-contributed Bible annotations.

The website was a complete failure.

I remember sitting in a meeting with our team and acknowledging that YouVersion wasn’t working. We talked through our options. We could call it quits, and we almost did. But we thought of something different we could try: creating a mobile version.

We gave it a shot and saw such an immediate, strong response that we knew we were finally on to something. Shortly afterward, Apple announced they were opening up apps to outside developers. We dove in with both feet, and the Bible App was born.

That experience taught us a lot. We had to own the failure before we could give ourselves permission to explore why it wasn’t working.

YouVersion’s problem as a website was proximity. Instead of a website with robust features for community annotation, what we really wanted was a Bible we could access anywhere. My computer isn’t with me at the doctor’s office or standing in line, but my phone is.

Blind optimism and endless tweaks wouldn’t have brought us the Bible App.

It’s only when we embrace failure that we can learn from it.

Only when we admitted failure could we see that the original idea for YouVersion was fundamentally flawed.

Honesty in the face of failure puts everything on the table. It’s what separates innovators from people who just have good ideas. If we humble ourselves to acknowledge when we’ve failed, we can discover the breakthroughs God wants to birth through us.

BOBBY GRUENEWALD (@bobbygwald) is the Innovation Leader and a pastor at LifeChurch. tv, where he has formed a missional approach to technology.

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EVERYONE IS CREATIVE

BY ERWIN MCMANUS

rarely find anyone who would answer the question “Are you creative?” with a resounding yes. Even those who say yes do so sheepishly.

Somewhere along the way, we were told creativity is a gift given to a rare and elite few. The rest of us have to struggle through life doing the best we can with the little bit we’ve been given.

After breaking the shackles that have held our creative essence captive for far too long, let us never relinquish our rights as creatives and creators. A soul that is free and alive is a soul that creates. We need not only a new view of God but a new view of us.

It takes courage to not only accept our limitations but embrace our potential. To deny our creative nature is to choose a life where we are less and thus responsible for

I

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less. We see ourselves as created beings, so we choose to survive. When we see ourselves as creative beings, we must instead create.

If we are inherently spiritual creatures, we are by our nature creative beings, yet we live in the fear that if we aspire to be more, we will discover ourselves to be less. We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into the lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative. So we get back in line, our dreams in check, and condemn our souls to a slow and painful death.

Fear is the shadow of creativity.

When we choose to create, we bring light to our fears. The darkness does not prevail over us. The creative act is

inherently an act of courage. We are born to far too many fears and far too great a darkness. It is only when we find the courage to create that we are freed from those fears and that darkness. The past will be our future until we have the courage to create a new one.

To make our lives a creative act is to marry ourselves to risk and failure.

True creativity does not come easily.

Creativity is born of risk and refined from failure. If we are at the core both spiritual beings and creative beings, then the artisan soul is where we live when we have the courage to be our truest selves.

This is the courage of the artisan—to know ourselves and be true to that knowledge. The artisan rejects all that makes us false and takes the huge risk of being true.

To embrace our authentic selves and live in that raw expression of being fully human is our greatest risk and our richest reward.

We are like children with nuclear fusion in our hands—never fully grasping our potential for good and for destruction. It’s easier to control people if we convince them they are inherently uncreative—everyone simply conforms and cooperates. If we want to create a better world, we better start to unleash the creative potential inside each person to create all that is good and beautiful and true.

There is an order to the creative process: we dream, we risk, we create.

I love the reminder that “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).

There is an order to the creative process: we dream, we risk, we create.

We cannot create without risk.

There is no riskier way of life than the artisan way. Anything less is just existing.

ERWIN MCMANUS is the lead pastor of MOSAIC, a Christian community in the Los Angeles area. He is the author of several books on spirituality and creativity.

Edited excerpt from The Artisan Soul. Copyright © 2014 by Erwin Raphael McManus. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.

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LEAD THE CHANGE MAKER

PROFILE

RICK DEVOS FOUNDER OF ARTPRIZE here’s this prevailing idea that art shows are the worst. They call to mind stuffy people with whiny voices and thin mustaches looking over abstract paintings with magnifying glasses. And, in some cases, it’s true. There is plenty of that in the art world.

But there’s also the type of art show put on

by Rick DeVos, who turns three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. area into one of the world’s wildest, weirdest and most whimsical art galleries in the world for a couple weeks out of every year. His event is called ArtPrize, and it’s turned the uptight art world upside down.

For starters, there’s the prize. The winner takes home $200,000—which is a lot of money, even for an art competition. Then there’s the jury, which includes anyone who cares to show up. Hyper-pretentious artists have no monopoly on what art is most moving at ArtPrize. If you show up, you get a say. It’s that simple.

And then there’s DeVos himself. His grandfather co-founded Amway, so he’s not without connections, but you wouldn’t know it to talk to him. He’s articulate and bracingly, almost uncomfortably honest, but he’s got a ready laugh too. According to DeVos, art isn’t something to be poked and prodded over in hushed tones in staid museums, but a living, wild experience to be enjoyed.

“The goal is to enhance the velocity of ideas in west Michigan,” he says. “It’s just two and a half weeks of no rules.”

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ARTPRIZE BY THE NUMBERS > For a project that started just five years ago as a “social experiment,” ArtPrize has certainly been a massive success. ArtPrize 2013 hosted over 400,000 visitors from 47 countries in 168 venues around Grand Rapids. It brought it an estimated $22.1 million in economic activity to the city and created 253 jobs.

Attendees release thousands of Chinese lanterns into the sky during ArtPrize event “Lights in the Night”

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LEAD THE CHANGE MAKER

PROFILE CASE STUDY

CAITLIN CROSBY FOUNDER OF THE GIVING KEYS ike so many big stories, Caitlin Crosby’s starts small. At first, she just had an affinity for wearing old keys as necklaces—keys that she’d engrave with inspiring words. The keys, she says, were a reminder of what most people are like: unique, flawed, discarded, but not without purpose.

The idea started to take off when Crosby met Rob and Cera, a homeless couple who specialized in making jewelry. She hired them to help her make key necklaces the very next day, and that’s how The Giving Keys was born.

Since it started, The Giving Keys has employed 13 people going through homelessness, who make their signature key necklaces for over 300 stores worldwide. Anthropologie carries them. Fred Segal carries them. They’ve been spotted on everyone from Ryan Gosling to Taylor Swift. It’s a bonafide trend, but it runs deeper than a fad.

The idea is that the words engraved on the key can be passed along to people in emotional need, just like the business itself is run by people in physical need. The keys—engraved with words like strength, courage and love—can be passed along to friends in need of encouragement. Crosby’s story has now multiplied into these many, many other stories—hundreds of which are posted on The Giving Keys’ website.

The idea of “story” is common in millennial entrepreneurship, but it’s still rare to see someone take the idea so seriously. Crosby has built the idea of her own narrative deep in the framework of her business—so deep, in fact, that it’s taken root and is starting to flower.

L

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CELEBRITIES WEARING GIVING KEYS > From Demi Lovato to Emma Roberts to Chad Michael Murray, plenty of celebrities have been known to sport The Giving Keys. Proceeds from the jewelry go to the homeless who engraved them.

TAY L O R S W I F T

R YA N G O S L I N G

A S H L E Y T I S DA L E

ZACHARY LEV I

Beloved and frequently single singer-songwriter

Oscar-nominated actor and boyfriend of the entire Internet

High School Musical star who turned down a role in Left Behind

Chuck star, voice in Tangled and bearer of two first names

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MAKER

F I N D I N G

A

WORK LIFE BALANCE

LEAD THE CHANGE

BALANCING YOUR SCHEDULE ISN’T ACTUALLY ABOUT ‘BALANCE’ AT ALL B Y T Y L E R WA R D

IT S

something we all strive for. Ideally, one day, we’ll achieve that perfect “balance” between our work lives and the rest of our lives.

But let’s face it, the work-life balance is elusive. It isn’t as easy as putting the different pieces of your life on a scale and trimming where necessary.

That’s because work-life balance, and all of its assumed benefits, isn’t actually about balance. It’s about rhythm. And the natural rhythm of our life is something we of the 21st century traded away a long time ago.

To understand this, we’ll have to get a quick history lesson—or a simplified version of the far longer narrative involving the Earth, the human race and machines.

The Earth is created with a sense of rhythm: Night and day. Fall, summer, spring, winter. The ocean’s tide.

The human race, too, is designed to live by certain natural rhythms: Waking and sleeping. The human heart and its beat.

Weekdays and weekends. A farmer’s sowing season and reaping season. Hormonal and digestive cycles. REM patterns when we sleep.

Machines were introduced during the Industrial Revolution to optimize human output. The problem is that machines aren’t alive and therefore, don’t operate based on the same inherent rhythms of life that we do.

Sadly, this era of managing machines marked the beginning of long work days for humans, “work-life imbalance” and the subtle exchange of the natural rhythms of life for mass productivity.

’

It seems that since this time, humans have largely chosen to ignore these rhythms of life, unlike animals or plants or the sea.

As Natan Margalit, a Rabbi and Jewish scholar, reflected in a blog post: “Humans are unique. We can choose to ignore rhythm. We can, and do, keep our factories running day and night. We try to fool hens into laying more eggs by keeping their lights on 24 hours at a time. With every new pad, pod and phone, we push ourselves into 24/7 connectedness. We have created a culture that is built on the metaphor of a machine impervious to any rhythm other than the drone of production. In the name of progress, convenience, even freedom, but most of all, profits, we have lost the music of life.”

“ultradian rhythms,” or the patterns of life shorter than 24 hours. Examples of these cycles would be the 90-minute REM cycle, the 4-hour nasal cycle (where breathing switches between nostrils) or the 3-hour pattern of growth hormone production.

However, perhaps the more helpful reality we get from these cycles is what Leo Widrich crystallizes in his recent article “The Origin of the 8-Hour Workday” when he says: “The basic understanding is that our human minds can focus on any given task for 90-120 minutes. Afterward, a 20-30 minute break is required for us to get the renewal to achieve high performance for our next task again.”

This understanding of our brain’s natural rhythm challenges the validity of our 8-hour-straight work days with the absence

THE HUMAN RACE IS DESIGNED TO LIVE BY CERTAIN NATURAL RHYTHMS: WAKING AND SLEEPING. THE HUMAN HEART AND ITS BEAT. WEEKDAYS AND WEEKENDS. Yet the scientific study of life’s natural rhythms—known as chronobiology—seems to beg us to reconsider the course of our current songless narrative.

While achieving perfect “balance” in all the areas of our lives isn’t always possible, here are a few ways to recover our natural rhythms:

1

MANAGE ENERGY, NOT TIME Our bodies are structured with what chronobiology calls

of methodical breaks, as well as our propensity to manage our clocks rather than our mental energy.

2

DAILY ROUTINES ARE MORE USEFUL WHEN DESIGNED TO YOUR BODY’S NATURAL RHYTHMS

Circadian rhythms, or our 24-hour biological patterns, are seen most clearly in sleeping and eating patterns, as well as core body temperature, brain wave activity, hormone

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OUR BODIES AND OUR BRAINS NEED REST ON A WEEKLY BASIS TO FULLY REPLENISH. THIS IS SOMETHING WE IN MODERN SOCIETY TEND TO IGNORE. production and cell regeneration.

Simply by the existence of these 24-hour rhythms, we know that daily routines are valuable to pacing our lives. Interestingly though, even if we do develop daily routines, it doesn’t mean we are in sync with the natural rhythms of our life.

For example, on a typical sleep schedule, we tend to be most mentally alert around 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., while we’re most physically strong around 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Yet we try to force a workout first thing in morning or a creative session after lunch—wasting energy that is guaranteed to be in natural supply just a couple hours later in the day.

3

SABBATH ISN’T JUST A RELIGIOUS ACT

Research has uncovered that our heartbeat, blood pressure, body temperature, hormone levels,

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among other things, rise and fall in sevenday patterns—known as circaseptan cycles.

Interestingly, all of these weekly conditions are dependent on a restful period of time. In other words, our bodies and our brains NEED rest on a weekly basis to fully replenish. This is something we in modern society tend to ignore.

Perhaps God rested on the seventh day and invites us to do the same for a reason.

And perhaps, if we wanted to recover a healthy rhythm of life, we would take His cue and start sitting out one day a week.

The same reality that demonstrates how staying busy seven days a week disrupts our internal rhythms applies to eating healthy, as well. We cram our bodies with artificial foods that destroy our internal rhythms— making our blood pressure, body temperature and hormones rise and fall at unnatural rates and killing our natural rhythms.

4

WE CAN’T CONTROL THE SEASONS

Annual rhythms are reflected in the four seasons, the lunar cycles and the growth of most terrestrial plants.

In our modern world, we feel like we can control most things in our life—including our schedule. However, there’s something deeply valuable in recognizing that there is an ebb and flow to our existence—just like the seasons of a year—that we can’t ultimately control.

All we can really do is learn to understand the time of year—the season of life we’re in—and embrace it, learning to rest in God’s greater plan.

We’re not machines, but we’ve chosen to operate like them—forcing our lives into unnatural patterns and seeking simply to balance the different aspects of our lives. It’s time to reconsider. And in many ways, the choice is a clear one: adapt to the natural rhythms of your life or go on fighting simply for “balance.”

T YLER WARD creates and consults web-centric businesses. He blogs about the intersection of work, relationships and spirituality at tylerwardis.com

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If you wear jewelry, why not make it mean something of essence and substance. Of course, it’s just stuff—like anything else we may own. But, we like to see it as “God’s word on stuff.” God’s Word is God’s Word—it doesn’t matter if someone is reading it on paper or on stuff.

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CAN MILLENNIALS’ NEGATIVE LABELS BE THE CATALYST FOR REVOLUTION?

BY J E S S E C A R E Y

R

ight now, there is a 27-year-old sitting in the same bedroom where he grew up, thinking about where he’s found himself in life.

He’s saddled with debt after taking out loans to attend a few years of college (without ever getting that bachelor’s degree he was hoping for). He’s never been married, and he stopped going to church years ago. He has yet to find a good job and, so far, has yet to accomplish any of his grand career aspirations—much less change the world. And that was something he always thought he would be able to do.

This 27-year-old is hypothetical, but based on government numbers, there’s a pretty good chance that there are a significant number of millennials who find themselves in similar circumstances.

In 2002, the U.S. Department of Education set out to study a group of 15,000 American high school sophomores in an effort to understand the “educational and developmental experiences of a nationally representative sample.” Ten years later, as most of the participants were entering into their late 20s, they followed up to see how the group— which happens to fall within the heart of the “millennial” generation—was faring.

The research, released in January, found that though 84 percent of the now-27-yearolds went to college, only about a third obtained a degree. Though only a little more than half borrowed money to go to school through a student loan, 79 percent were in some kind of debt. Of those who didn’t finish college, 36 percent worked only part time or were out of work all together, and 40 percent of 27-year-olds had spent at least a month unemployed. Only 28 percent were married, and those who didn’t live with their significant other were more likely to live with their parents than with a roommate or alone. Most (52 percent), were still within a few miles of where they went to high school.

When asked if their current job fulfilled their career goals, just 10 percent said yes.

LAZY, ENTITLED, NARCISSISTS? The controversial cover of Time magazine last May did not mince words. “Millennials are lazy, entitled, narcissists who still live with their parents,” it declared. Though the teaser quote also included the line “Why

they’ll save us all,” the article seemed more focused on name-calling than the actual ways millennials would rescue the world.

