OK, so this theatre class is becoming more of a religion class for me. This week I had to write a report on how Circus Maximus is like the local movie theatre. For those of you that don't remember Circus Maximus was the Roman arena where 50,000 people gathered to watch wrestling, and animal fighting, or Christians being chase by the animals until they died. Well I did the report and all, but it really got me thinking about how much Circus Maximus really is like the local movie theatre. Back in the day Christians never would have hung around there for "fun" or "fellowship". Circus Maximus meant death for true Christians, the ones that wouldn't renounce their faith to save their skin that is. I think the same can be said our local movie theatre, and the general entertainment that we find in America and the world today. It does not mean physical death, but by golly it could most certainly mean spiritual death. I mean, it is equivalent to walking directly into the enemies camp and sitting there and enjoying the exact same thing that they find entertaining. Sharing in the sin, vile, wickedness that the world likes to put on a movie screen. But we aren't content to partake of it at the theatre alone; we like to invite it into our homes to share with the world there too. Now I can't generalize and say ALL TV, and ALL movies, and ALL video games are bad, and that they ALL mean death. I do however find that almost all of them are. If there isn't sex, then there is foul language, if not that then crude humor, and if not that then rebellion, or lying, or dishonoring parents, or dishonoring GOD! I don't think that Jesus or the disciples thought that lounging around Circus Maximus was fun. And even if the movie as a whole isn't "bad", do I really want to devote my time to watching it. Do I want to spend even 30 minutes entertaining myself with the same thing that the world is? So this week God has been challenging me to not look like, partake of, or share entertainment with anything of the world, but rather to spend my time partaking of the things of the Kingdom that I am a part of.
And there are a few shows that aren't horrible, and can even be educational, or a few movies that uphold what is good, and right, and true, but I want to spend the time that God has given me wisely. So if watching those things is wise, and spurs me on to love and good works more than praying, or more than reading Gods living word, then sure, I just might go for it. This is just what God has been challenging me with this week!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
"You're an idiot"- Title of "sermon"
An assignment for my theatre class was to attend a local church, synagogue, or mosque. I really wish I could have/would have said that it was against my religion to go to a church building. But Bekah and I went to a late service at Feeling Place anyway. I figured it would be bad, but I honestly was not prepared for it. Yes, they had the lights, the background, million-dollar structure, and the seeker-friendly-ness, but what got me was the emotion of it all. It would have been so easy to get caught up in it. I didn't sing the songs, or even really listen to the "sermon", I just watched the people. "All the devotion was emotion." Standing there, I saw just how easy it was to completely throw yourself into the hyped-up worship service, and from there you would be open to just about anything, including one of the dumbest "sermons" you could possibly imagine. Thousands of people sit under that EVERY Sunday morning, and it doesn't seem like I am doing anything to help rescue them from such a vain existence. The only difference from me and them, is that God had the mercy to open my eyes to see what I was fighting against. And He gave me and is continuing to give me the strength to fight the structure, the rebellion, the emotion…the anti-Christ in myself. And since I have freely received, then why does it seem that I am not freely giving, even to the sheep with blinders???
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A biography of myself for my Theatre class
The bottom of it is just footnotes, but you can read them if you want. I left out a few paragraphs, the ones with all my education stuff that is so boring. It is kinda sad because the footnotes are longer than what I have posted. But oh well.
Jordan Victoria Ward was born on April 27, 1990, the youngest of Ken and Carolyn Wards 6 daughters. She has resided in Baton Rouge, Louisiana since birth. Jordan was raised in a religious family, primarily Baptist in her early years. She then moved on to the denomination of “non-denominational” and now is simply a follower of Jesus Christ - no denomination, no facade, and no hidden agenda.
Jordan has spent 88% of her lifetime fully emerged in theatre of a different sort with performances that most wouldn’t readily recognize as theatrical. If examined through the textbook* definition of theatre it would most undoubtedly be classified as a typical performance. The theatre that I am speaking of is the pseudo-Christian “church”.
