In North Vancouver, BC CANADA. St. Timothy's Church is a member of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Our charge by our Bishops is to be faithful and fruitful in our communities. St. Timothy's is a nurturing, biblically-based community growing Christ's Kingdom. READ and GROW in Christ!
With the nights becoming cooler and darker earlier, this is the perfect time to get caught up with watching some new films. Please consider coming over to the “film table” and borrowing a film to watch. Even better, consider having a “movie night” and inviting some friends over to watch a film!
Invictus: This film tells the story of how Nelson Mandela uses the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite and inspire a post apartheid South Africa. After 27 years of imprisonment for his activism against apartheid Mandela has been elected as president. Although it was the end of apartheid, the nation remains deeply divided. Mandela’s top priority is reconciliation and he sees an opportunity in the Springboks, the national rugby team. The 1995 World Cup is to be hosted by South Africa and Mandela wants everyone to get behind their national team and unite the country. Will the team win? Will the country unite? An entertaining and extremely well acted film starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela and Matt Daman as the captain of the Springbok
Blind Side: Based on the true story of Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy who take in a homeless teenage African-American, Michael "Big Mike" Oher. Michael has no idea who is father is and his mother is a crack head. Michael has had little formal education and few skills to help him learn. Leigh Anne soon takes charge however, as is her nature, ensuring that the young man has every opportunity to succeed. When he expresses an interest in football, she goes all out to help him, including giving the coach a few ideas on how best to use Michael's skills. They not only provide him with a loving home, but hire a tutor to help him improve his grades to the point where he would qualify for an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship. Michael Oher was the first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft.
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. (2 Timothy 4:13)
With the recent move to Sutherland Church, soon all of the St. Timothy’s Church Library books will become easily accessible to our members. I do hope to be able to set up our Library before the end of September, perhaps sharing ideas and resources with Sutherland Church’s librarian. With newfound freedom, I wish to make our Church Library more attractive and exciting for all ages!
Stay tuned for big changes ahead! Your ideas and comments will be most welcome during the Library's transition.
Prayer?Prayer is both the most exhilarating and the most frustrating experience in life. When God answers your prayer, it's a feeling like no other. So often our prayers don't get answered the way we want. When that's the case, it can be so disappointing it drives you to tears.
We believe praying is like baking with an easy, three-step cake mix, coming out perfect every time. Despite all the books that promise such a thing, there is no secret formula we can use to guarantee the results we want. Still, we keep looking for it. We think about times we got exactly what we wanted and try to recall everything we did. Is there a secret formula we can follow to control how God answers our prayers?
"If prayer stands as the place where human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer," writes Philip Yancey. The Church Library has added Philip Yancey's, "Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?"to its collection. His book circles around two themes: "Why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why (we) don't act the way God wants (us) to. Prayer is the precise point where those two themes converge. In his most powerful book, Philip Yancey probes the very heartbeat---the most fundamental, challenging, perplexing, and deeply rewarding aspect---of our relationship with God. His book "...explores the questions surrounding prayer that many of us wonder but few of us know how to express."
"Don't fake it. A lot of us are like children playing 'peek-a-boo,' hiding their faces in their hands so you can't see them. They are the only ones being fooled. But a lot of us do that in prayer. We come to God, put on a smile and make ourselves look good, but we aren't fooling God. God knows the secrets. The more we put on a mask, the more we misrepresent ourselves. I heard a great sermon about Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. You don't hear much about them, except in sermons on Stewardship Sunday. But this preacher asked what it was that they did wrong. It was not that they did not give their money away. Peter said they didn't have to. But they misrepresented themselves to God. The whole Bible is full of what God puts up with from us—complaints, anger, remorse, repentance. But if you pretend to be something you are not, he can't work with you."
Yancey writes in "Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?"-
"Prayer is cooperation with God, a consent that opens the way for grace to work. Most of the time the Counsellor communicates subtly: feeding ideas into my mind, bringing to awareness a caustic comment I just made, inspiring me to choose better than I would have done otherwise, shedding light on the hidden dangers of temptation, sensitizing me to another's needs. God's Spirit whispers rather than shouts, and brings peace not turmoil." (p. 103)
Everything in this world that we put our faith in has the potential to fail. God does not. He is consistently reliable, even if we do not agree with his decisions. He always leads us in the right direction if we give in to his will. In the "Lord's Prayer," Jesus said to his Father, "…your will be done." (Matthew 6:10, NIV) I believe that only when we reach the place where we are willing to do or accept God's will instead of our own, we will have reached the turning point in our prayers.