In the article, the case for calling those born between 1980-2000 the “Me Me Me” Generation was made painfully clear.

According to author and college professor Dr. Jean Twenge, many of these assertions aren’t off-base.

“We definitely see through both hard data and anecdotal reports that this generation expects a lot, and arguably, perhaps too much, given current realities and what actual outcomes are likely to be,” Twenge says.

Twenge is the author of the influential 2006 book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before (an updated version is currently in the works), and her research into the

[ S U R V E Y

84% 33%

O F

the 1970s, when it was the boomers who were filling out the survey. But, the percentage of people who actually earned graduate degrees hasn’t changed. It’s stayed steady at about 10 percent.”

What’s behind false ideas about their own potential? The foundation of Twenge’s research is this: Millennials grew up being told they were special and unique by boomer parents who valued instilling self-confidence. Many believed (and still believe) that they were destined for great things.

But, Twenge says, instead of just instilling a healthy sense of self-esteem, parents and cultural forces created a generation of narcissists who feel entitled to bright futures but are unequipped to earn them. And when obstacles like a historic recession made achieving their grand ambitions even more difficult, the generation’s ideas of success

M I L L E N N I A L S ]

Attended College Obtained A Degree

60% Borrowed Money To Go To School

40% Spent At Least One Month Unemployed

79% Currently In Debt

10% Say Their Job Fulfills Their Career Goals > department of education survey

generation—as well as narcissism in culture— has helped shape some of the labels now associated with those known as “millennials.”

Twenge points to hard data that demonstrates why millennials may deal with disappointment.

“A national representative survey of high school students says about 60 percent expect to get a graduate degree,” she says.

“That’s twice as many as expected that in

failed to match their real lives.

Twenge cites four major causes that she examined in her 2010 book, The Narcissism Epidemic, which she co-authored with Dr. Keith Campbell: “Parenting education, the Internet, popular media and celebrity culture and easy credit—which allows people to look better, often more than they actually are.”

Her research suggests that these factors not only left a generation in a difficult

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economic position, but also affected their values. Along with negative career consequences, Twenge, along with other generational researchers, began to notice another significant trend: Millennials are distinctly less religious than previous generations.

and what I call the ‘Great Recession.’

We saw the vulnerability of who we are as a nation, and then seeing our parents lose their homes, lose their jobs, lose their cars in the Great Recession.”

Millennials were, for the most part,

“JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE WHO HAS A PH.D. SAYS SOMETHING, IT’S NOT AUTOMATIC THAT WE’RE GOING TO 100 PERCENT BELIEVE IT.” —JESS RAINER THE EXODUS

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raised in an era of unprecedented economic prosperity, without the knowledge of a major war and during a time when evangelical leaders held an important place in pop culture and politics. But in the period of a decade in the years they were reaching adulthood, they saw major institutions

43

%

Say religious life is important > focus on the family

6 10 OF

Walk away from faith or the Church within the first decade of adult life

68%

Say they have never doubted God’s existence > 2012 pew study

18%

> 2011 barna study

begin to show their weaknesses.

The economy, and the financial institutions that fueled it, suffered the worst recession in decades starting in the summer of 2007 during the housing market collapse. America itself, once a seemingly invincible superpower that had just navigated nearly two decades

Attend a religious service on a weekly basis > 2010 pew forum

“We’ve seen what an individual can do on their own,” he says. “So whether it’s the Church, or the government or whatever, I think we go, ‘Man, can you imagine what would really happen if those resources were leveraged for good?’”

Claiborne says it’s this emphasis on the power of individuals—in light of the

FAITH & RELIGION

Research from the Barna Group confirmed what Twenge observed in Generation Me concerning millennials’ disinterest in church. According to their findings (measuring individuals born between 1984 and 2002), “nearly six in 10 (59 percent) of these young people who grow up in Christian churches end up walking away from either their faith or from the institutional church at some point in their first decade of adult life.”

In Twenge’s book, she argues that the dissatisfaction with religion stems from millennials’ idea that rules and moral principles shouldn’t insinuate that some behaviors are “bad” or diminish an individual’s values. But others see a different cause.

“There is a lack of trust with the big institutions,” says pastor Jess Rainer.

Rainer is the co-author of The Millennials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation.

In it, he and his father (Lifeway President and CEO Dr. Thom Rainer), interviewed more than 1,200 millennials in effort to understand the perspective of the generation.

Rainer says that for many millennials, the root of this distrust is partially from an unprecedented access to knowledge.

“Just because someone who has a Ph.D. says something, it’s not automatic that we’re going to 100 percent believe it,” he says. “I think you’ll find pastors on Sunday are more than likely going to have Google searches of what they’re talking about during the sermon.”

Beyond being able to fact-check a teaching or instantly learn of the publicized transgressions of a Christian leader, millennials’ distrust in the Church isn’t just a case of knowing more. It’s having seen enough to know better than to put too much faith in systems prone to failure.

“It has to do with what happened early in our life,” Rainer says. “The two big events were 9/11

of relative peace, was now embroiled in two wars after the then unthinkable attack on 9/11. And the Church saw major leaders fall to scandal as culture wars created social divisions. A large portion of a generation became disillusioned by the drama.

Shane Claiborne, an activist, popular speaker and author of the best-selling book The Irresistible Revolution, says that distrust of large institutions is why many have left the Church, but also why many are seeking new answers.

“I think millennials are very aware that the world that we’ve been handed from our parents is fragile,” Claiborne says. “And the patterns of consumption, the patterns of violence, inequality between the super rich and super poor—all of these things are very much a part of our awareness.”

He says the current state of the world— with many of its problems created by powerful institutions—has made millennials wary of institutions, and instead more reliant on the efforts of individuals.

ENTREPRENEURISM

27%

54%

60%

Self-Employed

Have started a business or plan to

Leave their job within 3 years

> kauffman foundation

> millennial branding

> u.s. chamber of commerce foundation

seeming ineffectiveness of institutions—that has led to the labels that have been placed on the generation.

“I would say that contributes to what some academics would call a narcissism or an individualism. It’s because these well-warranted distrusts of institutions is there,” he says.

A FADING AMERICAN DREAM Though there may be disagreement over the labels placed on the generations, many experts have agreed on a single point: Pop culture has created a new system of values.

In The Narcissism Epidemic, Twenge points to the example of reality TV, which has conditioned millennials to believe their lives deserve to be on television.

Claiborne echoes Twenge’s thoughts about the power of pop culture on the social values of the young generation.

“I think there’s still this infatuation with stuff,” he says. “With materialism. With the Kardashians and LA Preachers and all that.”

But cultural images of pop star wealth, reality TV fame and even modern world events have also shown to have a dark side.

Despite the messages of pop culture that has been fed to millennials, in recent years, the pitfalls of chasing money and fame have begun to materialize.

“They’re seeing Justin Bieber fall apart.

They’re seeing Michael Jackson basically kill himself,” Claiborne says. “There’s this real sense that some of the richest, most famous people in the world are also some of the most miserable.”

Even when it becomes achievable, money, success and influence fail to deliver the happiness that millennials had come to expect.

“Some of the richest corners of the world have the highest rates of loneliness,

depression and suicide,” Claiborne says. “I think there’s this sense that sometimes the more we have, the less we are. Or, as Jesus would say, ‘What good is it to gain the whole world, but lose our soul?’”

Twenge’s research confirms that millennials are prone to suffer from high rates of depression when the

“This wasn’t painting the picture of the people who we knew, or who we thought we were,” she says.

She argues that there are factors that put millennials at a unique economic disadvantage in relation to other generations, but many are using the circumstances to find new ways of enacting change.

For her film Limitless Generation (which was released in January), she and filmmakers David Applebee and Colin Trenbeath traveled to 10 cities in 32 days to meet and interview millennials who are making their marks in the arts, media, politics and the sciences. But instead of just profiling successful startups and rising Washington stars, her team was interested in telling their personal stories and showing how they actually got to where they were.

“I think our generation has been sold this idea that you just start out in a garage and then you make a million dollars. Like there’s no inbetween,” she says. “There’s just the beginning and the end. No one is telling us how to go through all of the steps in the middle.”

In a New York Times Magazine piece titled,

“I THINK OUR GENERATION HAS BEEN SOLD THIS IDEA THAT YOU JUST START OUT IN A GARAGE AND THEN YOU MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS. LIKE THERE’S NO IN-BETWEEN.” —LINDSEY SALETTA things they’ve been conditioned to value come crashing head-on with everyday realities.

“You do see some reality checks showing, say, with issues around of depression and mental health and anxiety and stress,” she says.

THE NEW HOPE Lindsey Saletta is one of the millennials attempting to change the labels associated with her generation. She’s the producer of an upcoming documentary that tells the stories of millennials around the country who are making a difference—and shifting the perception of what it means to be a millennial.

Saletta says that when hearing all of the negative labels often associated with millennials, something didn’t connect.

“What Is It about Twentysomethings?” Clark University psychology professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett tells writer Robin Marantz Henig that a “time-out” period—which is essentially a time of extended adolescence—in people’s twenties has resulted in people getting jobs, houses and a spouse later in life.

The problem is, the trend of arriving later in life is often seen as laziness or entitlement based on the idea that millennials believe they deserve a better opportunity than the one they currently have. Part of the message Saletta believes many millennials need to hear is that just because dreams may be taking longer to come true doesn’t mean they should be abandoned, and that their story isn’t a failure just because they’re still in the middle of it.

She says they really wanted to tell the middle part of the story of the millennial generation in the film.

“These people that we featured (like 32-yearold Congressman Aaron Schock or PolicyMic

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ALTRUISM

that embody a “sense of authenticity and this idea of a community that’s real, that is not contrived.”

> 2011 millennial impact report

> 2013 millennial impact report

> 2011 millennial impact report

FIXING THE BROKEN SYSTEM

75%

52%

63%

Percentage that give to charity Percentage that are interested in monthly giving Percentage that regularly volunteer

founder Christopher Altcheck), who are incredibly successful at an incredibly young age, are still mid-way through their journey, and we really wanted to capture that.”

Brad Lomenick, an author and ambassador for Catalyst, a group that organizes conferences for young leaders, says he believes that a passion for enacting change has led to unnecessary self-demands on twentysomethings.

“The pressure for younger leaders to feel like they’ve got to change the world by the time they’re 30 is more than it’s ever been,” he says. “A lot of young leaders think that if they don’t accomplish something significant early in their careers that they’ve failed.”

Lomenick says this desire for change has also created a shift in values that he believes will eventually be responsible for real reforms in institutions like the Church

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Before the filming even started on Limitless Generation, Saletta’s team had identified five generational traits they hoped their interviews would reveal: Community, authenticity, transparency, creativity and sustainability.

According to Saletta, the millennials making a difference in culture all embodied those very traits without prompting.

What’s notable about those values is that they are a reaction to something. For example, why would millennials feel the need to focus on “authenticity and transparency” if they were already present in society?

Rainer says values such as these have been birthed out of witnessing both the collapse of the economy because of shady business practices and the way social media has enabled people to live their lives online through a new kind of community.

“It’s changed how we view people,” he says. “There’s a sense that we kind of have an integrity radar. I guess you could say a transparency radar.”

According to Claiborne, it’s this ability to see the brokenness that is inspiring millennials to enact change.

“I’m hopeful, because I think discontentment can be channeled toward constructive change,” he says. “A holy anger and discontent can be one of the biggest contributors to things changing and not staying the same.”

BEING THE CHANGE Though unemployment numbers are still relatively high, there are non-traditional indicators that suggest the future for millennials is bright.

Tech innovations, altruistic entrepreneurial business models and a renewed focus on creating churches that give back to communities have, in many cases, been helmed by millennials unsatisfied with the status quo.

In each of those cases, the new innovation ushering in major social and cultural changes was born out of the same factors that have shaped millennial values—for better or for worse. Social media (with its focus on creating community), altruistic innovations (with their unflinching commitment to improving the world) and new church movements (with their dissatisfaction with a self-serving infrastructure) would all be impossible without the belief that a collection of individuals are capable of great things.

Yes, the parents who raised millennials may have created some unrealistic expectations, but they also planted the seeds that made millennials believe that change is possible.

Even with factors like debt, negative cultural messages and a world full of dysfunctional institutions, for millennials, perseverance seems to be the only real challenge. When asked what advice they would have for millennials striving to change the world today, the experts all answered the same: Don’t give up.

“For someone who is looking to start a journey and make change and feels like they’re at the bottom of everything—the difference between them and the people that we spoke with is the people that we spoke with didn’t let anything get in their way,” Saletta says. “And they never, ever, ever, gave up.”

Claiborne emphasizes that part of not giving up on their own futures is not giving up on the institutions that have failed them in the past.

“The Church continues to be God’s primary instrument for changing the world,” he says. “The early Christians had an adage that, ‘If we don’t have the Church as our mother, we can’t have God as our father.’ I think being honest about our dysfunctional parents within the Church is important, but also to love her back to life and try to change what needs to be changed.”

Lomenick says for many millennials wanting to make a difference, it all starts with identifying what you’re called to do.

“Figure out what your calling is. That’s the foundation,” he says. “If you’re stuck, go back to the basics and to the foundation of, ‘What is it that you’re great at doing and you have a passion for?’”

And even though her research suggests that in some cases, the deck has been stacked against “Generation Me,” Twenge says as long as they can overcome the idea they alone are tasked with changing the world, millennials can actually make a difference.

“The first thing is just realize that when you were told, ‘Believe in yourself and anything was possible,’ you were lied to,” she says. “And if you’re angry about that, you’re not the only one. However, believing that you can go out there, work hard and have an impact—that actually is true.

“But it’s not about self-belief. It’s about motivation. And it’s about hard work, and it’s about starting somewhere.”

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WHAT’S REALLY INSIDE THE HEAD OF THE WORLD’S MOST UNIQUE FILMMAKER?

BY A ARON STEV ENS W ITH CAR L KOZLOWSK I

here’s a scene in Wes Anderson’s breakout 1998 movie Rushmore where the young private school student Max Fischer (played by Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman) sits silhouetted in the back of a car, berating the driver, a fellow student’s wealthy parent (who is played by Bill Murray, another Anderson favorite).

As rain pours outside the parked car, the camera sits on Max for almost two uninterrupted minutes as he laments over Murray’s character stealing “the love of his life,” a teacher twice his age. Before he gets out to leave, the camera cuts up close to show that Max is crying.

Max, who had gone to extreme lengths to prove his devotion—like starting new social clubs and preserving after-school programs such as Latin—exits the vehicle and stares at Murray’s character before uttering the now-classic line: “I saved Latin. What did you ever do?”

The scene is sincere but goofy. Stylized but believable. Heartbreaking but funny.

Light but dark. And it’s this kind of dichotomy that has defined Wes Anderson since he first began his career as one of his generation’s most unique filmmakers.

In his latest movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel—a 1930s-era styled comedy about an Eastern European hotel in the days leading up to the rise of fascism—the duality of humor and darkness is once again on full display. “[A reporter] asked me this question: ‘How do you balance the darkness of this period and what’s looming and what’s ahead, and the fact that this is a comedy?’” Anderson says. “And I said to him, ‘I don’t remember balancing it, I remember just doing it.’”

