Pixar Studio deserves the avalanche of awards it has won. Every time I think they’re about to blow it with an impossible story (a French rat in a five-star restaurant, a nearly silent film about robots in love) they manage to prove me wrong. Toy Story 3 was no exception. I was worried that they were pushing the franchise too far. The first two films were fantastic, but a third? Surely they’re going to “jump the shark” this time. Wrong again. It was brilliant…the best of the bunch.

There is plenty to praise about the movie, but I want to focus on just one thing—the monkey. The hideous, hilarious, and haunting monkey! For those who have not yet seen the film, the monkey monitors the video surveillance system at…

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, Batman!

I’ve been meaning to write a post about The Dark Knight for weeks, but between family vacations and working on the fall issue of Leadership, I’ve been swamped. I’m a big fan of superhero movies, and this summer I’ve seen a bunch—Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and the latest installment of Christopher Nolan’s fantastic Batman series, The Dark Knight. My companion to most of these comic book movies is a psychiatrist from my church who has a penchant for professional wrestling and shares my follicle failings. (I highly recommend watching fantasy movies with a psychiatrist—it’s more fun than applying Freudian dream analysis to nursery…

We live in a dark world. Our hearts long for goodness, beauty, justice, and peace, but they are often hidden behind the shadow cast by evil and sin. This is why preaching is so necessary. Whenever the kingdom of God is proclaimed, it is like a bright burst of light. In those brief moments, the shadows recede and we are given a glimpse of a world behind the darkness. It is a sublime vision that reorders our perception of reality and leaves us hungry for more.This understanding of preaching, the unveiling of an inspiring vision of God’s kingdom, is not the one I’ve always held. I was formed to think that the primary purpose of preaching was instruction. This view of preaching expects the informed, articulate person behind…

A few weeks ago Scot McKnight shared how the gospel we preach is having an adverse impact on the church. Last week at the Spiritual Formation Forum he spoke in greater detail about this problem. He called the standard evangelical gospel, outlined below, “right, but not right enough.” Essentially, we’ve watered down the good news in a way that has marginalized the church in God’s plan of redemption.

This fact was driven home recently by a friend of mine who teaches at a Christian college. He said a hand in the class went up in the middle of his lecture about the church and culture. The student, in all sincerity, asked, “Do we really need the church?” My friend was struck by the question, and by the fact that…