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If you’re familiar at all with RBC Ministries, you have probably read at least one of Mart De Haan’s popular “Been Thinking About” essays. Well, if you’ve found Mart’s insights helpful, you’re in luck: there’s also a Been Thinking About blog!

Every day at BeenThinking.org, Mart shares his thoughts on the issues of the day—from current events to the relevancy of Scripture to the challenge of responding to an ever-changing culture. The point is, well, to get you thinking about the world in a fresh and Biblical way. Stop by and take part in the discussion, or follow Mart’s thoughts via RSS.

In the production notes for his Oscar-winning foreign film about Jews pressed into nefarious service by the Nazis, director Stefan Ruzowitzky makes a rather startling claim: “Since Life is Beautiful one can, may and indeed must narrate individual fates which don’t claim to represent all victims.” Presumably, this is a nod to Life’s own Oscar win several years ago; but I suspected there was a bit more behind Ruzowitzky’s assertion than that.

I was therefore glad to have the opportunity, courtesy of a local publicist, to speak with Ruzowitzky over the phone a couple of weeks prior to the Oscars—and I asked him specifically about Life is Beautiful and Schindler’s List. How, I wanted to know, did these films open new doors for pictures about the Holocaust?

Unlike Schindler’s List’s Amon Goeth, the antagonist here, Herzog, is not revealed to us through inside information. Instead, he’s fictionally based on the first-person recollections of another of the counterfeiters, Adolf Burger. So we see in Herzog a man who is “charming, friendly, always good-looking,” says Ruzowitzky: a real “manager-politician” who is fully capable of dreaming up “new, beautiful words” for extermination. And yet the only handle we get on what makes him tick is by examining his character through the lens of the prisoners themselves—and Sorowitsch, specifically. It is an approach that asks us to examine ourselves, and our country.

—post by Greg Wright of Past the Popcorn.

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

The two biggest releases this week are about what you’d expect, if not a whit more. The flashiest of the pair is The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson as Anne and Mary Boleyn — both mistresses to Henry VIII, and the former his second wife. Says Greg Wright, “It’s too bad, really, that Chadwick ends up steeplechasing through the film’s final act. At a thematic level, his film is an enticing look at the question: ‘Is ambition a sin or a virtue?’ The question also works well as a metaphor for the film itself. Did it shoot too high, or too low? In any event, the film is ultimately more sin than virtue.”

(more…)

We’ve mentioned Youth Ministry Exchange a lot here on the Gospel.com blog—they’re an excellent online ministry with lots of great content. To help you get to know them a bit better, we’ve put together a short video tour of the YMX website. Take a look:

If you’re not familiar with YMX, you’re missing out on a lot of great resources, for youth ministry and beyond. Take a few minutes to explore their site!

Has your church ever asked the question, “Are we being sensitive to the single people in our congregation?” If you haven’t, it’s time to examine why. Especially if your leadership consists of married people.

Navpress has a quick quiz you can take to see if your church is being friendly towards single people or not. Here’s a few sample questions:

Many sermon illustrations, examples, and applications apply to unmarried adults as well as couples (e.g., “Ask your spouse or roommate … “).
…
Your pastor has preached on the biblical view of singleness.
…
The proportion of single adults in your congregation is approximately the same as in your community (45 percent for the United States as a whole, higher in urban areas, lower in rural areas).

Up until this week I had no idea about that last statistic.

If your serious about reaching out to singles, jump over and take the quiz.

The latest edition of the Lausanne World Pulse magazine is online, and this issue focuses on a major challenge facing the church today: how can we be an effective global church given the many different cultures (each with its own history and values) in which the church exists? How do we relate to believers who live in radically different cultures than our own?

The magazine breaks this broad question down into a number of more specific essays, including:

• What does it mean to be the church in different cultures? Is it possible to present the Gospel in a contextually-relevant, culturally-comprehensible way without watering it down?
• The dilemma of state church structures in Europe. With the much-discussed decline of the institutional church in Europe, what can the church to rebuild itself throughout the continent?
• Churches in homes and House church in England, about a new, simpler style of church-building.
• Two essays about ministry to the desperately poor “garbage villages” of Cairo.

There’s much more, so be sure to stop by and read through all the new articles in this issue.

(Image: Cairo, Egypt, where missionaries and church workers are ministering to the people of the city’s “garbage villages.” Photo by Asandei Radu.)

When I was in high school I distinctly remember singing “This is the Song that Never Ends” for nigh on 30 minutes straight in the church van. After about minute fifteen our youth pastor stopped laughing at our stupidity and became suddenly very interested in the road.

I have no idea why he put up with any of our antics.

Although upon reflection, he was the one that probably started the singing…

Anyway, Youth Ministry Exchange recently ran a contest for youth workers soliciting their worst road trip story. The winner is just painful to read:

We’ll start with the fact that the last 20 miles of the trip took 2.5 hrs, driving over steep, curvy mountain roads in a whiteout. It snowed three feet in those two hrs. I was driving a loaded van, pulling a 10 ft. trailer, leading a caravan of several other vehicles. We couldn’t pull off of the road, and cars were going into ditches all around us. So, after 12 hrs of driving, we finally get to the lodge. We wake up the following morning to 18 degree temps and strong cross-winds. As we are walking to get the kids their skis, we start down a set of steps. One of our chaperones promptly falls on an icy step and breaks her ankle. Badly. I wrap my coat around her, and take off looking for ski patrol. We hook her up to a sled, and get her the infirmary. I then have to dig our van out of the snow (more than an hour), and go off the road twice driving to the infirmary…

Read the rest, it gets far far worse.