THE NATURAL A few years after graduating college at the University of Texas at Austin, Anderson teamed up with a campus friend named Owen Wilson to pen his first major short film, a 12-minute, 16 mm, black-and-white heist comedy called Bottle Rocket. After getting the attention of major studios and producer James L. Brooks while on the festival circuit, Anderson—along with his

two leading men, Owen and Luke Wilson— got his chance to make his first real Hollywood film, a feature-length version of Bottle Rocket.

Despite the sharp dialogue, unique directorial style and a guest-starring role by Hollywood heavyweight James Caan, the movie was a commercial failure. Though critics loved Anderson’s vision and the Wilson brothers’ Texas charm, audiences didn’t relate to the quirky story and decidedly nongritty style.

In a discussion with fellow filmmaker Noah Baumbach (who co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with Anderson) at an event hosted by the New York Public Library years later, Anderson described the experience of seeing an audience walk out of his debut at a test screening.

“Up to then, my attitude was, ‘Just wait until they see this,’” Anderson joked. “I was sitting on the back row with all of the studio executives—everybody—and I began to see people leaving. And they were leaving in groups. People don’t go to the bathroom in groups.”

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SHORT TAKES Anderson got his start in Hollywood with a short film, and even since making it big, he hasn’t abandoned those roots. Along with his eight feature-length movies, he has also written and directed a handful of short films, often playing off the stories in his longer movies. Here are three of his best.

B OT T L E R O C KE T

HOTE L C HE VAL IE R

CASTE LLO CAVA LCANTI

Anderson’s first short film, which he wrote with Owen Wilson, eventually got made into a feature-length.

A 13-minute prologue to the longer Darjeeling Limited, the film was initially intended to be a stand-alone work.

This 8-minute film, presented

by Prada, tells the story of a racecar driver crashing his car in an Italian village.

For many artists, the experience would have been a crushing blow to their burgeoning creative instincts, but for Anderson, it only strengthened his resolve. In his later films, like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom, viewers can catch glimpses of the signature visuals from his first feature, such as overhead shots and hand-drawn maps. But beyond a novel cinematic approach, Anderson was doing something new: He was telling a story about flawed characters without being sarcastic, mean or jaded. Though Bottle Rocket is a story of three aimless criminal losers, it’s really about a couple of friends just looking for purpose.

Reflecting on Bottle Rocket in 2000, filmmaking legend Martin Scorsese wrote in Esquire that the film didn’t possess “a trace of cynicism” and showed a sense of “tenderness” and “grace” uncommon in modern American cinema.

IN HIS OWN UNIVERSE Each Anderson film carries the polished style and hallmarks of their director—for most the part, you can instantly tell you’re watching an Anderson film. But each also manages to bring the viewer into its own unique universe.

As Anderson tells it, that singular, project-to-project vision requires a level of dedication to the story.

“I only do one movie at a time—I don’t have like six different scripts sitting around and think, ‘If this one doesn’t go, I’ll do the other one,’” he says. “This is all I’ve got.”

Like The Grand Budapest Hotel, each of his films takes place in their own sort of unusual universe, where sets, locations and costumes are used almost like characters themselves. In Rushmore, the private academy is

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a symbol of Max’s longing for structure and stability. In The Royal Tenenbaums, wardrobe decisions represent attributes of individual family members. The Life Aquatic features an elusive “jaguar shark” that is both Captain Ahab’s great white whale and Gatsby’s green light. The brothers in The Darjeeling Limited carry literal and emotional baggage from their father. And, along with these, there are countless other examples throughout Anderson’s catalogue.

The technique has allowed him to make his films into experiences that let viewers analyze every shot for meaning. But ironically, even though he’s attempting to convey deep meaning and truth with each shot, his aesthetic is intentionally artificial and playful.

In Grand Budapest, the elaborate scenery and buildings carry a storybook quality, because in many cases, they were built by hand.

“I don’t really have that much fun shooting on greenscreens. I would rather we make something,” Anderson says. “When we do this stuff, we use some paintings, we use some miniatures. We use some stuff they might have used in silent Georges Méliès-type movies [a turn-of-the-century filmmaker who specialized in handmade effects techniques].”

Along with his artfully purposeful sets, another Anderson constant is his rotating cast of familiar faces. Together with the Wilson brothers (Owen even collaborated in writing Anderson’s first three features), Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton are among a few dozen actors who have appeared in numerous Anderson films.

Anderson does admit to creating some of his greatest characters specifically for

certain actors. For one of the characters in Grand Budapest, he had his eye on Ralph Fiennes, but he was hesitant at first to ask him to play the role.

“Sometimes I feel like the best way to make somebody not want the part is to offer it to them. I don’t know if it’s just actor psychology,” Anderson jokes about the casting process. “I’ve only got one guy that I thought could play this, so I was very anxious about it.

I don’t think I would have accepted [Ralph] saying no. I’m sure I would have just been all over him and, at a certain point, he probably would have had to break down.”

The use of a sort of rotating ensemble cast is another example of the filmmaker’s penchant for using dichotomy to tell his stories. In a series of films that feature uniquely distinct cultures and histories, the cast helps give each—no matter how stylized and alien—a certain familiarity.

A GRAND AMBITION After tackling topics like absent fathers (Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited), adolescent rebellion (Rushmore, Moonrise Kingdom) and criminal identity crisis (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Bottle Rocket) in films masquerading as heists, adventures and family dramas, Anderson has graduated to even bigger themes this year.

The Grand Budapest Hotel finds the filmmaker grappling with the ideas of war, destruction and violence in a movie that is essentially a comedy caper about Gustave, a worldly concierge, and his young mentee.

The filmmaker says the idea for Gustave— a more confident and self-actualized character than most Anderson protagonists—was actually inspired by someone he knew. Based on his quirky, real-life friend, the story started to come together about six years ago.

Wes Anderson and Jude Law on the set of The Grand Budapest Hotel

“The first part of the script that we wrote—I wrote it with my friend Hugo [Guinness]—and the first piece of it that [we] came up with ... was the first part of the Gustave story,” Anderson says.

“We had that character and we had that inspiration in real life for this character. We wrote a section of it, but we couldn’t really figure out what happened next. It was set in the present, and there was no hotel and he wasn’t a concierge or anything.”

According to Anderson, even though the story started to take shape years ago, it wasn’t until reading the darker, dramatic work of the writer Stefan Zweig that the vision for the film became fully realized.

“It was only many years later that I had become interested in Stefan Zweig’s work, which I’d never read before,” he says. “And I had this thought to try to do something rather Zweiglike, and to use this character we had and this bit of story we had and this idea that it would be in a hotel and [Gustave] would be a concierge. Then, suddenly, it all seemed to have all the key ingredients. We wrote the thing very quickly after that.

“I only do one movie at a time—I don’t have, like, six different scripts sitting around and think, ‘If this one doesn’t go, I’ll do the other one.’ This is all I’ve got.”

“[Zweig] made these very psychological stories,” Anderson continues. “They’re very tormented characters and interesting stories with plots, with sweep. But he sort of has a way of telling the stories—these sometimes intimate stories—as if they were tales, like [Rudyard] Kipling or [Joseph] Conrad, or something like that. He gives them a real kind of storyteller thing.”

In many ways, the movie is a culmination of all Anderson’s work to date—it features arguably the largest sets, one of the biggest casts and some of the most cinematographically stunning shots of all of his films. But it also manages to take incredibly weighty themes—like death, tragedy, violence and war—and mix them with slapstick laughs, wit and deadpan humor. Just as he was able to disarm family conflicts and crisis of identity and purpose in his earlier films, Anderson takes powerful themes and helps audiences see them more clearly through the lens of a comedy.

“Most of the violence in the movie I had thought in some way was funny violence, even if it was quite brutal, like when [Gustave] escapes from prison and all these guys get stabbed and there’s blood everywhere,” Anderson explains.

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L-R: Ralph Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan and Tony Revolori

“There’s a continuity, and you can see people kind of take something from the other and make it in a new way.”

“But I think that’s why the blood is there, I think that’s why the violence is there. It’s because there’s a brutality that’s coming, a brutality that’s building in the world. And it’s getting ready to be this suicide of this whole region.”

Critics have already argued that Grand Budapest is Anderson’s most mature movie to date for its blending of hilarity and sadness, the light and the darkness.

As critic Christopher Orr wrote in his review for The Atlantic, “The comedy in The Grand Budapest Hotel is among the broadest yet undertaken by Anderson. But amid the frenzied hubbub, there are intimations of a darker, sadder history unfolding.”

A NEW WAY Beyond critics who have latched on to Anderson for his ability to create a new kind of Hollywood film, a generation of fans has found a filmmaker that is able to perform the ultimate balancing act—creating artificial worlds fueled by fashion and music, but with messages of real emotional authenticity.

None of Anderson’s films have been true blockbusters. (According to Box Office Mojo, his highest-grossing film to date is The Royal Tenenbaums at $52 million.) But his movies have found an audience with millennials hungry for sincerity and weary of cynicism.

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Anderson’s sense of fashion and retro style, along with his distinct music taste (his soundtracks include everything from British Invasion punk rock to tunes from Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh), has made him an iconic director among hipster filmgoers and indie movie fans alike.

But more than just style, it’s the substance of his work that has made him so influential. In an era of good vs. evil superhero epics, teen adventure dramas and crass comedies, Anderson has found a way to talk about big ideas and personal issues a generation of fans can relate to—purpose, identity, love, family—in films that are genuine, tender, funny and, most of all, original. For much of Hollywood, it’s a new way of making movies.

When asked how he feels that his style and filmmaking flare is so closely associated with the name “Wes Anderson,” the director says he’s just glad his new way of doing things is having an influence.

“I like that. I know who my inspirations have been, and how closely I’ve wanted to do something like this person, that person, and how many ideas I’ve stolen from these guys and how many things I’ve just literally recreated what other filmmakers did,” he says.

“I think it’s nice that there’s a continuity, and you can see people kind of take something from the other and make it in a new way.”

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2014 IS THE YEAR HOLLYWOOD DECIDED TO GIVE THE BIBLE A SHOT. SHOULD CHRISTIANS BE EXCITED OR NERVOUS?

BY T YLER HUCK ABEE

ic Armstrong is focused.

Around him, a PR team is shuffling posters and leaflets. A girl is juggling bottled water and name tags.

People in fine suits are waiting for a chance to speak with him—about money, showings and the release date of his Left Behind movie.

“We met with one producer who wanted to rewrite the script so that their souls got raptured but their bodies got left behind,” Armstrong explains. “He was completely serious. And I’m thinking, ‘Wouldn’t those be called ‘dead people?’”

Armstrong is director of the latest Left Behind film adaptation. He’s the man who scored the greatest casting coup in Christian filmmaking history: wrangling bonafide A-lister and part-time Internet punching bag Nicolas Cage to star in his film.

“It was, ‘Let’s try to take the edge off it,’” Armstrong recalls about the producer who wanted the raptured souls to take the form of millions of corpses. “But, well, it is the rapture.”

He says this emphatically, matter-of-factly.

“It’s a movie about the rapture. The first step shouldn’t be ‘Let’s get rid of the rapture.’ People want to do that. The stigma that’s attached to it because it’s Christian is, well ... ” he trails off a little here, giving a knowing look.

He doesn’t have to finish the thought.

The very franchise he’s trying to reboot went belly up in 2005 and has largely served as the go-to punchline for any joke about the Christian film industry.

Such is the trouble with making a plainly biblical film in 2014. The quest for legitimacy—to be seen as a true artistic endeavor from serious filmmakers—forever lies in tension with A Thief In the Night, Testamints and the bevy of relics from a time when Christian culture was more frequently at war with the mainstream culture instead of the place it finds itself today: vying for respect.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2014 seems to be a time of unique opportunity to earn the respect Christian filmmakers like Armstrong often feel eludes them. The year reportedly will see some six films with distinctly Christian themes. In addition to Left Behind, there is a Heaven Is For Real adaptation starring Greg Kinnear; Darren Aronofsky’s gritty, unsettling Noah movie; Mary, Mother of Christ starring Sir Ben Kingsley and the late Peter O’Toole; Ridley Scott’s Exodus, starring Christian Bale as Moses; and Mark Burnett’s Son

of God, based on the massively successful miniseries, The Bible.

If you include biblical movies given the OK for development in the near future, that number grows. Scripts are in development for a Will Smith-helmed Cain and Abel movie, a Pontius Pilate script that has attracted Brad Pitt’s interest and another movie based on the life of Moses, attached to Life of Pi director Ang Lee. And even that’s not all. There are rumors of another attempt at a film about the life of Christ. A Goliath script is being passed around Hollywood, which supposedly has caught the eye of Dwayne Johnson. There’s a Ben-Hur remake in the works.

Simply put, Hollywood is prepared to put down a lot of money on the Bible.

“When Hollywood does something, they go biblical,” explains Dr. Craig Detweiler, professor of film at Pepperdine University.

Detweiler has been something of a go-to liaison between Hollywood and the Christian subculture.

“Hollywood is always hungry for great, timeless material,” he explains. “The Bible has always served as an epic source. The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur—the biggest blockbusters of the ’50s; they also were the biggest movies of the ’20s.”

“They’ve remade and retold these stories every 30 years—whenever the technology changes,” Detweiler says. “The biggest silent movies became the biggest cinemascope spectaculars of the ’50s, which become the biggest digital blockbusters of today. Same stories updated via new technology.”

Nicolas Cage as Captain Rayford Steele in Left Behind

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Russel Crowe in Noah, which hit theaters in March.

Of course, times have changed since the ’20s.

The relationship between the American Church and Hollywood is now famously tense.

STORMS OF CONTROVERSY Darren Aronofsky has found that out the hard way. He’s the Oscar-nominated director behind Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, The Fountain and other winding, riveting movies. No two ways about it, he’s one of his generation’s finest filmmakers, and also one of the least compromising.

Few directors are so unwilling to edit their vision—a trait that has garnered him no small amount of praise (Black Swan) but has also confounded critics. The Fountain is one of the most deeply divisive major motion pictures of the past decade. You’ll find plenty of people who hate it. You’ll find others who will swear it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. Noah debuted to similarly mixed reviews.

Regarding Noah, which he calls “the film I was born to make,” Aronofsky has seen plenty of both praise and condemnation. Some people swear he brought the Bible to life. Others say he

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“Hollywood is always hungry for great, timeless material. The Bible has always served as an epic source.”

—Craig Detweiler

threw it in the garbage.

And Aronofsky—with his characteristic renegade—couldn’t care less either way. When The New Yorker asked how he felt about audiences’ mixed feelings about his movie, he was blunt: “Noah is the least biblical biblical film ever made. I don’t give a f*** about the test scores.

My films are outside the scores.”

His resistance to playing by the rules has paid off with Noah. In exchange for an extra $35 million in his budget, he relinquished rights to select the final cut of his film. Paramount selected a more conservatively religious edit of the film, which they played to test audiences alongside Aronofsky’s more daring cut. The crowds generally favored Aronofsky’s, so that was the version released to theaters.

Aronofsky’s attitude is indicative of Hollywood as a whole. In some ways, you have to sympathize with the film industry: It seems they just can’t win with Christians. When they’re not making any biblically themed movies, America’s faithful clamor that they’re being discriminated against. When they buckle and try to make a Bible movie, many Christians

revolt, infuriated that Hollywood would dare tackle so holy a subject.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CHURCH: THE UGLY BREAKUP “A hundred years ago, when movies were first invented, pastors were remarkably enthusiastic about the medium and its possibilities to communicate ancient truth through contemporary technology,” Detweiler says.