Including her experience in modern church Jordan has seen countless live theatrical productions, 2 or more a week for approximately 15 years, averaging around 1,560. They should be considered professional considering that producing a sermon was the profession of the educated preacher/pastor. However, she has moved on from this sort of theatrical performance, seeing as it is un-biblical. Jordan is now walking out her Faith through relationships with fellow Christians in a House Church.+
* Pgs. 7-9 of The Essential Theatre states very specifically is classified as theatre, beginning with the audience. The text very explicitly says that you must have an audience to have a theatre, and what more is a congregation of “church-goers”, except a glorified audience? (Ex. “It may permit spectators [congregation members] to surround the performers [preachers], require the audience [congregation] to sit in rows, facing a platform on which the performance occurs.”) The second statement that backs this theory is that of the performance. A “worship-service”, and sermon preached in your modern day church is just as much a performance as a circus sideshow. It is pleasing to the people, as opposed to pleasing to God, which if I am not mistaken, is what Christianity is all about. (Ex. “ Such spectators [congregation members] may resent or avoid any production that questions conventional moral, political, or social values…They support what appeals to them and fail to support what they do not like or do not understand…In turn, Broadway producers [Mega-church leaders, modern church], who need to recover the large sums required to mount a play [sermon] on Broadway [the pulpit], often avoid controversial subject matter [holiness, sin, exc.] or unfamiliar staging conventions [ meeting in the house instead of buildings, the way they did it in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible] so as to attract as many theatregoers [churchgoers] as possible. Off-Broadway and regional theatres [House-churches] with lower costs and ticket-prices [ no building, all funds to go feed the hungry, cloth the naked, support orphans and widows], can afford to take greater chances, and may seek a more restricted audience [ the spot-less Bride of Christ who has remained untainted by the world] than that wooed by Broadway [ The modern Church]. “)
+ House Church is a meeting in homes rather than buildings. There is no preacher, but rather each person brings evidence that they have been with God throughout the week. It is the body of Christ, where every joint supplies with a word, a psalm, spiritual teaching, or prophecy that is all done for the edification of the body of Christ. It is a small intimate setting, there is little room for “acting” like a Christian, rather people are actually Christians, living out the Word of God.
Jordan Victoria Ward was born on April 27, 1990, the youngest of Ken and Carolyn Wards 6 daughters. She has resided in Baton Rouge, Louisiana since birth. Jordan was raised in a religious family, primarily Baptist in her early years. She then moved on to the denomination of “non-denominational” and now is simply a follower of Jesus Christ - no denomination, no facade, and no hidden agenda.
Jordan has spent 88% of her lifetime fully emerged in theatre of a different sort with performances that most wouldn’t readily recognize as theatrical. If examined through the textbook* definition of theatre it would most undoubtedly be classified as a typical performance. The theatre that I am speaking of is the pseudo-Christian “church”.
