William Petruzzo

My friend Ric sent me an email pointing me to this video. It’s every bit as brilliant as he said it was. While I suspect that I have some pretty deep running disagreements with the organization that put it together, it is really poignant, nonetheless. I hope I’m not stealing valuable blog-fodder from you, Ric.

It helps to read their brief intro to the video to get the point they’re making.

“Have you ever tried really hard to make a point and when people say they get it, you are just not sure they do? Sometimes it takes us seeing our world through new eyes–something that it is hard to do as believers. Sometimes a little bit of juxtaposition does the trick.

We made this video because we sometimes struggle in helping churches to truly understand the disconnection between how we do things and the people we’re trying to reach. Our thought was to showcase the visitor experience in a completely different context and in doing so, we might help churches realize how they might actually comes across to the world we are called to reach.

Sometimes it takes seeing something in a different light to really get it. With this thought, my team and I made a little video called “What if Starbucks Marketed Like the Church? A Parable.”

Again, I’m not in total agreement here, but the video should make you think. If nothing else, it’s certainly is good for a laugh.

This video was made by Barats & Bereta, a comedy duo on MySpace video. I don’t get the impression that they’re a Christian group, in fact that seems highly unlikely. Regardless though, this video is pretty well done and at least worth a chuckle. I thought I’d share it.

Halloween is a strange holiday. I think we all kind of know this. I’m sure there’s a completely legitimate explanation for how the traditions came about, but they sure don’t make much sense today. And lets be honest, traditions in and of themselves are kind of weird things. Especially when they entail dressing absurdly and giving away free candy (who does that, really?).

Well, we were talking about it tonight at the Halloween party I decided to attend. It’s kind of like, children start very young. Their parents take them out. They have no idea why their dressing up and have really no idea why they’re getting candy for free. In fact, for all they know, dressing up at any time and knocking on random doors would result in free candy. Good thing most parents keep a fairly tight leash on their kids.

Eventually, kids get older and look foreword to the one night a year when they can walk from door to door dressed up like something scary and they get free candy for it. Of course, that doesn’t last long. Sooner or later, kids hit the age where they learn to work the system. Cover the maximum number of doors in the minimum amount of time with the least amount of effort put into the costume. This is about the age where you stop hearing “trick or treat” when they knock on the door.

At this age though, it’s pretty much all over. Not because it stops being fun, no. It’s right about this age where kids have a profound realization: candy doesn’t cost very much. As soon as they figure this one out, it’s done. Why walk from door to door dressed like a fool for something you could buy a year supply of after mowing one lawn?

So, what’s left? Go to Halloween parties. Drink too much. Go to bed and look foreword to having your own kids and getting to start the cycle all over again.

I suppose traditions are important, right?

My friend Ric sent me an email sharing this video with me. It’s from Rhetta & Link. I can’t say that I was laughing out loud the whole time, but the quality and attention to detail was quite excellent. Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

PS – Ric, I’m sorry if I stole this posting from you!

Yesterday I started a short series of videos I found on YouTube dealing with the topic of Religion, namely Christianity. Whether they be funny, insightful or encouraging, I thought I’d like to share them.

The second one I’d like to share is a short parody on Hillsong (written by some as “Hill$ong”) Church. The video is made, presumably, by non-Christians commentating on what, even they, can discern as an absurd turn in the church. Obviously the group is setting their sights on Hillsong in particular, but their satire echoes quite a bit farther than that. I personally don’t mean to make any claim about Hillsong specifically, I know very little about them, except they occupy the “superstar” status in the Christian worship music genre.

Here’s the video. I’d love to hear your reactions to it.

Perhaps the most shaking line in the song, “Jesus died so I could make a lot”.

Hmm?

The past few days I’ve been surfing around YouTube more than usual. Once I got into the rabbit hole (if you’ve ever wasted time on YouTube, you know just what I’m saying), I started to come across some pretty interesting, funny and encouraging videos dealing with the topic of religion, namely Christianity. I thought I’d take the next couple of days to share them.