“If we are to love God, we must first stop, look, and listen for Him in what is happening around us and inside us. If we are to love our neighbours, before doing anything else we must see our neighbours we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.”
New Film:
"The New World"
From the celebrated writer/director Terrence Malick this is an epic story of love and change, As the Europeans arrive on North American Shores in 1607, we watch history unfold through the eyes of two characters on opposite sides of a cultural divide; John Smith and Pocahontas.
This is a long film (2 ½ hours) and it quite different from the usual “Hollywood” films. The director has a meditative style that may aggravate you, especially if you prefer to watch straightforward narrative, fast moving and conventional Hollywood flourishes, but it is a very good film. Terrence Malick is more of a poet who uses pictures instead of words.” Creation itself pours forth speech”, as the psalmist says, and Malick invites those with eyes to see to look closer and listen carefully.
After Sunday church services come and explore our collection of films. There are all sorts of films and I am sure I can find one that you will enjoy watching.
Spring is finally here, and it is time for a "Spring cleaning", again. I have noted a few Church Library books missing for some time. Could you please check your shelves, closets, under the couch, etc. to see if there are any books that may have been forgotten or misplaced?
There are a couple children's books missing --- notably, "Joseph and His Amazing Coat" and "Daniel and the Lion's Den" (both are Usborne paperback books). Another is the Christian Classic pocket book fiction, part of a series missing for quite a while --"The Curate's Awakening", by George S. McDonald -- the first book of two in the series (book two is "The Lady's Confession" which is still in the library). Thank you.
Happy Easter, and happy reading for the Soul. Nothing beats reading a Christian book! Please check out our books for all ages any Sunday!
-submitted by M C
Update: "Daniel" has been found... "Joseph" and the "Curate" are still lost...)
Most of us watch films to be entertained. We enjoy seeing a film with a good sense of humor, a film with a satisfying love story, a film with a happy ending, an inspirational story. Less often, perhaps, we watch a film for educational purposes. I am not referring to the documentary films from the National Film Board that I remember as a child (although I do admit to remembering a real sense of excitement when the teacher rolled in the 16mm film projector!), but rather films, which allow us to explore different perspectives on life and situations that we encounter during a normal day.
Jeffrey Overstreet, a Christian film critic who lives in Seattle, best known for his work with the magazine “Christianity Today”, writes film reviews, which encourage me to watch films with a Christian perspective. His opinions on film challenge and encourage me to ask questions and learn more about what it means to be a Christian.
Overstreet believes that Christian film reviews in the past have focused on the dangers of movie going. For example, it might have been suggested to avoid a film because it was “too worldly, might lure people into temptation and could be a stumbling block to the Christian faith”. Jeffrey believes that focusing on the dangers of a film can prevent us from realizing that a good film is like telling a story; it can allow us to encounter a different perspective and enter into someone else's world. Unfortunately, some films do “celebrate” the darkness and make it look very appealing. Think of horror films that exploit “ugly” things just to sell tickets; this is not excellence in film. A good film is real and should enable us to engage with, listen to, and understand our neighbours.
An example of a film, which may be difficult to watch, is “Juno”. A film about teenage pregnancy, it accurately portrays the painful challenges of the situation. Overstreet believes that the film shows how the characters think the challenges through, how they make choices that are “sometimes admirable and sometimes dismaying.” “Some wise decisions lead to trouble, some of the foolish decisions lead to blessings. In that way, Juno resembles real life.”
As much as we all like happy endings, try considering that a good film might not have a happy ending. Life doesn't always turn out the way we want. Our prayers aren't always answered. Christians don't always win. In fact if we are to believe in Scripture, we should believe that Christians are more likely to suffer more than others. A good film will explore what happens when the character doesn't get what he wants. It will explore the good and the bad choices that people make and the resulting consequences.
A good example of this is the film, “Into the Wild”, based on the true story of Chris McCandless a young man who leaves his home and family and essentially abandons life to live as a recluse in the wilderness of Alaska. Throughout the story God reaches out to him through many different people, only for Chris to refuse to “open” the door. In the end, he realizes too late, the missed “golden” opportunities. The film is true to life in so many ways.
In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse14, Jesus tells us we are “the light of the world”. The world that Jesus is referring to, is a world with people with real problems; a world with the worst human behaviour, the greatest depravity; a world with people who are truly lost. This is the world where God's love and grace needs to shine brightly. This is what Jesus calls us to be and do. A good film will accurately portray this “broken” world and allow us to enter it and consider what we as Christians might or might not do.