Including her experience in modern church Jordan has seen countless live theatrical productions, 2 or more a week for approximately 15 years, averaging around 1,560. They should be considered professional considering that producing a sermon was the profession of the educated preacher/pastor. However, she has moved on from this sort of theatrical performance, seeing as it is un-biblical. Jordan is now walking out her Faith through relationships with fellow Christians in a House Church.+
* Pgs. 7-9 of The Essential Theatre states very specifically is classified as theatre, beginning with the audience. The text very explicitly says that you must have an audience to have a theatre, and what more is a congregation of “church-goers”, except a glorified audience? (Ex. “It may permit spectators [congregation members] to surround the performers [preachers], require the audience [congregation] to sit in rows, facing a platform on which the performance occurs.”) The second statement that backs this theory is that of the performance. A “worship-service”, and sermon preached in your modern day church is just as much a performance as a circus sideshow. It is pleasing to the people, as opposed to pleasing to God, which if I am not mistaken, is what Christianity is all about. (Ex. “ Such spectators [congregation members] may resent or avoid any production that questions conventional moral, political, or social values…They support what appeals to them and fail to support what they do not like or do not understand…In turn, Broadway producers [Mega-church leaders, modern church], who need to recover the large sums required to mount a play [sermon] on Broadway [the pulpit], often avoid controversial subject matter [holiness, sin, exc.] or unfamiliar staging conventions [ meeting in the house instead of buildings, the way they did it in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible] so as to attract as many theatregoers [churchgoers] as possible. Off-Broadway and regional theatres [House-churches] with lower costs and ticket-prices [ no building, all funds to go feed the hungry, cloth the naked, support orphans and widows], can afford to take greater chances, and may seek a more restricted audience [ the spot-less Bride of Christ who has remained untainted by the world] than that wooed by Broadway [ The modern Church]. “)
+ House Church is a meeting in homes rather than buildings. There is no preacher, but rather each person brings evidence that they have been with God throughout the week. It is the body of Christ, where every joint supplies with a word, a psalm, spiritual teaching, or prophecy that is all done for the edification of the body of Christ. It is a small intimate setting, there is little room for “acting” like a Christian, rather people are actually Christians, living out the Word of God.
A report I did for my Theatre 1020 class about an experience from a production
Teen Mania Ministries has summer camps that I attended a few years back. These camps had programs that were meant to inspire, there were speakers and teachers, videos, and dramatizations. They would set the mood by changing the atmosphere. They made a distinct transition from outdoor activities, to the indoor entertainment. They would then dim the lights and set of firecrackers on the stage. The music they played would set the ground (start the ball rolling) for whatever they were about to present to you. The skits would begin, they were meant to make you think, and examine how your life was in comparison to what they were showing. The scenes were deep and almost heavy feeling at times. They showed videos of orphans that desperately need sponsors, and told you things that you liked to hear. And every now and again they would mix in the Truth, but it was watered-down, and tainted with the materialism, psychobabble, and other things that appealed to human nature as opposed to Godly-nature. They would tell you about the love, joy, peace and happiness that came from being a “Christian”. At the time it sounded great, you were in a nice atmosphere, things were easy, and you had this great emotional high. Every year I would “re-dedicate” my life to the image of God that I created. It seems as though they just helped me make a better mask, so that the society couldn’t see that I was just a broken and messed up as they are. And with each year, came a more realistic the mask; and the better the mask, the easier it was to hide the fact that I really wasn’t a Christian as defined by the Word of God. I even seemed to hide it from myself. I would then go home, and after about two weeks the high was gone. So did the camps and the dramatizations change me in any way? No. I was still a dirty wretched sinner, on my way to hell. Only now I had a smile on my face, and a pat on the pack from the youth camp.
Now, if you ask if I have learned anything from those camps and dramatizations, I would now have to say, “Yes.” Though I didn’t learn anything from them while I was there, I can now see where the experience has helped shape who I am today. My eyes are now open to see what was presented at those camps in the Light. I see how it made me feel secure, and comfortable in my so-called-“Christianity”, and I see the lie that I believed. And because I now see the sin in being comfortable as opposed to challenged, and complacent as opposed to Holy, I am able to repent, and change the way that I think, especially about what True Christianity is. So now I have a reminder, I can look back at those camps and push forward, knowing that I never want to be the same again.
Now, if you ask if I have learned anything from those camps and dramatizations, I would now have to say, “Yes.” Though I didn’t learn anything from them while I was there, I can now see where the experience has helped shape who I am today. My eyes are now open to see what was presented at those camps in the Light. I see how it made me feel secure, and comfortable in my so-called-“Christianity”, and I see the lie that I believed. And because I now see the sin in being comfortable as opposed to challenged, and complacent as opposed to Holy, I am able to repent, and change the way that I think, especially about what True Christianity is. So now I have a reminder, I can look back at those camps and push forward, knowing that I never want to be the same again.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Ok, so I really don't have time for this...but...