“That last era where you saw these Bible spectaculars was the ’50s. The ’50s was also the moment where Christian congressmen came after Hollywood—the McCarthy Era. They basically came to Hollywood and said ‘We think there are Communists here.’”

That chapter of America is not a pretty one. It’s popularly referred to as McCarthyism, in which Hollywood executives kept blacklists of suspected Communists and refused to hire them.

“And guess what they did to those Communists?” says Detweiler, growing animated. “Those immigrants who came here for opportunity—they brought them before Congress, and when they refused to cooperate, they sent them to jail. Lost their homes, lost their livelihoods, because Christian congressmen sent them to jail.”

According to Detweiler, this has put Hollywood on the defense ever since. To

Diogo Morgado as Jesus in Son of God

his thinking, filmmakers see the blacklist as the first blood drawn in the battle between the Church and Hollywood for America’s attention, and Hollywood has spent the past 50 years playing for keeps. And as film has become one of the most lucrative and widespread parts of American culture, the American Church has grown jealous.

As Detweiler puts it, “Only after churches saw their cultural influence wane in relationship to Hollywood did they see it as an enemy or as competition rather than an opportunity.”

That’s an idea many Christian filmmakers return to again and again: seeing such movies as opportunities. Instead of growing defensive, they say, why not leverage the interest in Scripture into something productive? It’s something Detweiler is deeply passionate about.

“If someone told me that Hollywood was going to spend $100 or $200 million dollars exploring and depicting the Bible, I would be thrilled by the commensurate public interest that will drive people back to our Holy Bible that is all too often sitting on a shelf,” he says. “It’s such an opportunity to enter into meaningful and extended conversations with the texts that we hold nearest and dearest to us.”

The opportunity for such conversation is currently being stirred up—but the exact results remain to be seen.

JESUS CHRIST: SUPERSTAR Mark Burnett might be the most successful TV producer in the world. He practically invented reality television with Survivor, and he perfected the art of the music competition with The Voice, which has unseated the once-invincible American Idol franchise as the most popular music show on TV. Now he, along with his wife, Roma Downey, has turned his attention to the art of the biblical epic.

At this point, the story of how their miniseries, The Bible, took the History Channel by storm barely needs retelling. It simply smashed records, drawing an eye-popping 13.1 million viewers in its debut, making it cable’s most-watched telecast of the year and beating out famed crowd-pleasers like The Walking Dead.

“We were happy,” Burnett says of the show’s numbers. “I don’t think we were surprised. We prayed about this so much and literally put years into making a Bible series and subsequently a Son of God movie.

You have to know, so many people said to us, ‘You guys are crazy, No one’s going to watch this.’ And Roma would always say, ‘You’re going to be surprised.’”

They were. And the surprise warranted a follow-up in the form of a film adaptation of the miniseries’ Jesus-centric portion. Son of God was released into theaters on Ash Wednesday and proved similarly expectation- defying.

The film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, was reportedly hoping the film would bring in something like $1215 million in its first weekend. It made about $26.5 million.

“When we were shooting The Bible, we realized it was electric while we were shooting the story of Jesus,” Burnett says. “Roma, who plays Mary, and Diogo Morgado, the Portuguese actor who plays Jesus, just lit up the screen. We shot more. We knew we’d take that and make a

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BIBLE PRECEDENTS BEN -H UR

William Wyler’s 1959 epic starring Charlton Heston as a galley slave who meets Jesus might be the most famous biblical film of all. There’s a rumored remake in the works for 2015.

T HE TE N C O MM A N DMENTS

The 1956 retelling of the Exodus story was the most expensive film ever made at the time. It set the bar for 2014’s Ridley Scott-helmed Exodus movie.

T HE L A S T T EMPTAT IO N O F C H R IS T

Martin Scorsese’s controversial depiction of a morally conflicted Christ was condemned by most Christians when it released in 1988.

T HE PR IN C E O F EGY P T

One of DreamWorks Animation’s first animated films won an Oscar for music and proved that Exodus is a well that does not run dry for Hollywood.

T HE PA S S IO N OF THE C HRI S T

Mel Gibson’s graphic portrayal of Jesus Christ’s final hours is the United States’ top-grossing R-rated film of all time.

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separate movie about Jesus—a perfect moviegoing experience.”

“We wanted to tell this story in a way that would be true and accurate,” Downey says.

“Something that would show the extraordinary love that God had for us. I think that we managed to create a film that not only satisfies but is opening people’s hearts. It’s teaching them, but it’s also moving them.”

Whether it’s moving viewers might be a bit subjective, but it is certainly teaching them. When the Barna Group surveyed people who had watched The Bible miniseries, they found that 69 percent had learned something about the Bible they hadn’t known before. When you narrow the scope of their survey to “non-active Christians,” 78 percent said they’d learned something new.

LIGHTS. CAMERA. ACTION? While Noah made Christian audiences see red and Son of God had them flocking to theaters, it remains to be seen where other Bible movies will land. But there are some hints.

Ridley Scott’s Exodus movie is consulting with biblical experts in an attempt to get the script right. They are reportedly taking pains to draw a clear line between what’s essential to the truth of the story and what can be interpreted creatively.

In the meantime, Total Recall director Paul Verhoeven is working on a script about the life of Jesus that apparently strips Jesus of his divinity. Clearly, the film will not be catering to the Christian market.

Likewise, Will Smith’s Cain and Abel adaptation appears to be very loosely based on its source material, evidently involving vampires in some capacity. The movie is being called The Redemption of Cain, and there is no reason to expect it to adhere too closely to the biblical narrative, whatever the film’s core message.

The general sense of American Christians is to anticipate these with some mix of either nervous hope or hopeful nervousness.

But no matter how nervous Christians are, you can bet Hollywood execs—who have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake—are even more nervous.

“This moment of Hollywood’s renewed interest in the Bible is really a historic crossroads and opportunity for Christians,” Detweiler says. “This is far more than an olive branch that has been extended to us.

This is multi-million dollars of investment to the faith community’s prolonged cry that

“So many people said to us, ‘You guys are crazy, No one’s going to watch this.’ And Roma would always say, ‘You’re going to be surprised.’”

—Mark Burnett

‘If you film it, we will come.’ And if we fail to show up, then we absolutely have no ground to ever complain again to this generation of Hollywood execs.”

Vic Armstrong, for one, is hoping people show up.

“I think it is going to take some natural selection in the marketplace, and hopefully Left Behind will be one of them,” he says.

“You don’t have to manipulate what’s there.

Hopefully we’ll get to the point where people say, ‘We can be true to the Bible. We can be respectful to Christians. And we can still make money.’ Don’t lose the core message and you won’t lose the core audience.”

For his part, Detweiler says maybe Hollywood and the Church need to rethink how they view each other.

“Here’s an exercise I have my students do,” he says. “Make a list of what you think when you think of Hollywood. And then write on the other side what you think Hollywood’s stereotype of the Church is.

And guess what? That list that we construct about Hollywood—it’s money-driven, it’s obsessed with sex. Well, that’s what they view us as. Because all they see is televangelists and sex scandals and priests who molest people.

“And then you flip to the other side and you see ‘intolerant’ and ‘judgmental.’

That’s who Hollywood is toward us. Liberal Hollywood is tolerant until it comes to us.

There’s error on both sides, and tension.

“But I’m reasonably hopeful.”

T YLER HUCK ABEE is the managing editor of RELEVANT magazine.

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WHAT REALLY SHAPES ONE OF HOLLYWOOD’S MOST SUCCESSFUL FILMMAKERS

BY CAR L KOZLOWSK I

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he always made it her own way,” Tyler Perry says, reminiscing about his aunt, who he says raised four boys on her own,

never accepting welfare. “She said she never expected a tribute. So this is my tribute to her.”

He’s talking about his latest film, The Single Moms Club, which hit theaters in March, and it seems fitting that Perry, a man

who has undoubtedly made his own way, would pay tribute to his hardworking aunt.

When one thinks of the past decade’s top filmmakers, names such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino might spring to mind. But Perry

has had more box-office success than those three combined.

He is the only filmmaker to have five films open at No. 1 in the box office in the last five years.

His movies regularly earn more than four times as much as they cost to make. His top 13 grossed more than $600 million and cost less than $10 million to make.

His most recent, The Single Moms Club, may not have scored as big in the box office, but it dealt with a subject particularly close to Perry’s heart. Watching his aunt bring up her four boys and help raise numerous other relatives, Perry says he realized the strength of single mothers.

“This is my tribute to her and all single moms,” he says. “This is not a ‘woe is me’ kind of film, but one that says ‘Find your village.’”

What Perry means is that he believes it’s important for single mothers to surround themselves with friends and loved ones.

Along with the women, who form their “club” for support, the movie also features several strong male figures.

“I made a very conscious effort to not make this about bashing men,” Perry says.

“It’s about being a village for each other.

The important thing is that if you don’t have father figures in your life, you need to create them where you can.”

FULFILLING A PROMISE Though Perry himself wasn’t raised by a single mom, he didn’t have a good example of a father figure, either. Perry’s father, Emmitt, was physically abusive, which drove Perry to attempt suicide as a teen as a way to escape his beatings. At the age of 16, Perry decided to further distance himself from his father, whom he was named after, by changing his first name to Tyler.

In a revealing 2010 interview with Oprah, Perry also described how he was molested by both a friend’s mother and a trio of men in his early childhood—experiences he didn’t speak about until years later.

In the midst of these hardships, as he was growing up in New Orleans, Perry found solace in attending church with his mother on Sundays. In a way, though, it was also those hardships that spurred Perry to achieve his success. When he was young, he promised his mother he would always take care of her the way she had looked out for him.

“I remember telling her when I was 5 years old that I was going to buy her a house and make sure she had everything she needed,” Perry recalls. “And I did achieve that. But when she died a few years ago, I was so close to her that I didn’t know how to handle not having her around anymore, and that forced me to have to re-evaluate what I was doing in my life.”

What Perry was doing was remarkable, of course, especially considering that he never finished high school (though he has earned

moviegoers, they haven’t always been as well-received with movie critics and even other directors.

Perhaps the most notable of the criticism were comments from Spike Lee in 2009 when he called Perry’s imagery “troubling.”

Perry initially fired back, saying, “Why the hell would I be worried about a Spike Lee or anybody else? They can all go straight to hell.”

Later, though, the filmmaker took a more measured approach to Lee’s criti-

“AS A MAN OF FAITH, IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE MONEY. I NEED TO GIVE PEOPLE HOPE ... THEN I’M DOING MY JOB.” his GED). He turned to writing in his early twenties, after hearing a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show describe the therapeutic effects the exercise can have.

After writing a series of letters to himself, he adapted them as the basis of his musical I Know I’ve Been Changed. He personally undertook the expense of renting a theater in Atlanta to put on the play, and the production was a financial failure.

After the experience, Perry became mired in a series of odd jobs and wound up having to live in his car.

But, much like in the films he has become famous for, Perry eventually found a happy ending. When an opportunity arose to stage his play again, Perry improved his marketing plan and the play sold out.

The success soon attracted investors who helped him build a theatrical empire that eventually crossed over into film and TV productions.

Recently, Perry entered into a partnership with the Oprah Winfrey Network. He will be taking two years off from film to supervise two TV series created with the very same person who inspired him to start writing in the first place.

PERRY’S HAPPY ENDING Having written or directed more than 30 projects for movies, TV and the stage since 2002, Perry is far and away the most successful African-American filmmaker of all time.

Though his characters, such as Madea—a bawdy older women Perry portrays in drag— have achieved box-office acclaim with

cism, telling Oprah the two just had different views due to their individual backgrounds. “Of course our stories would be different,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that one is less important than the other.

They’re just different stories.”

For Perry, characters like Madea are just vessels for larger ideas. He told 60 Minutes: “All these characters are bait—disarming, charming, make-you-laugh bait. I can slap Madea on something and talk about God, love, faith, forgiveness, family, any of those.”

Though not all critics connect with the over-the-top performances in some of his movies, Perry says he’s learned to make those values more nuanced.

“I don’t worry about being heavyhanded,” he says. “My dialogue has grown more subtle with experience.”

His recent films veer between wild comedies, such as those featuring Madea, and more serious grounded movies featuring recognizable names, including singers Janet Jackson and Mary J. Blige and Oscarwinning actress Kathy Bates. But regardless of the cast or genre, all of his films have one thing in common: Just like in his own life, faith, God, love, forgiveness and family are most important.

Ultimately, box office success isn’t what drives the filmmaker. Perry says his job is to fulfill a bigger calling.

“As a man of faith, it’s not enough to make money,” he says. “I need to give people hope.

“Then I’m doing my job.”

CARL KOZLOWSKI is a Los Angeles journalist who has been bringing humor to the page and stage for more than a decade.

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BY KR ISTEN HOW ERTON

Last year I attended a large concert event at a local outdoor music venue, and as the headliner band took the stage, the unmistakable smell of marijuana drifted through the air.

For those of us who attend a lot of concerts, it’s not an unusual experience. In fact, my experience has been that it’s rather common for concert attendees to light up at a show. But what was different about this occasion was that I wasn’t at a mainstream concert—I was at a festival show put on by a local Christian radio station.

The entire show was explicitly Christian.

And this group of people next to me had made the decision to buy tickets and spend an evening listening to worship music, hearing a prominent pastor speak ... and getting high.

These activities may be seen by many Christians as incongruent, but as several states have legalized marijuana in the past decade, there has been growing dialogue as to whether it is appropriate for Christians to engage in smoking pot.

Previously, the illegal status of marijuana gave pause to many Christians, as believers are instructed obey governing authorities (Romans 13:1-2). However, with the legalization of marijuana in states like Washington and Colorado and other states sure to follow suit, it might be prudent to consider the ethics of marijuana beyond the letter of the laws of state.

The Bible does not address marijuana specifically, and like many lifestyle issues, Christians hold a wide variety of views regarding its use. There are many who believe marijuana should be avoided completely. However, a growing number of Christians believe the use of legally prescribed marijuana is acceptable for medical conditions.

Most mainstream Christians are not opposed to using prescription medication for pain management or other health concerns, and marijuana, when prescribed

by a doctor, seems to fit with that ethic.

But what about recreational pot smoking?

What about when the use of marijuana is not about a medical concern, but just about getting high?

Even pastors who live in states where marijuana is not yet legal have started addressing recreational use. In a recent blog post, John Piper urged Christians to refrain from smoking pot: “Be willing to be an inexperienced baby when it comes to sharing in mind-clouding drugs,” Piper wrote. “Be ruthlessly clear-headed. Let the herd stampede over the cliff without you. Use your mind to warn them, not join them.”

Similarly, Pastor Sam Storms of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City recently addressed the issue of marijuana in a sermon: “What sort of witness for Jesus do we give when we join with the world in the recreational

In Sacramento, Calif., a man named Bryan Davies opened a medical marijuana dispensary as a ministry opportunity, believing it to be one of the “seed-bearing” plants God gave to man in the book of Genesis.

Davies isn’t the only one arguing that the Bible is pro-marijuana. Chris Bennett, a writer for High Times magazine, suggests that the anointing oil used by Jesus and His disciples contained an ingredient called kaneh-bosm, which has since been identified as cannabis extract. Organizations like Christians for Cannabis extol the virtues of marijuana while using scriptures such as Genesis 1:29 (“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth’”) to support the idea that marijuana is one of God’s gifts to mankind.