Pornography doesn’t hurt anyone… does it? Statistics show us that pornography is almost everywhere, and that it’s far from harmless. Yet millions of families—both Christian and otherwise—live in the shadow of addiction to sex and pornography. If you’re at the end of your rope due to pornography addiction—yours or a loved ones’—how can you ever find freedom?

Blazing Grace is a Christian recovery ministry that is now part of TechMission’s Safe Families program, and it has a message of hope for anyone oppressed by sex and pornography addiction: freedom is possible, through the power of the Gospel and the support of your peers. Blazing Grace has many free resources to help you escape addiction and find healing, including:

• Forums where you can speak openly and honestly about “taboo” topics pornography, sex addiction, and masturbation. They also provide a place to find supportive accountability as you begin the difficult journey to healing.
• The Blazing Grace Radio Show is a unique radio program that talks about sex and porn addiction. You can listen to the shows online, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, and download MP3s of each episode.
• Many helpful articles, like What I Wish I’d Known About Sex Addiction 20 Years Ago and Healing for Wives.
• Spanish and Korean language versions of their material.

If you’re trapped beneath the weight of sex or pornography addiction, healing is possible—the Bible assures us that no matter how hopeless it might seem to us, nothing is impossible with God. And one of the most effective ways God heals sexual brokenness is through his Gospel and supportive accountability partners. Take a look at what Blazing Grace has to offer—and know that there is hope!

So what exactly does the bible say about singleness? Should everybody yearn to be married? At times in the church it might seem like the answer to the latter question is a resounding, “Of course!” But, of course, it’s not that simple.

In fact according to Albert Hsu from the Discipleship Journal, in the United States the increasing percentage of single people is a relatively new phenomenon:

At the beginning of the 20th century, about 95 percent of the adult population in America was married. Life expectancy in 1900 was only 47 years, and most people married in their teens. Divorce was nearly unheard of, and those who were widowed remarried quickly. So for the most part, being an adult was synonymous with being married. Being single was by far the exception. As a result, most churches spent most of their time and resources ministering to the needs of married couples and families.

At this end of the century, however, the landscape is quite different. Now nearly half of the adult population is unmarried. About 45 percent of today’s adults have never married or are divorced, widowed, or separated. One in four adults has never married. People are staying single longer, no-fault divorce laws are available in every state, and rising life expectancies mean that widows and widowers often remain unmarried longer after the death of a spouse. Now, singleness is almost as likely to be the current status for American adults as marriage.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8 talks about his own singleness as a gift:

I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.

It’s always interesting to note that Jesus and his direct followers remained single their entire lives; a tradition which has continued in the clergy of some of the Church today. Luckily, churches are increasingly ministering to the single people in their congregation.

And this PDF titled, Singleness: The Misunderstood World of Single Adults from RBC talks talks about singleness in the church.

Again here’s Albert Hsu:

Today we need to rediscover the balance of valuing both marrieds and singles. Some of the greatest leaders of church history lived their whole lives as singles: Saint Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Thomas À Kempis, Bernard of Clairvaux. More recently, Protestant leaders such as Methodist circuit rider Francis Asbury, missionaries Amy Carmichael and Helen Roseveare, and German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer were all single. C. S. Lewis was a bachelor for most of his life, married at age 57, was married for only four years, and remained a celibate widower after his wife’s death. British theologian John Stott, now in his 70s and never married, has had a significant worldwide ministry. Mother Teresa spent seven decades serving the poor in India as a single woman.

A truly Christian view of singleness and marriage will honor both without disparaging one or the other.

It might have started out as a pastime for geeks, but video gaming today rival movies and TV as one of the chief sources of entertainment in American households—in fact, if your household doesn’t have an XBox, Playstation, or Nintendo console, you’re probably in the minority. So with hundreds of game releases each year vying for attention, how can parents (and gamers) discern which ones are worth the money and time?

Al Menconi Ministries has one of the most active game-review teams of any Christian ministry on the internet. They’ve reviewed hundreds of games for the PC and every major game console from the Playstation 1 to the XBox 360. Already this month they’ve reviewed Final Fantasy XI Online, Gears of War, Heavenly Sword, Assassin’s Creed, and many others. You can browse through their review archives to find the game review you’re looking for.

What makes AMM’s game review process unique is the effort they put into rating and commenting on the moral content—positive and negative—in the games they review. Each review contains a content scoresheet; the intent is not to tell you which games you should or shouldn’t play, but to educate you about game content so that you can decide for yourself whether it’s a game you feel comfortable playing (or letting your kids play). As with their reviews of movies and other entertainment media, AMM wants to help you cultivate Biblical discernment in yourself and your family, rather than just give you a list of things to embrace or avoid.

AMM doesn’t just review games, though—they’ve got a sizable archive of articles about video games and the moral issues connected to them. Notable articles include a recent guide to family-friendly games and an explanation of the video game industry’s rating system for parents. So if you or someone in your family is a gamer, bookmark the AMM site and check it next time you see a game that looks interesting.