A bunch has been going on around here.
I like numbered things, so :
1. I have started a word study on thoughts/imagination, hopefully I can post some of it on here pretty soon.
2. I got in a 3-car-wreck on Wednesday morning. It was not my fault, and my car is fine, the front grill is just pushed in, and the back bumper cracked the rest of the way (it was already cracked). Considering the car behind me was totaled, the front end smashed in, the airbags deployed, and the windshield shattered, I made out pretty good. I'm just a bit sore.
3. I got soaked (drenched, sopping, waterlogged, wringing-wet) from walking on the sidewalk and a car drove past (through a GIANT puddle) and created a nice sideways shower of dirty rain water for me. It was picturesque.
4. We are leaving for Dallas TOMORROW!!!! Bro David Servant is doing a couple of Home Church Conferences there with his wife and daughter Elisabeth whom we miss very much! And we get to visit the Shooks.
5. If any of you read the Heavens family newsletter, there was a girl from Haiti with albinism, I am now sponsoring her! Supercool! Her name is Yveline, and here is her picture! She is the last one on the right.
I like numbered things, so :
1. I have started a word study on thoughts/imagination, hopefully I can post some of it on here pretty soon.
2. I got in a 3-car-wreck on Wednesday morning. It was not my fault, and my car is fine, the front grill is just pushed in, and the back bumper cracked the rest of the way (it was already cracked). Considering the car behind me was totaled, the front end smashed in, the airbags deployed, and the windshield shattered, I made out pretty good. I'm just a bit sore.
3. I got soaked (drenched, sopping, waterlogged, wringing-wet) from walking on the sidewalk and a car drove past (through a GIANT puddle) and created a nice sideways shower of dirty rain water for me. It was picturesque.
4. We are leaving for Dallas TOMORROW!!!! Bro David Servant is doing a couple of Home Church Conferences there with his wife and daughter Elisabeth whom we miss very much! And we get to visit the Shooks.
5. If any of you read the Heavens family newsletter, there was a girl from Haiti with albinism, I am now sponsoring her! Supercool! Her name is Yveline, and here is her picture! She is the last one on the right.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
LSU spring semester
Ok, really quick:
1. God is doing SO MUCH! In my heart, and mind, and family!
2. I have a class in the Cox building this semester, the one with the really BIG doors, sorta exciting.
3. I like Moodle, the new LSU blackboard type thing, it is REALLY nifty, and I like it way better than blackboard, semesterbook, or personal websites.
4. I am only working 12 hours a week ( aren't you happy Deanna :) )
5. I am taking Chemistry, Biology, Biology Lab, Math, and Anthropology.
6. I need to do a tour of LSU to find where the rest of my classes will be, and the best place to park since I can only get myself to one parking lot.
1. God is doing SO MUCH! In my heart, and mind, and family!
2. I have a class in the Cox building this semester, the one with the really BIG doors, sorta exciting.
3. I like Moodle, the new LSU blackboard type thing, it is REALLY nifty, and I like it way better than blackboard, semesterbook, or personal websites.
4. I am only working 12 hours a week ( aren't you happy Deanna :) )
5. I am taking Chemistry, Biology, Biology Lab, Math, and Anthropology.
6. I need to do a tour of LSU to find where the rest of my classes will be, and the best place to park since I can only get myself to one parking lot.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Finals...finally
So I am very ready for the semester to be over.
I think I aced my Biology Lab fina yesterday, like I knew the answer to all but three, without even second guessing myself at all, and the three I didn't get, I knew at least half of it was 100% correct. It was all question and answer or fill in the blank. I was very excited!
Well, I am gonna finish studying for Math.
Merry Chrismas!
I think I aced my Biology Lab fina yesterday, like I knew the answer to all but three, without even second guessing myself at all, and the three I didn't get, I knew at least half of it was 100% correct. It was all question and answer or fill in the blank. I was very excited!
Well, I am gonna finish studying for Math.
Merry Chrismas!
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