Christians may remain divided on this issue, much as Christians remain divided on

WHILE THE EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA MAY NOT BE AS DRAMATIC AS OTHER DRUGS, IT CAN HAVE LIFEALTERING EFFECTS. use of a drug whose purpose is to induce a state of passivity and stupor and diminished accuracy in mental observation and memory and basic reasoning powers?” he asked. “Not a good one, in my opinion.”

There are other Christians who take a more tolerant approach to casual marijuana use. Jeff Lucas, founder of Christian Cannabis Fellowship, feels that all earthly substances are from God. “I believe in Jesus, and I’ve had a clear conscience about smoking pot for over 20 years,” he says. “Whether I choose to smoke pot or not has no effect on whether I believe that Jesus is God. Cannabis prohibition is not essential to life-saving faith.”

the issue of drinking alcohol, so it’s difficult to apply a prescriptive theology on smoking pot. However, there are several questions that Christians can ask themselves as they contemplate their own stance on recreational marijuana use:

1

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEING IN AN ALTERED STATE?

The Bible doesn’t take a stance on “getting high,” but there are numerous passages that address drunkenness, which is a close approximation.

Proverbs warns against being led astray by wine (Proverbs 20:1), and suggests that

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wine lovers will be poor (Proverbs 23:21 and Proverbs 21:17). More directly, Proverbs 23:30 admonishes us not to drink too much wine, and there are references to the woes of chasing after drinks in Isaiah (5:11 and 5:22). The New Testament weighs in on drunkenness, too, warning us not to associate with drunkards (1 Corinthians 5:11) and listing drunkenness among the sins that will not inherit the Kingdom of God in Galatians.

Some Christians respond to these scriptures by abstaining from alcohol altogether, while others hold the view that drinking is OK as long as you don’t get drunk. This is where applying scriptures on drinking to marijuana use falls apart a bit, since smoking pot without getting high isn’t really an option. Is it possible to casually smoke marijuana without a form of “drunkenness?” It’s unlikely. So Christians who are opposed to getting drunk will likely choose to abstain from smoking pot.

2

WILL SMOKING POT BE BENEFICIAL FOR ME?

In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us that everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. He also describes our body as a temple, with which we’re instructed to glorify God. So while smoking pot may not be a clear sin, it’s important to consider whether this activity is beneficial to one’s self and one’s relationship with God and others.

While research has shown marijuana to be effective in addressing issues such as anxiety, pain management, seizures and nausea, it has also been shown to have negative side effects. Marijuana can cause a reduced capacity to learn and recall new information. It is also a lung irritant, which poses respiratory problems similar to the effects of smoking cigarettes. A number of studies have linked marijuana use and mental illness, including increased risk of psychosis, anxiety and depression. It is also, perhaps most famously, linked to poor motivation.

While the effects of marijuana may not be as dramatic as other drugs, it can have lifealtering effects. As a marriage and family therapist, I saw many couples whose relationships were affected by the decreased motivation and increased isolation of marijuana use. I’ve also seen clients whose parents were daily marijuana users, and the havoc their parents’ consistent use wreaked on their childhood. All Christians should be

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armed with realistic facts about the effects of marijuana as they consider the benefits (or lack thereof ).

3

WHAT IS MY MOTIVATION?

It’s important for anyone contemplating the use of a mind/ mood-altering substance to examine their motivations. Because ultimately, like many nuanced moral and spiritual issues, the reasons we choose to do something are often just as significant as the things we choose to do.

Though in some cases pot is purely recreational and used for its perceived social enhancements—similar to alcohol—there are also times when people turn to substances like marijuana to deal with deeper issues. Sometimes this is not just physical pain, but also emotional anguish, stress or escapism from the difficult realities of life.

Despite the Scriptures’ frequent warnings about the risks of consuming too much alcohol, there’s a biblical precedence for this understanding. In a warning about the potential effects that alcohol can have on an individual’s judgment (in this case, a powerful King), Proverbs 31 cautions against drinking wine, but paradoxically goes on to say, “Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish! Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more” (Proverbs 31:6-7).

Examining the root of an individual’s motivation—and not just their actions—is an important step when determining a personal position on complicated issues like marijuana. Yes, marijuana may offer real, if temporary, relief from emotional hardship, but as Christians, Scripture is also clear that long-term treatment for our emotional pain should be found in spiritual healing, not in fleeting highs.

4

CAN I SMOKE MARIJUANA WITH INTEGRITY?

The old adage “you’re only as sick as your secrets” is cliché, but it’s also true. Scripture talks about walking in the light and avoiding deceit.

If you decide to use marijuana, is this something you feel you will need to hide from others? Is this an activity you can indulge in with integrity, or is it something that would require secrecy?

This is especially a consideration for

those in ministry or roles of spiritual influence. As Christians, we are called to be above reproach, and it’s important to consider how our behavior could affect our credibility. If it’s something you can’t admit publicly, is it something you should be doing at all?

5

WILL IT ALTER MY SELF-CONTROL?

6

DO I STRUGGLE WITH ADDICTION?

It’s no secret that getting high can alter our impulse control.

It impairs our ability to make thoughtful and rational decisions. It impedes our cognitive abilities and lowers our inhibitions. If your intention to get high also involves scenarios where other vices might be a temptation, are you opening yourself up to trouble?

While there are many people who smoke pot recreationally who never struggle with addiction, for some, marijuana can be very psychologically addictive. The line between occasional marijuana use and chronic use can be blurry, and for some it can be a difficult habit to break.

It’s wise to think through boundaries in terms of frequency of use, but ultimately, some people will be more predisposed to addiction than others. This is influenced by a variety of factors, including biological predisposition, personality, coping skills and childhood trauma. If you’ve had trouble with addiction or have family members who struggle with addiction, proceed with caution.

Ultimately, given the lack of scriptures specific to marijuana, wisdom and discernment are needed. As marijuana gains legal status and more social acceptance in our country, Christians are likely to land in different places on this issue. And while it’s important that we follow our own convictions, it’s also best if the Body of Christ does not allow this issue to become one that divides the Church.

As Jeff Lucas says, “I don’t expect every Christian to accept my controversial politics, but I do hope that they would accept me as their brother in Christ regardless of my politics.”

KRISTEN HOWERTON is a marriage and family therapist, a mom of four and a freelance writer. She blogs at Rage Against the Minivan.

COURAGE

to think deeply to act justly to live fully

“

We have to develop the eyes to see where redemption is showing up in all kinds of places, some which are Christian, some of which are not.”

Ken Heffner, Director of Student Activities, Calvin College

You love pop culture, and so do we. But don’t just love pop culture—dive deep into it, listening, watching, thinking and discerning until you understand exactly why you love it. At Calvin, we look for the ways in which God’s truth and beauty seep through the notes of a song and the frames of a movie or video game. We discern where sin and brokenness are apparent in all forms of art.

Along the way, our hearts and minds are transformed more and more into Christ’s likeness.

Join us as we explore what it means to think deeply, act justly and live fully at Calvin College.

www.calvin.edu Calvin College admits students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin.

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THERE’S A LOT MORE TO NEW LATE-NIGHT TV HOST PETE HOLMES THAN MEETS THE EYE

BY JESSE CAR EY

ust before Marc Maron, the gritty comic and avowed nonbeliever behind the popular WTF podcast, took a seat across from Pete Holmes on TBS’ The Pete Holmes Show, viewers and the studio audience watched a five-minute clip of Holmes surfing with former pastor and author Rob Bell. Along with a few urination jokes (courtesy of Holmes), the two also talked about the teachings of Jesus, faith and a belief in God. “Did you just run a Christian commercial?” Maron joked after the clip. “He’s trying to shovel it under the mat, like, ‘This is my buddy. He’s a pastor, but I’m going to talk to him about surfing,’” Maron continued with a few exaggerated winks.

The juxtaposition of having a sit-down interview with a world-weary comic like Maron and a pre-taped segment featuring a well-known pastor may be strange on some late-night shows, but according to Holmes, his show— which airs weeknights on TBS after Conan—is making its own rules.

“We’re a new show, and we have the luxury of going into these things with a new energy,” Holmes says. “We’re trying to make a name for ourselves and we’re trying to distinguish ourselves. So we’re putting in the extra hours to try and be a little bit different.”

Part of that energy is an intentionally optimistic tone that avoids making fun of celebrity meltdown victims or the latest political faux pas.

“Without sounding cheesy, we’re trying to have a positive slant,” Holmes says. “Comedy can often skew to some sort of negative or ugly place—and we can be dirty—but I never want us to be ugly or something that breaks people down.”

THE HAPPINESS FACTORY Though he’s a new face on the late-night scene, you’ve probably seen—or at least heard—Holmes before. In addition to being a veteran on the stand-up circuit, Holmes is the voice of the E*Trade baby commercial

campaign and the star of a series of superhero spoof online videos (the Batman parodies he made with CollegeHumor have been viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube). His podcast, You Made It Weird, is one of the most popular on iTunes.

The long-form interview podcast, in which guests talk about everything from comedy and culture to science and faith, has featured two-hour conversations with Hollywood A-listers Jon Hamm, Louis C.K. and Zach Galifianakis as well as stand-up favorites Bert Kreischer, Chris Hardwick and Sarah Silverman. But like his new TV show, the one constant is Holmes’ unwavering, high-energy positivity and (extremely) loud laugh.

“I kind of feel like I work in some sort of happiness factory,” he says, describing the experience of making his new show. “We’re trying to keep things light and happy.”

But before he was a late-night rising star and Internet celebrity with a reputation for being the “joyful” comedian, the bubbly TV show host was a divorced, twentysomething Christian college grad. Disillusioned by the faith of his youth, he looked for truth outside the Church—in comedy.

THE PASTORS OF LATE-NIGHT Pete Holmes isn’t the only late-night host to bring in a pastor as a guest on his talk show. Here’s a look at some other notable men of the cloth who have sat across from the funny men of late-night.

J OE L OSTE E N ON L ATE NIGHT W I TH JI MMY FA L L O N

Jimmy Fallon told megachurch pastor and author Joel Osteen he was a “big fan.” Between the two, there was A LOT of smiling.

PASTOR PETE When Holmes first enrolled at a small Christian college in Massachusetts, he planned on becoming a youth pastor. But it wasn’t long until he found he had a different gift.

“My freshman year at Gordon College, you had to take some required Bible courses, but then I realized I was much more into getting laughs—whatever I did,” Holmes says.

“So I realized it was a very similar skill set [to being a pastor]. I like making people feel good. I like talking. I like being listened to. I like structuring talks and stuff. And then I, you know, I just kind of made it exclusively about comedy. But I don’t see too much of a difference.”

Holmes says it was the same elements that drew him to ministry that made him want to be a comedian. “I’m not burdened with the label of ‘pastor.’ Nobody would

R IC K WAR R E N ON THE CO L B E RT RE PO RT

Colbert invited Warren to explain “that God does exist and God does love you.” He also asked Warren to try and convince Jesus to come on the show.

J IM WAL LIS ON TH E DAILY SHOW

Sojourners founder, author and theologian Jim Wallis has been on The Daily Show a few times to discuss the intersection of politics and religion.

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Holmes interviews stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies

“THE CHRISTIAN IN ME LIKES TO CONSIDER COMEDY A MINISTRY. I DO THINK IT MINISTERS TO PEOPLE.” ever confuse me with a pastor. But I still see comedy as an opportunity to sometimes inject some positivity,” he says. “So, the Christian in me likes to consider comedy a ministry. I do think it ministers to people.”

Though he was married fresh out of college to a fellow Gordon alum, his relationship with his wife fell apart after only six years. At just 28 years old, Holmes was divorced. As he explained to Bell during a podcast interview, the end of his marriage left him hurt and questioning the faith he had always clung to.

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“Some people go one way and they find God. Some people go the other way, and they lose God,” he said. Though Holmes came back to faith after a time of “dabbling in theories,” the experience forever changed his perspective on religion and God.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE When asked about what’s changed in his view on faith since his days growing up the Church, Holmes references the book Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, saying he relates to its idea that too much of the emphasis has been on flaws other Christians can see.

“So much of the focus is on observable sins, public sins,” he says. “Like why is there a True Love Waits Bible? Because that’s a public sin. You get knocked up, you’re pregnant and everyone gets a nine-month reminder that you did something wrong.

“Or swearing is another one. Or the things that you talk about, or the jokes, or whatever it is. Those are all ‘public’ sins. But really, I don’t think that’s very interesting. I

think who we really are as a full person is far more interesting.”

Seeing people for who they are has become part of Holmes’ comedy ethos.

Along with his podcast, which is, at times, emotionally intimate, his TV show brings a sense of unpolished transparency that’s unlike his late-night rivals.

“People are hungry for authenticity. People want the real thing,” he says. “Show some of the warts and everything. And that’s very fortuitous. That’s something that appeals to me as well as an audience member.”

During one of his early television tapings, Holmes botched a punch line in the opening monologue but was able to save the joke with a self-deprecating one-liner.

After the editors cut it out of the tape for broadcast, he and the producers told them to put it back in.

“That’s the show we’re making,” he says. “We want people to see that I’m not instantly some slick TV host. I’m a guy, who got a show, who’s figuring it out.”

Holmes says he doesn’t mind if that means people see him sweat a little. “We want it to be—with the risk of sounding pretentious—we want it to be a kind of authentic and artistic and real experience.”

PETE AND ALL HIS FRIENDS Part of the authenticity that Holmes is striving for also means booking guests—on his show and podcast—who aren’t typical latenight fixtures. It means choosing people who he wants to talk to and people he wants to introduce to others.

Holmes admits that hosting a show that features his buddies as guests has been an aid to his social life.

“I get to see my friends more on the TV show than I do in real life!” he laughs.

But he clarifies that he’s not complaining about the busyness of showbiz.

“It’s a delight when I come in and I look at the schedule and I remember that someone like Bo Burnham is the guest. So I get to see him beforehand and I get to see him during and we get to chat a little bit afterward.”

The benefits of hosting your own talk show also include getting to hand-pick guests, even if they are just the celebrities you want to hang out with. Because of the vibe of The Pete Holmes Show, Holmes doesn’t need approval from higher-ups to bring in the artists he wants. “[Matt Berninger of The National] just did something with us. That’s just my favorite band,” Holmes says. “Nobody is looking at charts and graphs and what’s going to appeal and what’s going to play.”

It was that kind of emphasis on his personal taste that led to the seemingly unlikely friendship with Bell, the former Mars Hill Bible Church pastor and somewhat controversial Christian author.

Holmes says that after reading Bell’s Love Wins, he contacted some of his old Christian friends to see if someone could put him in contact with the author.

Eventually, he got in touch with Bell, and after spending a few hours podcasting together, a real friendship blossomed.

“When I have a guest on the show like Rob, that’s someone who is genuinely fascinating to me,” Holmes explains. “To continue that relationship in real life and also bring him on the TV show is a real thrill for me.”

When Holmes landed his TV show, it was only natural for him to invite his new friend to come on to talk about faith ... and surfing.

“I’m happy to say, we surf all the time now,” Holmes says. “He taught me how to surf on the show, and we surf on the reg!”

THE CALLING OF COMEDY Though he never did become a pastor, Holmes makes the case that his comedy serves a similar purpose as the role of people like Bell who are actually in ministry.

“One of the reasons Rob and I get along is because I think we are on the same side.