Ultimately film choices are of course a very personal matter. What “works” for one person, may have no effect on another at all. Choose your films wisely, analyze the film for accuracy in relation to life and try and avoid always wanting the happy ending. Overstreet reminds us to “look for moments where you can see the glory of God at work in people's lives and in creation. Watch the film through the lens of faith and allow your faith to be strengthened by the awe-inspiring beauty and power of what God has made.”
The Soloist:In this fact-based drama, Robert Downey plays Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez. Estranged from his former wife, Mary (Catherine Keener) -- who is still his editor -- Lopez leads a solitary existence in his upscale but empty home, lulling himself into oblivion, night by night, with a bottle of wine and Neil Diamond tunes. With readership shrinking and layoffs all around him, Lopez desperately needs a human interest story to keep his career on track. He stumbles across an especially compelling one when he meets Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a musically gifted homeless man.
As he profiles and eventually befriends Ayers -- whose passion for Bach and Beethoven Lopez finds infectious -- the columnist works to get him settled in an apartment and find him a safe environment in which to practice. Eventually he strikes on the real-life Lamp Community, a refuge on LA's skid row. Like Ayers, whose schizophrenia cut short his promising cello studies at New York's JuilliardSchool, many of the Lamp Community's beneficiaries are on the street as a result of mental illness.
The film examines the topics of mental illness and homelessness and it goes about that task with documentary-like realism, coupled with extraordinary tenderness. The result is a film that packs an emotional wallop and yet, paradoxically, feels hopeful. Hopeful that the simple act of friendship can make a difference in someone's life, even if we are unable to offer solutions for a friend's problems. Lopez desperately wanted to fix Ayers, to help him unleash his musical gift to the full. But it turns out that that's not really the point. Loyalty, faithfulness and determination to keep trying, no matter what—those are the values that matter most, according to this film.
The Visitor:A deeply moving drama built around longtime character actor Richard Jenkins. The Visitor is a simmering drama about a college professor and recent widower, Walter Vale who discovers a pair of illegal aliens who were the victims of a real-estate scam living in his New York apartment. After the mix-up is resolved, Vale invites the couple--a young, Syrian musician named Tarekand his Senegalese girlfriend to stay with him. An unlikely friendship develops between the retiring, quiet Vale and the vibrant Tarek, and the former begins to loosen up and respond to Tarek's drumming lessons as if something in him waiting to be liberated has finally been unleashed. All goes well until Tarek is hauled in by immigration authorities and threatened with deportation. His mother, Mouna turns up and stays with Vale, sparking a renewed if subdued interest in courtship. However, the wheels of injustice in immigration crush all manner of hopes in post-9/11 America. Vale soon realizes that he has unexpected anger over Tarek's plight, and the positive changes to his personal life that emerged from a deep involvement with his friend and Mouna might be the only legacy he takes from this experience. This film explores issues about immigration, culture and music.
Stranger Than Fiction: Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an IRS agent whose life is little more than a string of dull, dreary, methodical routines. Every morning he brushes his teeth a certain number of times, and he walks a certain number of steps across the street to catch his bus—and the film annotates his activities with pop-up diagrams that track his every move. Harold's activities are described to us by a female voice-over narrator—and then, one morning, Harold hears the voice for himself. At first this is merely annoying, and it drives Harold nuts—but then the woman's voice makes a cryptic reference to Harold's imminent death, and Harold begins to fear for his life.
The voice belongs to Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson), a novelist who has a bad case of writer's block; the problem is so bad, in fact, that the publisher has sent her an assistant named Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) to goad her into finishing her latest book. We learn that Kay has a reputation for killing off her main characters, and the reason her current novel is stuck in limbo is because she can't figure out how to bump off the main character—who just happens to be Harold Crick.
Harold turns to a literary prof named Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who creates a test to narrow down the possible range of genres to which Harold's life story might belong. Harold also happens to be auditing—and falling in love with—an idealistic baker named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), so he takes notes every time they meet, tallying the moments between them that seem to point towards a happy ending and those which seem to point towards something more tragic. Of course, since he works for the IRS, and she withheld a portion of her taxes to protest government policies, the relationship might seem doomed; then again, romantic comedies often start with couples hating each other's guts, so who knows?
This very unique but heartwarming film explores topics such as control and meaning in our lives, outside influences and death.
Shake Hands with the Devil: Shake Hands with the Devil is a Canadian drama feature film starring Roy Dupuis as Roméo Dallaire, which premièred at the Toronto International Film Festival in August 2007. Based on Dallaire's autobiographical book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, the film recounts Dallaire's harrowing personal journey during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and how the United Nations failed to heed Dallaire's urgent pleas for further assistance to halt the massacre. An important film for us at St Timothy’s to watch because of our close ties with Rwanda. 