The first one I’d like to share is a pretty poignant parody of Rob Bell’s Nooma video about the Bullhorn Guy. In so many words, Rob Bell’s original video short directed his speaking to a man with a "bullhorn", criticizing preachers and teachers for holding firm doctrines and for preaching a hard-nosed gospel of repentance. A parody of Bell’s Nooma video was produced, it seems, by some folks at parishnot.com. I can’t vouch for that organization, but I can vouch for the video. It’s both funny and responds well to Bell’s admittedly absent theological ground.

It’s a bit long, about 6 minutes, but worth watching.

Dear LOST,

With all the time we’ve been spending together over the past few weeks, my past behavior has really been on my mind. I used to think you were kind of a drama queen. Like, you always needed all the attention and any time any little thing went wrong it was like the world was ending. But I see now that I was wrong.

I can remember when you first showed about five years ago and all my friends wanted to spend all their time with you. They all thought you were so cool. I didn’t have any good reason to, but I refused to get to know you. I guess maybe I was just jealous. Secretly I was angry that everyone thought you were so cool. And, to tell you the truth, I even wished I’d met you when you first showed up, but it was too late. I resented you for that.

But ever since we’ve been spending time together, I see why everyone loved you so much. Your fun, exciting, dramatic, funny, mysterious. You’re the whole package. What more could I possibly want?

I know you’re not perfect. Sometimes Jack can really be annoying and I’m pretty much constantly wishing someone would hit Sawyer over the head with something. But you know what? None of that matters. Because we’re together now. The past is behind us, and I can only look foreword to hundreds more special moments we’ll surely share together.

So LOST, I’m sorry that I was selfish and judgmental. Thank you for forgiving me and lets never fight again.

With love,
William

PS – Please try to keep scratched DVD’s to a minimum. I don’t want it ruining any of our special moments.

I was working on some other blogs this afternoon and one of the weirdest, funniest, saddest, most perplexing ads popped up from my own Google Adsense account. Take a gander:

I’m not even exactly sure where to start here. Am I supposed to be enticed? Offended? Angered?… Aroused? The fact that this ad was even presented holds some evidence of the mounting problem of sexual sin within the church. Look at her face. She’s definitely not saying, “Let’s get really kinky and wait for marriage”. Her expression and body language is clearly a sexual enticement.

“Certified Christian”? I don’t remember getting my certification. “Safe Christian Community”, seriously?

But here’s the kicker, “Christians Join for FREE”. What’s that supposed to mean? Does that mean that there are folks on that website who aren’t Christians, but they made up for it by paying the registration fees? Or does it mean that there’s only Christians but during the sign up process they make sure they get a good look at your membership card. You know, come to think of it, I’m not sure I know where my membership card is.

I make light of it, but there is not business where there isn’t market. This is a reflection of the greater condition of the church and it isn’t too pretty. Let’s pray.

Just a thought:

Apparent connections don’t necessarily imply connections. Conspiracy theorists and evolutionists alike seem to confuse the idea. Simply because we can draw a line between one thing in our minds to another, doesn’t necessarily mean the line is actually there. But it’s not just evolutionists and political nut jobs who tend to that kind of thinking—Everyone tends to that kind of thinking. Especially when God is involved. “I am suffering, and therefore God does not love me,” or “I remember putting my faith in God and therefore, I am responsible for my faith.” We do that kind of thing regularly and don’t usually notice it. At least I don’t.

Check out poet (or comedian, I’m not exactly sure which one) Rives demonstration of the idea. This was the inspiration for the thought.

Guilty pleasures. We’ve all got them. Not necessarily moral guilt, although I’m sure many have those also. I’m talking about cultural guilt. Like secretly getting really excited about Project Runway or singing at the top of your lungs to Fall Out Boy songs in the car. Well, for me, it’s musicals. There are others. But musicals make up a big part of the guilty pie. There’s something about life and ordinary discourse happening in strange choreographed song and dance—I just wish it worked that way in real life. I know, it’s weird.

Throughout high school, I had this fantasy of coordinating a huge troop of people to break into song and dance somewhere in public. Maybe in a mall, or a coffee shop or something. At times, it even seemed like it could actually happen. I was friends with some a handful of people in the performing arts department and my crew was always into doing weird things in public. To my dismay, but my ultimate peace of mind, I discovered that a troop, Improv Everywhere, saw my vision to fruition.

So there it was folks. The end of a dream… *sigh*