And he sees it that way too,” Holmes says.

“We’re trying to expose truth. To expose hypocrisy. Laugh at ourselves. Laugh at our faults. And at the end of the day feel like we are taking a little step toward being a better person.”

Holmes says he’s now able to hang out with people who can reconcile his sense of

hold to a variety of beliefs (as he describes it “traditional Christians,” “atheists” and “scientists”) and have deep conversations about faith, but also just enjoy spending time together.

“It’s this weird, kooky group, and that appeals to me so much more than a church where we all just get together and congratulate ourselves for coming to the same conclusions,” Holmes says. “It’s interesting to kind of get dirty and messy and have fun and have some laughs in a very non-formal atmosphere.”

The transformation that happened—from a Christian college student who was going to go into the ministry into a late-night comic who happens to like to talk about religion and purpose—is that Holmes now sees the practice of faith as more than exercises and

“WE WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THAT I’M NOT INSTANTLY SOME SLICK TV HOST. I’M A GUY, WHO GOT A SHOW, WHO’S FIGURING IT OUT.” humor (which can be crass) with his faith leanings, though that wasn’t always the case.

He says if the pastor of the church he grew up in cussed, “he’d get in a lot of trouble.”

Of course, Holmes is quick to emphasize that Bell isn’t a “blue guy” (“When he hangs out, he’s not like a different person”), and being around a Christian who is authentic and non-judgmental is a shift from the Christianity of his youth.

“I don’t have to censor myself in front of Rob—being a person that whenever I hung out with my youth pastor or my pastor, you kind of act like there’s a cop in the room,” he says. “When I text Rob or something, if I’m going to say something sucks, I’ll say it sucks. That’s not necessarily pastor speak.

But the thing is, like, he’s a real person. He’s not a politician. He’s just someone who happens to be looking for the truth through the lens of Christianity.”

Seeing truth through the lens of Christianity—not necessarily through the structure of an organized Church—is something that appeals to the guy who left and then rediscovered faith. Holmes says the most “church-y” thing he now does is regularly hang out with a group of people who

rituals. He sees it as a relationship. “[Traditions are] just a dress rehearsal for the true communion with God, which is an everyday, all the time experience,” he says.

Years after his divorce, after searching for, and finding, a different kind of belief and finding success in his new calling of comedy, Holmes finally has a new perspective.

And as his career has brought him from commercials and YouTube videos to the big stage on his very own show, Holmes is finally ready for something more than a practice run. Even when it comes to his Christian faith.

“I think all of that is just a dress rehearsal for something more exciting and more true that actually would engage people,” he says.

“When people get turned off by the Church, they’re afraid of people that are going to narc on them for having the third glass of wine or judge them or whatever it is.

“I think that stuff is not compelling to anybody, and I don’t think that’s the sort of juice that made something like this survive all this time.”

JESSE CARE Y is an editor for RELEVANT and a mainstay on the RELEVANT Podcast.

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DO YOU KNOW

BY T YLER HUCK ABEE

you want a picture of how far Andy Mineo has come in the last few months, look no further than his February interview with hip-hop kingmaker and MTV producer Sway. His famed New York City morning show has hosted every rapper of note since its 1994 debut—from Notorious to Nas, Kanye to Kendrick.

And then, in the middle of this esteemed

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hierarchy, Sway had the audacity to interview Mineo and call him “the future of rap.”

The interview, unsurprisingly, went right to Mineo’s faith—which comes through loud and clear on just about every song he’s ever written. Sway asks Mineo if he’s a “Christian rapper” or “a rapper who’s a Christian,” which Mineo deflects with a good natured, “it’s whatever you want to call it.”

“You rap better than most of these heathen rappers anyway,” Sway says, which sets

the studio audience laughing and Mineo laughing loudest of all. But Sway puts a stop to all the chuckles straight away.

“It’s true!” he says with authority.

The numbers back Sway up. In one of the stunners in 2014’s year in music so far, Andy Mineo, a 25-year-old independent rapper without any significant marketing dollars to speak of, sold 26,000 copies of his Never Land EP in its first week. That put him at No. 13 on Billboard’s music charts and No. 2

on their rap chart, just behind Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

“It’s a cool thing that’s happening,” Mineo says. “It’s by the power of the people choosing what they want to listen to, not just what’s being fed to them. We’re able to amass a large fan base through this viral content. That is where you get an album like mine jumping up on the hip-hop charts to No. 2. And people are like ‘Who are you?

Where did that come from?’”

The question of where Mineo came from is pretty easy to answer. As to where he’s going, well, there don’t seem to be many limits.

Mineo’s career really began in Syracuse, N.Y., where he and friends practiced breakdancing to Wu-Tang Clan. They’d pop singles into the CD player (“we didn’t have enough money for full albums”) and, after mastering the dance, would occasionally stumble across an instrumental track. Every now and then, they’d write new lyrics over these tracks, and Mineo found he had a knack for it.

“It was just jokes—parodies of other songs,” he explains. “Then we started trying our hand at our own writing. That really started moving. I ended up getting a computer microphone so we could record on a computer. Just kept building up more and more pieces of equipment till I had a fullblown studio in my basement.”

One thing led to another and Mineo, then under the stage alias of C-Lite, found himself opening for no less legendary artists than The Roots and Common. But a brush with hip-hop producer and Christian Alex Medina inspired Mineo to take his faith seriously. He signed with Lecrae’s Reach Records, which is largely responsible for transforming the idea of Christian rap from a snarky punchline into a serious, respected force.

It’s a force Mineo has benefited from greatly.

“God has really blessed me and opened up doors that I couldn’t if I tried,” he says.

“He’s put people around me to open up opportunities that I wouldn’t have. Reach Records has made life easy, within the Christian community and beyond.

“But [it’s] also harder than I thought.

I didn’t realize how much was involved in doing this as a full-time career. A lot of people don’t know the hours behind the scenes. They think I go around rapping all day. There are lots of elements to this— the business aspect, the touring aspect, the marketing.”

One of the toughest things for Mineo, as Sway hinted, has been earning the right to be taken seriously as a Christian rapper.

While artists like Lecrae, Propaganda and Trip Lee have made huge gains for Christian hip-hop, Mineo says they still have to fight for legitimacy.

“Being a Christian who creates art, you’re already at a disadvantage when you talk about your art publicly,” he says.

“People’s first inclination is to write off Christian art as a copy or something corny or something cheesy.”

According to Mineo, that’s a self-inflicted wound. He hasn’t been shy about his opinions of some early Christian hip-hop.

“A lot of times in the Christian community ... we give passes to people’s art because we connect with them on their content,” he

“WE HAVE TO BRING OUR GAME WITH EXCELLENCE IN ORDER TO HAVE REAL CONVERSATION WITH PEOPLE.” explains. “You’re like, ‘Oh man, this person is talking about something that hits home for me. We both connect on this. I’m gonna give it 10 out of 10, even if it isn’t the best.’”

If it sounds like Mineo’s being hard on Christian rap, rest assured, he’s much harder on himself. On Never Land’s “You Can’t Stop Me,” Mineo is bracingly transparent about his own doubts, chronicling his inner monologue.

You will never write a verse like Kendrick Never be to rap what rock got from Hendrix Top 10 alive—you will never be mentioned Why aim so high, won’t survive the trenches Of course, aiming to be one of the top 10 rappers alive is a pretty lofty goal, and it’s clear he’s saying this with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.

Indeed, a sense of humor is key to understanding Mineo’s message, music and personality. When asked what he considers to be the most essential albums of all time, he immediately spits out his entire discography and then laughs at himself. (For the

record, his actual answer is Duke Ellington and John Coltrane’s collaboration, which he calls “my favorite album in the world.”)

Mineo does not take himself very seriously, but he takes his craft extremely seriously.

“We have to bring our game with excellence in order to have real conversation with people,” he says, referring again to his Christian colleagues. “So that we can continue having conversations about other things besides art—which is ultimately where we want to go. To hope. To faith.”

For Mineo, those conversations are the endgame, but they’re not completely divorced from his music. The old “we’re a Christian band” versus “we’re a band who happens to be Christian” is a tension he feels, but doesn’t lose much sleep over.

“There’s room for both explicitly Christian artists and artists who just happen to be Christian,” he says. “People who want to make explicit references to Jesus?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That’s what I’ve done. And there are some people who just create art and let their worldview seep in. I feel like I’m inbetween that.

“The issue is, people are calling stuff ‘Christian’ art and certain stuff not Christian art,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out what something being Christian art and something not Christian art is. If I speak from a biblical worldview and a Christian lens, but I don’t say ‘Jesus,’ is it Christian art?”

Mineo leaves the question hanging. His career trajectory speaks for itself.

Mineo’s next few moves seem pretty certain. He’s a rising star on the hip-hop circuit, which means more interviews, more shows and—hopefully—more music. He hints at work with Lecrae, of whom he speaks with obvious fondness and reverence. For the most part, he’ll be touring and introducing people to himself, his music and how to pronounce his last name (“Mineo. Say it with me: Min. Ee. Oh.”) When asked how he describes his music to someone who’s never heard him, he doesn’t have to think long.

“It’s honest music,” he says. “High-energy music that is honest, that offers my perspective on life, and it offers hope. It’s a transparency that draws people in through disclosing my struggles with life.”

Here, he breaks down laughing again.

“Maybe that’s not too compelling,” he says. “I’ll let the music do the talking for me.”

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WHY THE FORGOTTEN MEMBER OF THE TRINITY STILL CAUSES SUCH A RUCKUS B Y E M I LY M C FA R L A N M I L L E R

D arren Wilson grew up in the Baptist church, and it was all totally natural.

Wilson believed in Jesus. He believed Jesus was the Son of God. He went to church two or three times a week and listened to a sermon and sang some songs and went home—“that’s what faith was, you know?” he says.

In college, he didn’t so much fall away from the Church as start to feel a little “over it.” After graduation, he became a professor at an evangelical Christian university outside Chicago and “just kind of resolved myself to the fact God was out there, and He didn’t do a whole lot, because I didn’t see much,” he says.

“I kind of was just going through the motions,” he admits. “I was dead inside.”

And then, about seven or eight years ago, Wilson’s aunt and uncle went to a Christian conference. Their marriage was falling apart, he says, and this was their “last-ditch effort” to save it.

“They walked in normal people, and they walked out with gold teeth,” he says. “It’s still weird to this day. They still have them.”

That apparent miracle, weird as it was, was the single event that led to the restoration of his aunt and uncle’s marriage, Wilson says.

And it was the event that got him thinking, “If God did this, and I think He actually did, I wonder if He’s doing more than I know about.”

Wilson isn’t the only one wondering about the “more” of God—if He still might be doing things like the miracles and signs and wonders recorded in the Bible. If following Him might mean more than going to church and believing the right things and trying to be a good person.

By all accounts, those segments of Christianity that emphasize God’s continued activity in the world and the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are among the fastestgrowing around the globe. That’s according to a 10-country survey of Pentecostals conducted in 2006 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that included both Pentecostal denominations and those with similar “charismatic” beliefs.

But with that growth has come skepticism and suspicion from other corners of the evangelical Church.

A GROWING MOVEMENT Dr. George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, describes Pentecostalism as “a restoration movement.”

“The mainstream of the Pentecostal movement has sought to be as close in belief and practice as the early Church,” Wood says. “We believe that what was present in the early Church can be present, should be present, in the Church today.”

That includes the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12, he says, even the more supernatural-sounding gifts such as miracles, healing and both speaking in and interpreting tongues. And, he says, “I think the proof is in the pudding, so to speak: The results have been extensive in terms of evangelization and church planting around the world.”

In the United States, an estimated 23 percent of the population now are “renewalists,” which includes both charismatics and Pentecostals, according to Pew.

A similar survey by the Barna Group put that number at 36 percent in 2008, up from 30 percent a decade earlier. About half of self-described evangelical adults (49 percent), born again Christians (51 percent) and adults who attend a Protestant church (46 percent) fit The Barna Group’s description of charismatic: They identify as a charismatic or Pentecostal Christian, claim to have been “filled with the Holy Spirit” and say they believe “the charismatic gifts, such as tongues and healing, are still valid and active today.”

In addition, one out of every four Protestant churches in the U.S. is charismatic. That includes not just Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God, The Foursquare Church or the Church of God in Christ, but also four out of every 10 non-denominational churches.

The current growth of the charismatic movement coincides with several cultural shifts in the U.S., according to George Barna, who directed the research projects for the Barna Group.

“The charismatic orientation is most popular among the non-white population, which is, of course, the sector of the population that is growing most rapidly,” Barna said. “Also, the freedom of emotional and

23 percent of the population now are “renewalists,” which includes both charismatics and Pentecostals, according to Pew.

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spiritual expression typical of charismatic assemblies parallels the cultural trend toward personal expression, accepting diverse emotions and allowing people to interpret their experiences in ways that make sense to them.

“It is not surprising that the Pentecostal community in America has been growing—nor do we expect it to stop.”

A DANGEROUS MOVEMENT? But some disagree that the growth of the movement is a positive thing.

Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur caused quite a bit of controversy when he wrote in his 2013 book, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship, that the growth of the charismatic movement shows a dangerous lack of discernment in the Church. The Strange Fire book and conference last fall at MacArthur’s church in Sun Valley, Calif., ignited the most recent debate over the continuation of the miraculous gifts.

The name “Strange Fire” comes from the story of Nadab and Abihu, recorded in Leviticus 10. Nadab and Abihu were two of Aaron’s sons,

and they had assisted Aaron as he made offerings for the people of Israel. But they put fire and incense in their censers and “offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to His command.” The King James Version translates this as “strange fire.”

Fire then came out “from the presence of the Lord and consumed them.”

“Nothing is more serious than worship,” MacArthur said in his opening remarks at the Strange Fire Conference.

“That takes us to the point where we need to say the charismatic movement continually dishonors God in its false forms of worship ... Irreverent ideas, irreverent actions, untrue beliefs, false claims, false promises—all these things are attributed to the Holy Spirit by charismatics, but they are a dishonor to Him that they would even be identified with His name. It’s more strange fire, and the sad thing—it’s grounds for judgment.”

FAITH HEALERS AND TELEVANGELISTS Phil Johnson, executive director of MacArthur’s media ministry, grew up Methodist in Tulsa, Okla., which was, at the time, “practically the World Capitol of Pentecostal activity,” he says.

His best friend’s father was a well-known Assemblies of God evangelist who held healing crusades every year in the Philippines and Asia, he says. In junior high, his friend persuaded him: miracles are commonplace, tongues are the necessary evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit and any sickness reveals a lack of faith.

But then, at age 17, Johnson was “confronted with the Gospel for the first time clearly,” as he puts it, and “converted.”

Not long afterward, his best friend’s father was diagnosed with bone cancer. When he died three years later, despite his faith, despite his own supposed gift of healing, his friend abandoned his faith completely.

There were famous faith healers who promised healings that never came, Johnson says, televangelists who guaranteed great returns on “seed money” planted in faith, bad doctrines he couldn’t find in the Bible. There were church leaders who preached the Holy Spirit but whose lives didn’t display the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

“All of that made me re-examine and rethink very carefully what Scripture teaches about faith, true miracles and the apostolic gifts,” he says.

