Tag Archives: Movie

Movie Review: Beautifully Broken

Bible, , , , , , ,

By Eric Tooley

Angela and I were invited to preview the movie Beautifully Broken which opens in theaters this weekend. It describes itself as

“A refugee’s escape, a prisoner’s promise, and a daughter’s painful secret converge in this inspiring true story of hope. As three fathers fight to save their families, their lives become intertwined in an unlikely journey across the globe, where they learn the healing power of forgiveness and reconciliation.”

The movie includes appearances by TobyMac and Michael W. Smith and the music of CeCe Winans, John Berry, and Plumb. You’ll recognize Benjamin Onyango in a lead role from the God’s Not Dead movies.

This movie is an amazing true story that shows how

“God  works for good with those who love him” (Romans 8:28)

even in the midst of genocide, rape, and being a refugee.

This movie is rated PG-13 for mature thematic content involving violence and disturbing images, and some drug material. This is not your typical feel-good Christian movie. It is a tough movie that shows the darkness in our world and is not for children under 13 or for teens sensitive to these hard topics.

For those who can handle it, the movie shows how God is involved in even the worse of human activities. Themes of forgiveness and reconciliation ring true. We recommend the movie Beautifully Broken for teens and adults and hope you will talk about it many times afterward.

I Can Only Imagine

Parenting,

By Eric Tooley

 My wife and I previewed the movie, I Can Only Imagine. I have seen MercyMe perform my favorite song live a few times and it always moves me to tears.

The movie is amazing. Go see it.

This is the true story of Bart Millard, lead singer of MercyMe. It is also my story.

The movie is about how Bart went into music despite his troubled home, how he made peace with his father, and how he wrote the song.

As a teenager, Bart told his dad he wanted to sing. His dad said, “Dreams don’t pay the bills.”

Bart replies, “Dad, I can do this.”

His dad answers, “No, you can’t! And you’re going to blink your eyes and you’re going to realize that life has got you nowhere because you chased some stupid dream.”

I know how Bart felt. As a teenager, I told my dad, “I don’t want to be a doctor or play football or go to Oklahoma University. I want to be a youth minister and go to Abilene Christian University and study Bible.”

My dad responded, “You are taking the easy way out in life and wasting your God-given intelligence and talent. I’ll give you two weeks to come up with a good reason for this or you’ll lose your car.”

I responded, “I will tell you then what I am telling you now. I believe God wants me to do this. Punish me all you want but I have to do what my God wants.”

Dad didn’t punish me and I held true to my word except I took a scholarship to Oklahoma Christian. A year and a half later, I baptized my parents.

Eight years later my dad visited me when I was a youth minister in New Orleans. He saw the great things God was doing in my ministry. I’ll never forget the moment we stood looking at the Mississippi River near the Café Du Monde. He put his arm around me and said, “I am really proud of you.”

Tell your kids you are proud of them. Don’t let your pride be something they only imagine.

Pornography Recovery Success

Bible, Pornography, , , ,

By Eric Tooley

Today, February 28, 2018, is my four-year anniversary of sobriety from pornography!

I will celebrate tonight in our Celebrate Recovery program and pick up this coin. I thank God for this freedom.

As I reflect on the longest sobriety I have achieved in 43 years, Luke 11:34 comes to mind:

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness.

Jesus tells us that to become light we need our eyes to be healthy. In my battle with pornography, here are nine ways I make my eyes healthy:

  1. I look away from sexual images.
  2. I avoid movies with sexual content. This has eliminated R-rated and many PG-13 movies.
  3. I opted-out of the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue. ESPN: The Magazine does not make that offer for its body issue so I cancelled that subscription.
  4. I avoid television shows with sexual content. I pretty much only watch baseball, football, and some older comedy shows.
  5. I avoid watching the news. There is usually at least one story that is sexual in nature. This was a huge trigger for me to go to the internet to research a story and then end up looking at porn.
  6. When staying in a hotel, I rarely turn on the TV.
  7. Even though we do not have children at home, we set the TV parental controls to TV-PG.
  8. We have programmed our TV channel listings not to display any adult listings.
  9. I “unfollow” friends on Facebook that post anything of a sexual nature.

My addiction ritual was to be triggered and then go to the internet for pornography. Once I eliminated my triggers, pornography is not an issue for me. We are all different and have our own triggers. In my Images or Glory? program, I talk about bouncing your eyes to avoid pornography.

Be full of light. Keep your eyes healthy. Bounce your eyes.

Fifty Shades of Curiosity and Justification

Pornography, , ,
Tie1I remember getting on the World Wide Web for the first time in the early 1990s and being fascinated by it. I had heard about its pornography.

As a youth minister, I had fifty shades of curiosity and justification:

  • I needed to know what everyone was talking about.
  • I needed to see if it was really that bad.
  • I needed to be able to talk about it firsthand.
  • I needed to be able to help others.
  • I could handle it even if others could not.

I promise my intentions were noble.

My response was not. That experience transformed an occasional struggle with pornographic magazines into an obsession that I still have to fight to this day. I so wish that I had never gone down that path.

The same process is happening with Fifty Shades of Grey. I am amazed at how many Christian women I heard openly talking about reading it and its content. I even saw it carried around in plain view.

This book describes itself as erotica or adult romance. Entertainment Weekly was more direct and called it “an X-rated book.” It is not even well-written. One reviewer on Amazon was so frustrated with the repetition that she counted 164 exclamations of “Oh my” or something similar. It was a New York Times Best Seller and sold at a pace three times faster than Harry Potter ever achieved.

The movie is getting similar poor reviews. The FOX News reviewer called it a

  • “mediocre”
  • “bland”
  • “twisted”
  • “empty of message or meaning”
  • “boring”
  • “pointless film.”

Even so, I still fear it will be as popular as the book.

The reviews are clear that It is not artistic in any way. It is only about sexual stimulation. That is the definition of pornography.

Please, shut down the fifty shades of curiosity going through your head to justify seeing the movie.

Just. Do. Not. Go. There.

(“Best Sellers, June 24, 2012.” The New York Times, June 19, 2012. New York: The New York Times Company. http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/overview.html.) (“Bestseller? Really???” By DS. Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy Customer Review. March 25, 2012. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1LT38SAC0FA4G/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0099579936&nodeID=283155&store=books) (Craig, J. (2015, February 10). FOX 411: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ review. Retrieved from FOX News: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/02/10/50-shades-grey-review-mediocre-plot-bland-characters-twisted-subject-matter/) (“EL James’ Fifty Shades Of Grey is fastest-ever seller.” The Independent, June 19, 2012. London: Independent Digital News and Media Limited. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/el-james-fifty-shades-of-grey-is-fastestever-seller-7866435.html.) (Schwarzbaum, L. (2015, February 10). Movies: Fifty Shades of Grey: EW review. Retrieved from Entertainment Weekly: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/02/10/fifty-shades-grey-ew-review) (Other sources withheld due to their explicit nature.)