Johnson has come to believe, as MacArthur does, that some of the spiritual gifts ended with the apostles—those who were physical eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ, personally appointed to that office by Christ and able to authenticate that appointment with miracles, according to MacArthur’s definition. He believes those miraculous gifts, like the apostles, were meant for a time to lay the foundation of the Church, with Christ as its cornerstone. This belief is called cessationism. (Its opposite is continuationism.)

That’s not to say the Holy Spirit isn’t at work in the world today, Johnson says. Rather, the ongoing work of the Spirit is to point people to Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit in a believer’s life looks not like tongues, but love, joy, peace and the like.

“Plus, I can’t ignore the fact that phony miracles and false

SPIRITED CONVERSATION Christians of different backgrounds may disagree about how the Holy Spirit works, but most agree that the third member of the trinity plays an important role in our lives. A lot has been written and said about the Holy Ghost, but here are a few notable pieces of wisdom on the subject:

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C HAR L E S STAN L E Y

N. T. WR IG HT

“The Holy Spirit makes us do that giving of self, that total surrender to God ... without any counting the cost.”

“Earthly wisdom is doing what comes naturally. Godly wisdom is doing what the Holy Spirit compels us to do.”

“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are ... places where heaven and earth meet.”

prophecies are not mere peccadilloes; they pose a deadly serious spiritual danger,” he says. “Perhaps that explains, in part, why I’m passionate about this issue.”

THE ‘MORE’ OF GOD In the meantime, Philip Mantofa, vicehead pastor of Mawar Sharon Church in Indonesia, says, “While they keep debating in America, we keep demonstrating God’s miracles here in Asia.

“Some believe that the Third World countries are the ends of the earth and the Gospel needs to reach us,” he says. “It may be true in some sense, but in a deeper sense, the post-Christian countries are really the ends of the earth now, for the Gospel needs to reach the hearts of those who know it well only in their brains.”

Around the world, the number of charismatic churches is as high as 44 percent in the Philippines, 56 percent in Kenya and 60 percent in Guatemala, according to Pew. Wilson has traveled to many of these places, including gatherings hosted by Mantofa, looking for answers to his questions about the “more” of God. Along the way, he has filmed three documentaries, Finger of God, Furious Love

“We can lay some of these things aside and not divorce one another from the Kingdom of God.” —George Wood

and Father of Lights, and is at work on a fourth, Holy Ghost. Those films document Christians speaking in tongues and being “slain in the Spirit”—that is, falling to the ground after an overwhelming encounter with the Holy Spirit. They show gemstones and manna appearing from nothing. A deaf woman reportedly is healed, and a man, very much alive, tells the story of how he was beaten to death outside his church, as a local missionary relates how the man was raised to life again by the prayers of the church.

But for all the miraculous things he’s seen and filmed and now come to believe, Wilson says, “the greatest ‘more’ of all this stuff” is “just being able to have a conversation with God—that’s not something I could have done before.

“Forget all the impossible stuff, (it’s) just being able to sit down and talk to Him and know that He hears me and I hear Him talking to me,” he says.

Still, Wilson admits the charismatic movement isn’t perfect: The gifts and the experience can become more important than who the giver is and who you are experiencing, he says. And then there’s the blatant emotion.

But, he says, “Is that any worse than a completely dead, dry church? ... It’s the exact same thing. It’s just two opposite ends of the spectrum.”

A MOST EXCELLENT WAY Wilson suggests that perhaps the Western Church is fearful of the Holy Spirit—of what He might take from us or make us do, that He might make us look crazy, that we won’t be in control.

“The real question is, ‘Do you trust God?’ and most people, when you get down to brass tacks, the answer is, ‘No,’” he says.

Or perhaps at the heart of the debate about the work of the Holy Spirit in the world today is the idea R.T. Kendall expresses in his book Holy Fire: A Balanced Biblical Look at the Holy Spirit’s Work in our Lives: There has been a silent divorce in the Church. This divorce is between the Spirit and the Word, Kendall says, and the children have chosen sides.

But Christians are called to be people of both the Spirit and the Word—it’s not either-or, it’s both-and, he says.

We’re called to “a common cause: to reach this world for Jesus,” Wood says.

And we’re told, in the closing words of 1 Corinthians 12, after the apostle Paul has listed every spiritual gift, that while we should “eagerly desire the greater gifts,” there is a “most excellent way” (v. 31). That way, Paul says, is love.

He writes, “If I speak in tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

Despite differing beliefs about the miraculous gifts, Wood says, Christians can turn their focus on the world and strengthen one another by expressing concern for the poor, becoming involved in the needs of their communities, building relationships with those who might believe differently and seeking to learn from one another even if they disagree.

“We’ll take that up with the Lord when we meet Him,” he says. “In the meantime, we can lay some of these things aside and not divorce one another from the Kingdom of God.” EMILY MCFARL AN MILLER is an award-winning journalist and truth-seeker, based in Chicago. Connect with her at emmillerwrites.com.

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WILL A MAJOR LABEL CHANGE POP’S DREAM DUO? B Y M AT T C O N N E R

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ome music is perfect when the mood strikes.

Others, like Phantogram, set it.

Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter are the creative duo behind Phantogram, and their music has been used to set the mood for everything from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack to episodes of Law & Order: SVU. And that’s not all—the pair snagged a coveted spot near the top of this year’s Lollapalooza Music Festival lineup.

Two full-length albums in, a lot of people are listening to Phantogram these days.

Notoriety came quickly following their debut, Eyelid Movies, and collaborations with Outkast member Big Boi followed suit on the hip-hop artist’s 2012 release, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors. Last year, The Flaming Lips featured Phantogram on their latest, The Terror. The mix wouldn’t make sense for another band, but it’s a natural result of the all-pop kaleidoscope of Phantogram.

“That’s what’s great about being Phantogram. It’s so limitless,” Carter says.

“We have wells of untapped ideas that are endless, and there’s no box or constraint that we’re working with. That’s what makes creating music so much fun. You don’t have to pigeonhole us into one particular sound, one that’s trending. Somehow we end up making music that sounds like us, throughout that whole process.”

With a handful of smaller releases and a full album cycle behind them, Carter says the band was able to grow their sound on Voices. While the sound expands, it remains accessible. It’s ebullience without celebration; grit without friction. It moves through a wide spectrum of emotions but never in angles too extreme. In short, it all makes sense under the duo’s umbrella.

“We’ve definitely evolved a lot,” Barthel says. “We’re still Phantogram. Our sound is that. We didn’t go down a different direction by any means, but we’ve definitely evolved and grown naturally. After touring and playing shows and writing, we tried to put it all into this record. We’re really proud of it.”

Such growth makes Phantogram difficult to categorize (the best description: “listen for yourself”), which could lead to market frustrations on the industry end. Yet Carter says the resulting alloy of their influences and references is actually good for the

listener. As much as the band wants to avoid the aforementioned pigeonholing, Carter wants the same for the duo’s fan base.

“I think there’s naturally music expanding and evolving,” he says. “There’s so much that’s already been done. People are looking for other outlets and ways of creating music, but I still think there are a lot of purists out there who only want a particular sound, whether it’s indie music or pop music. To me, it’s a little bit sad when things get supertrendy and people don’t want to branch outside of a certain realm. I think it can be really dangerous for art in general.”

While the music has developed naturally over time, the industry side has taken a major leap forward—with a major label. A bidding war broke out after the band’s debut earned such strong acclaim, and Republic Records came out on top.

Yet both Barthel and Carter are quick to

steps? We have full creative control, and it’s just a natural step for us as a band as we’ve been growing our fan base organically touring for so long. It’s just another step for us, you know.”

While Phantogram works carefully on setting the atmosphere on each striking track, they’re hands-off when it comes to any specific interpretations. Fans might draw inaccurate conclusions about songs like “The Day You Died” or “My Only Friend,” but Carter is not out to make statements. In fact, his creative approach is quite the opposite.

“I know personally, the way I’ve heard songs when I know exactly what they’re about, like a song from a religious or political standpoint, it can really ruin that song for me,” he says. “Music for me is a form of escapism.”

Carter admits that music with a message

“WE HAVE WELLS OF UNTAPPED IDEAS ... THERE’S NO BOX OR CONSTRAINT THAT WE’RE WORKING WITH. THAT’S WHAT MAKES CREATING MUSIC SO MUCH FUN.” defend any notion of compromise that might come up for fans leery of label involvement.

In fact, it’s the resources now available to them, such as Voices producer John Hill (Rihanna), that has Phantogram excited about the possibilities.

“It’s all in the way you look at it,” Barthel says. “We see it as we’ve taken this opportunity to use these tools that a major label can accomplish. That’s why we were so interested in doing it. We could have gone the road of doing our thing—writing our records and releasing them, selling as many albums as we did and going on tour. But I think we were really interested in getting our music out there to as many people as possible—you know, to those people who might not hear really good music on the radio. We wanted to put good music on the radio, and hopefully get through to them and influence them in certain ways.”

Carter agrees. “The whole point is to be that band that does have influence,” he says.

“I think it’s our duty as artists to let our music be heard. We believe in our vision and what we’re doing, so why not take some

can be a powerful tool, but at this point, Phantogram is simply an outlet for abstract expression. General themes might emerge, but Carter says the duo’s edges will never be sharper than that.

“I do think that it is important, and it’s a great platform for a lot of bands, especially punk rock bands, and Rage Against the Machine, and bands from the ’60s and stuff like that. But for me, my favorite bands have always been at least kind of vague in their message. Spreading love and peace like The Beatles did is a great thing, but they weren’t doing it pushing stuff down your throat.

“The way we interpret the lyrics is something very personal for us,” he continues.

“We want it to be personal to our listeners.

We don’t create music that we have such a strong standpoint on that we’re going to tell people what to feel about our music. To us, that’s not the goal, because we take different things from art in general.”

MAT T CONNER is senior editor at SB Nation and writes about all aspects of pop culture for the Indy Star and other places he says don’t matter.

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WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE SPIRITUALLY EXHAUSTED

BY JOH N ORT BE RG

112 MAY_JUNE 2014

the Bible, God never gives anyone an easy job. God never comes to Abraham, Moses or Esther and says, “I’d like you to do me a favor, but it really shouldn’t take much time.

I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

God does not recruit like someone from the PTA. He is always intrusive, demanding, exhausting. He says we should expect that the world will be hard, and that our assignments will be hard.

The Bible does use the word easy once, though. It comes from Jesus. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened ... and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Easy is a soul word, not a circumstance word, not an assignment word. Aim at having easy circumstances, and life will be hard all round. Aim at having an easy soul, and your capacity for tackling hard assignments will actually grow.

The soul was not made for an easy life.

The soul was made for an easy yoke. And part of that easy yoke is learning to find rest for our souls.

FATIGUED SOULS There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early, when we try to fuel ourselves with

coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon, when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster, our bodies grow weary.

There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work, when multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention, when we carry around mental lists of bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to, our minds grow weary.

There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.

These categories of fatigue are difficult enough in and of themselves, but they combine to make us feel separated from God, separated from ourselves and distanced from what we love most about life and creation.

This is soul fatigue.

RUNNING ON EMPTY Our wills sometimes rejoice in striving. Our bodies were made to (at least sometimes) know the exhilaration of tremendous challenge. Our minds get stretched when they must focus even when tired. But the soul craves rest. The soul knows only borrowed strength. The soul was made to rest in God the way a tree rests in soil.

One of the challenges of soul-fatigue is that it does not have the same obvious signs as physical fatigue. If you’ve run a marathon, your body lets you know it’s finished. After mowing the lawn, you’re likely to relax with a glass of iced tea because your body tells you it needs rest.

The indicators of soul-fatigue are more subtle:

• Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum-chewing suddenly reveals to you a massive character flaw.

• It’s hard to make your mind up about even a simple decision.

• Impulses to eat or drink or spend will be harder to resist than they otherwise would.

• You are more likely to favor shortterm gains in ways that will leave you with high long-term costs. Israel ended up worshipping a golden calf simply because they grew tired of having to wait on Moses and God. • You will have less courage. The same disciples who fled in fear when Jesus was crucified eventually sacrificed their lives for Him. What changed was not their bodies, but their souls.

The soul is not well when we rush so much. If it does not get the rest it needs, it becomes fatigued. And one of the easiest paths to soul fatigue is allowing our busyness turn into hurry.

BUSY OR HURRIED? There is a world of difference between being busy and being hurried.

Being busy is an outward condition, a condition of the body. It occurs when we have many things to do. Busyness is inevitable in modern culture. If you are alive today in North America, you are a busy person.

There are limits to how much busyness we can tolerate, so we wisely find ways to slow down whenever we can. We take vacations, we sit in a La-Z-Boy with a good book, we enjoy a leisurely meal with friends. By itself, busyness is not lethal.

Being hurried is an inner condition, a condition of the soul. It means to be so preoccupied with myself and my life that I am unable to be fully present with God, with myself and with other people. I am

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unable to occupy this present moment. Busyness migrates to hurry when we let it squeeze God out of our lives.

I cannot live in the Kingdom of God with a hurried soul. I cannot rest in God with a hurried soul.

Jesus was often busy, but never hurried.

Moreover, He seemed to be quick to detect hurrysickness in others. Once, when He had sent His disciples out on a mission, they returned to Him to report what they had done and taught.

Imagine being one of Jesus’ closest followers given the privilege of sharing His message of love and forgiveness. You just completed a big assignment successfully and are probably a little jazzed about what your next mission will be. It’s not like there isn’t a lot of work to be done. So many needy people came to Jesus that, according to the Bible, He didn’t have a chance to eat.

So what assignment does Jesus give His willing followers? “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Instead of hurrying off to the next assignment, Jesus got everyone into a boat, and they went off to what was recorded as “a solitary place.”

But what about the mission to save the world?

What about all the sick people who needed to be healed? I believe Jesus knew the power of a rested soul. He slowed His followers down so that their souls would not become fatigued.

A rested soul is the easy yoke.

GO DEEPER Further reading from John Ortberg:

SOU L K E E P IN G

How do you care for the most important part of you? In his latest, Ortberg tells how to meet the nine needs of the soul.

SOUL HEALING Our souls exist to integrate our lives so that we can live in harmony with God and the world. They become sick when we are divided and conflicted.

I should be content with my job, but I become jealous of someone in the next cubicle because she got the assignment I wanted. I obsess about making more money, but to convince myself I am not a greedy person, I tell myself that I am really just trying to provide more security for my family. I become so wrapped up in myself that my choices and values and desires and beliefs are at odds with each other. They are also at odds with other people and with God. Then I go into nature. I stand on a beach before the ocean. My mind is filled with admiration for the sight and sound of the waves. Other distracting thoughts melt away. There is congruence between what my body experiences (the sights and sounds of the ocean) and what my mind is thinking (God’s beauty and goodness).

By slowing down and observing the beauty of my surroundings, I tend not to worry about tomorrow or regret yesterday. I am less enslaved by other people’s opinions of me. There is greater congruence between what I think, feel,

114 MAY_JUNE 2014

IF YOU WAN T TO WALK ON WATE R , YOU ’ V E G OT TO G E T OU T OF THE B OAT

In this book, Ortberg challenges believers to step outside their comfort zones and fully trust God.

THE L IFE YOU ’ V E

choose and do. I experience, at least for a few moments, what it is to be un-conflicted, whole.

My soul gets healed.

Of course, my soul was not made to stand in front of the ocean forever. But I can bring some of that wholeness with me into my divided world. The psalmist says our job is not to heal our souls, but to make space for them so that healing can come: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.”

By painting this picture of a lamb enjoying whatever his Master puts in front of him, we are shown what we need to “restore our souls.”

The space where we find rest and healing for our souls is solitude.

The world, culture, society—all of this— exerts a relentless, ceaseless, lethal pressure on your soul, and without relief from all of this chaotic interference, the soul dies. J.B. Phillips translates the familiar words of Romans 12:2 to say: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.”

The world imposes hurry on our souls like a child squeezes a handful of Play-Doh. In solitude, we withdraw not so much from creation, but from the pressure of the world. We withdraw so our souls can rest in God. In solitude, we remember we are not what anybody thinks of us—we are sheep tended to by the Shepherd.

It is not always the “world” that squeezes us into its mold. We all too often distract ourselves. Being completely alone with nothing but our thoughts can be frightening, so we will use anything to distract us from experiencing the soul healing that comes in solitude.

We fear doing nothing because it would mean facing up to the inner realities that distress our souls: fear, anger, loneliness, failure. Perhaps that’s why, in the familiar psalm quoted earlier, “He makes us lie down.” He doesn’t invite us to lie down. He doesn’t plead with us to lie down.

He makes us.

When it comes to the rest we need to restore our souls, we’re like children at bedtime. Kids just don’t want to go to bed, no matter how tired they are. So at some point as good parents, we pick them up, carry them into their bedrooms, and make them go to bed.

When you give your soul rest, you open it to the peace Jesus intends for you.

ALWAYS WAN TE D

Ortberg shows that the transformation we desire in our lives is not so much within ourselves as it is in focusing more on Christ.

JOHN ORTBERG is a pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California and the best-selling author of four books. He and his wife Nancy have three children.

Adapted from Soul Keeping by John Ortberg. Copyright © 2014.

Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com

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CONTENTS

relevant recommends ISSUE _68

MUSIC

FOSTER THE PEOPLE SUPERMODEL

[COLUMBIA RECORDS]

Foster The People’s sophomore outing has a swanky, jazz-inspired tone that moves your feet and your mind—it could work at a dance party or a book club. The opening song references both a street in Paris named the Champs-Élysées and a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist named Fela amid a chattering stick chorus. On “Ask Yourself,” the “oh-wahs” and spastic drums nearly obfuscate the thoughtful lyrics about naked ambition. Listen to the precise drums on the single “Coming Of Age,” especially the closing speed-metal riff. Sure, there’s no “Pumped Up Kicks” breakout hit here, but most songs still find a resting place deep in your brain’s limbic system.

116 MAY_JUNE 2014

THE WAR ON DRUGS

HILLSONG UNITED

LOST IN THE DREAM

THE WHITE ALBUM

[ S E C R E T LY C A N A D I A N]

[HILL SONG MUSIC]

On The War On Drugs’ second album, you sense a Herculean effort to overcome obstacles. “I’m just wading in the water, trying not to crack,” sings frontman Adam Granduciel on the opening track. “Red Eyes” sounds like Tom Petty joined Arcade Fire and brought a piano player. Just the bass line alone in “An Ocean In Between The Waves” is better than most recent indie songs.

Hillsong United’s The White Album is not just a collection of slightly modified worship hits.

Breathing new life into classics like “From The Inside Out” and more recent songs like “Oceans,” the techno beats create a fresh atmosphere, one that emboldens the original sentiments. In a few cases, like the reinvigorated “Aftermath,” the remix is the better version.

AMY STROUP

ALOE BLACC

LYKKE LI

WYE OAK

TUNNEL

LIFT YOUR SPIRIT

I NEVER LEARN

SHRIEK

[MILKGL A SS]

[STONES THROW RECORDS]

[LL RECORDINGS]

[MERGE RECORDS]

“We finally found our way,” sings Nashville-based singersongwriter Amy Stroup on the opening song for her third solo album, Tunnel. With songs popping up on every CW drama known to man and an angelic voice that only hints at her blues roots (she is also in the duo Sugar & The Hi-Lows with Trent Dabbs), Stroup seems poised for pop greatness.

“Wake Me Up,” Aloe Blacc’s collaboration with Avicii, took over airwaves last summer, and on his third full-length album, he revisits the hit with an acoustic version.

The song is a good example of Blacc’s sound—it’s soulful and dance worthy, somehow both old-school and modern. And it’s not the best song on the album, though it’s hard to decide what is—almost every song will have you hooked.

Lykke Li’s third album is a sweet and soaring divination. She’s expelling a few demons here— namely, the ones related to being typecast as a pop princess. “No Rest For The Wicked” expresses regret about breaking someone’s heart. “Gunshot” starts with a siren set low in the mix. The song reveals the real point here: She’s vulnerable, flawed and slightly desperate, but there’s still hope.

For the latest Wye Oak release, singer Jenn Wasner set down her electric guitar and picked up a bass. That leaves Andy Stack playing drums with his right hand and synth with his left. The duo create a dreamier, fuller sound emphasizing the lower register.

“The Tower” captures their new essence nicely: a luscious thumpthump slog, all dance grooves and electropop perfection.

THINK SEMINARY IS

ONLY FOR PASTORS? THINK AGAIN. Christ has a unique role for each of us within His Kingdom. Are you equipped to respond?

Ashland Theological Seminary can prepare any leader for a life of ministry—not just those behind a pulpit.

Visit seminary.ashland.edu/ThinkAgain to begin your unique journey.

Ashland Theological Seminary equips leaders for kingdom impact by blending solid theological training and dynamic spiritual formation.

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relevant recommends

MOVIES + BOOKS

MOVIES

LONE SURVIVOR

HER

THE LEGO MOVIE

PHILOMENA

PETER BERG

SPIKE JONZE

STEPHEN FREARS

[UNI V ER SA L S T UDIOS]

[WA R NER B RO S . P IC T UR E S]

PHIL LORD & CHRISTOPHER MILLER

[ T H E W E I N S T E I N C O M PA N Y ]

[ W A R N E R B R O S. P I C T U R E S]

What you see is what you get in Lone Survivor. Director Peter Berg doesn’t delve deep into the political implications of modern warfare. He doesn’t spend time developing complex characters.

Instead, he creates a straightforward, action-packed adventure about survival and sacrifice, which makes for an intense and exciting cinematic experience.

You can read Spike Jonze’s new futuristic film as social commentary—an exploration into the effects of technology on human relationships—or even as a contemplation of change. But Her is first and foremost a love story, and a charming one at that. It’s because Jonze takes this approach that his unique and important film works so well.

The Lego Movie speaks to both the significance of differences and unity. This message finds a seamless vehicle in a story of a LEGO figure recruited to help stop a tyrant from gluing the LEGO world together. From the sharp humor to the stunning animation, the film proves even more entertaining than the product it’s based upon.

Stand up.

Be Found. b e ing found by the

O n e w e a re look in g f or

UN lost

“unlost reminds us that when God pursues us, fear does not have the last word.”

Rebekah Lyons, author of Freefall to Fly

“Michael Hidalgo is a gift—as a pastor, a thinker, a leader.

This is a book you can’t afford to miss.”

MaRgaRet FeinbeRg,

M i c h a e l h i da l g o

118 MAY_JUNE 2014

author of Wonderstruck

Philomena is a smart, touching drama about faith and friendship.

The narrative follows an elderly Irish Catholic woman on a quest to find her son. Frears instills his latest with an equal amount of humor and heart—not to mention a sincere sense of spirituality—but it’s Judi Dench and Steve Coogan who elevate the film with their honest performances.

“This book is a timely wake up call for the church to actively engage in the fight against human trafficking and the release of prisoners from its darkness.” annie DieseLbeRg,

ivpress.com 800.843.9487

founder and Ceo of nightLight Inter national

BOOKS

SLOW CHURCH

LET CREATION REJOICE

JUSTICE AWAKENING EDDIE BYUN

HELEN CEPERO

JONATHAN MOO & ROBERT WHITE

[I V P BOOK S]

[I V P BOOK S]

[I V P AC ADEMIC]

Inspired by the “slow food” movement and disheartened by “fast” church trends, Smith and Pattison are advocating for “reimagining what it means to be communties of believers gathered and rooted in particular places at a particular time.” Slow Church promises something richer and more substantive than quick fixes.

What are we meant to do after we believe? Who are we called to become? Cepero maps out the Christian walk in terms of nine pathways: three each of love, hope and faith. The spiritual direction she provides is both practical and profound. These nine pathways serve as ways that can lead readers into deeper life in Christ.

Let Creation Rejoice serves as a much-needed corrective to divisive discussions on climate change. Moo and White lay out a helpful survey of the current condition of the Earth and the causes of that condition, then go on to explain the biblical perspective and how our future hope speaks into our present situation.

CHRIS SMITH & JOHN PATTINSON

CHRIST-SHAPED CHARACTER

[I V P BOOK S]

The crime of human trafficking is the worst kind of injustice and yet its ubiquity makes it seem impossible to overcome. Byun provides a handbook for those who seek to bring an end to modern-day slavery, providing biblical foundations for the fight against injustice and offering practical steps any Christian can take toward ending human trafficking.

g BECAUSE PREPARATION SHOULD BUILD

Character

At Cairn, we don’t just prepare students for what they will do.

We prepare them for who they will be.

With over 60 academic programs, NCAA DIII Athletics, and a strong commitment to the Arts, Cairn offers a dynamic university experience centered on Christ and His Word.

Half pg hor.indd 1

Learn more at cairn.edu

3/20/14 11:58 AM

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CONTENTS

relevant podcast ISSUE _68 CHECK OUT THESE RECENT EPISODES OF THE RELEVANT PODCAST

KYE KYE

MATT REDMAN

THE 2014 OSKARZ AWARDS

ERWIN MCMANUS

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

FEBRUARY 14, 2014

MARCH 7, 2014

MARCH 14, 2014

Of all the many bands attempting to navigate the waters of being Christians without getting pigeonholed, few are handling it better than Portland’s Kye Kye. When they talk about their faith, it’s both forceful and eloquent, but it never seems to be the product of a genre they’ve been shoehorned into. Their music is top-notch, and it’s only made sweeter when you know the deep thought that’s gone into it.

If you’ve walked inside a church building at some point in the last decade, you’ve almost certainly heard a song written by Matt Redman, who’s penned some of this generation’s most enduring, influential worship songs.

He’s famous for shunning the spotlight, which is what makes our conversation with him so encouraging and inviting. His heart and expression are every bit as honest as his music.

Is it the most beloved awards show of all time? There is really no objective way of knowing, but it’s certainly one of the RELEVANT Podcast’s annual highlights.

The Oskarz: the world’s most “prestigious” competition-based or non-celebrity reality TV awards show. The glamor. The lights. The thrills. The Oskarz deliver on all that and more every year, and this year was no exception. Who are you wearing?

As founder of a Los Angeles faith community by the name of MOSAIC, Erwin McManus has developed a reputation as one of those wild creatives—a renegade gifted with deep artistic prowess. It’s a fair assessment, but it’s only half of the story.

He’s devoted his life to helping everyone else discover their own reservoirs of creative brilliance, and our conversation with him will help you mine your own.

Putting the ChurCh in its PlaCe In today’s fast-food world, Christianity can seem outdated or archaic. The temptation becomes to pick up the pace and play the game. But Slow Church invites us to leave franchise faith behind and enter the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loves the church.

Headlines rage with big stories about big churches. But tucked away in neighborhoods throughout North America is a profound work of hope quietly unfolding as the gospel takes root in the context of a place. The future of the church is local, connected to the struggles of the people and even to the land itself.

ivpress.com 1.800.843.9487

120 MAY_JUNE 2014

relevant .tv ISSUE _68 CONTENTS

CHECK OUT THESE MUST-SEE ORIGINALS AT WWW.RELEVANT.TV

WHERE YOUR HOPE LIES

JON FOREMAN

THE SONG OF WORSHIP

‘TEQUILA EYES’ (IN-STUDIO)

WITH PETE WILSON

THE RELEVANT Q+A

WITH N.T. WRIGHT

US AND OUR DAUGHTERS

As pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Pete Wilson has built a reputation as a riveting speaker and compassionate leader. As author of Let Hope In, he’s responsible for offering a fresh, invigorating definition of what hope is and how it affects our lives. But he’s also the person who inspired this short film, a look at the difference between using hope as a synonym for “optimism” and actually letting hope change you.

He’s the lead singer of Switchfoot. He’s a frontman for Fiction Family. He’s a surfer and filmmaker. And as notable as all those things are, they can detract from who Jon Foreman really is first and foremost: a great guy. In our video chat with him, Foreman not only gets philosophical in his thoughts on calling and worship, but he also spills the beans about his first musical venture: a Led Zeppelin cover band. Don’t miss it.

Professor N.T. Wright is one of his generation’s most articulate and passionate theologians, and that’s rarely more evident than when he’s talking about worship.

Particularly worship through music, which was the point of his recent book, The Case for the Psalms. Our conversation with him about that book and his reasons for writing it inspired this video, which explores the many connections between singing and praise.

After Phillip and Lia LaRue had two children in two years of marriage, they started making music as an outlet to sort through the myriad of emotions they were feeling as new parents. The result was Us And Our Daughters, and it shouldn’t take more than one viewing of their live performance of “Tequila Eyes” to convince you that it was worthwhile. But you’ll want to watch it more than once anyhow.

IMAGINE...

walking down a narrow path while people are streaming out of their homes to greet you.

They are celebrating your arrival because you’re the person who brought the good news of Christ to their village.

GOING LIKE THIS

BE INTERESTED Text “internships” to 804.504.1813

COME, DISCOVER THAT JOY.

OPENINGS AVAILABLE

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contents

MAY/JUNE 2014 ISSUE 69

FEATURES 42

SAVING THE PEOPLE OF NORTH KOREA You’ve heard the stories of oppression. Meet the people making a difference.

49

MAKER A new section for the leaders and creative innovators working to change the world.

74

GENERATION RISING The perception of millennials isn’t great. But do the stats actually point to a new future?

92

TYLER PERRY How making movies helped make sense of long-standing personal pain.

86

THE FLOOD OF BIBLE MOVIES IS UPON US

94

SHOULD CHRISTIANS SMOKE WEED? How should believers respond to increasing legal and social acceptance of marijuana?

Noah was just the beginning. 2014 will see six Biblebased movies in theaters, and more are on the way.

We talk to the filmmakers spearheading this trend and explore the state of Hollywood and the Bible’s union.

98

PETE HOLMES The new late-night host is deeper than you might think. Here, he talks about his version of faith and the calling of comedy.

102

ANDY MINEO He’s baffled and dazzled the industry with his success. Just don’t say his name wrong.

104

WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT ANYWAY? Why the third member of the trinity is one of modern Christianity’s most most hotly debated topics.

ON THE COVER

80 WES ANDERSON

12

FIR ST WOR D

14

FEEDBACK

16

SLICES

The crowdfunding kickback, rise of the holistic food movement, gender inequality in Hollywood and more.

122

MAY_JUNE 2014

49 CARL LENTZ

36

THE DROP

Noah Gundersen, Kye Kye, John Mark McMillan, Sarah Jarosz and our summer playlist.

114

108

PHANTOGRAM The duo is primed to finally turn pop music into the high art we always knew it could be.

R E L E VA N T R E C O M M E N D S

Music, movies, books and digital media you should know about.

110

RUNNING DRY John Ortberg on caring for your soul.

a r m e d w i t h t r u t h .co m