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Staring at Screens An Interview with Kevin Sorbo Bibles on the Big Screen PK Video Project Shares New Stories Beyond Boundaries: Fighting Back Against Porn

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SEVEN Magazine Men. God. Life. A Christian magazine for Canadian men. Relevant, exciting and biblical.

Men of Integrity Devotional Especially written for men, personally challenging, eternally rewarding. Available in a 60 page booklet or as an email devotional.

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ON THE COVER: STARING AT SCREENS “What are you watching?” We live in a distracted world. With so much to look at, have we tuned out from the things that matter? In this issue, we explore the good, bad and ugly of spirituality in a screen-heavy culture: from faith in film to careers and Christian faith to protection against pornography.

FEATURES: 10

Staring at Screens An Interview with Kevin Sorbo Bibles on the Big Screen PK Video Project Shares New Stories

Beyond Boundaries: Fighting Back Against Porn

Bibles on the Big Screen | Peter Chattaway From biblical blockbusters to faith-minded indie flicks, 2014 and the months beyond are seeing a resurgence of interest in spiritual movie content. Why? Film critic Peter Chattaway explores the cinematic landscape of faith in film. Back for More: The Kevin Sorbo Interview | Q&A with Kevin Sorbo We sit down with Kevin Sorbo, star of the popular series “Hercules” and “Andromeda” as well as the recent box office surprise hit, God’s Not Dead. Career and Christian commitment are on display in this exclusive interview. A New Story to Tell | Steven Sukkau This is Me TV, a new video series by Promise Keepers Canada, seeks to capture the attention of a new generation through the power of web-based storytelling. Beyond the Boundaries: Equipping Your Teen to Fight Back Against Porn | Sheila Wray Gregoire In the age of online, porn is everywhere. But what can parents do to protect their children? As Sheila Wray Gregoire writes, “The question, then, is not ‘how can we prevent our kids from seeing porn?’, but instead, ‘what are we going to do to equip them to stand against the onslaught?’”

The name reflects the seven promises that form the basis of the Promise Keepers organization, which works with churches to minister to men across Canada. one – A promise keeper is committed to honouring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer, and obedience to God’s Word in the power of the Spirit. two – A promise keeper is committed to pursuing Christ-centred friendships with a few other men, connecting regularly, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises. three – A promise keeper is committed to practicing biblical integrity: spiritually, morally, ethically and sexually. four – A promise keeper is committed to strengthening families and marriages through love, honour, protection, and biblical values. five – A promise keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honouring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources. six – A promise keeper is committed to reaching beyond racial, social, economic, generational, and denominational barriers to demonstrate that power of biblical unity.

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SEVEN is a Christian magazine for Canadian men that exists to help men lead more fulfilling lives and leave enduring legacies.

PK Podium What’s new at PK Canada?

The Single Life What grabs your attention?

Sports Scene Bombers’ punter honoured by Athletes in Action

Out of My Depth Tuning in to the things that matter

seven – A promise keeper is committed to influencing the world by his fervent love for God while loving his neighbour, seeking justice for the poor and oppressed, and making disciples of Jesus Christ.

DEPARTMENTS: 7

Pulse: Bits. Blips. Beats. Blurbs.

Power Play: Toys. Tools. Technology.

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The PK Canada logo features a maple leaf, indicating our dedication to serve the men of Canada. An arrow breaks into the maple leaf symbolizing the impact we believe God wants to see Promise Keepers and men making in our nation. A special thank-you to all the pastors who continually encourage us to communicate God’s truth with grace and love.

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PROMISE KEEPERS CANADA

NATIONAL MEN’S CONFERENCES COMING SOON

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What’s New at Promise Keepers Canada? A look at what’s ahead By Kirk Giles

Summer is a season where our lives change pace—there is more time spent outdoors with family and friends, and many people pause their work to take some time for a vacation. For Promise Keepers Canada, summer is a season of new beginnings. June is the launch of a new fiscal year for Promise Keepers Canada. Many of our readers may not realize all that actually happens over the summer months to help strengthen men across Canada, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of what life is like for us during this season. Preparing for a new conference season The summer months are when we prepare for the coming year of men’s conferences. Our theme for the next 12 months is “Fearless” and our team is busy finalizing speakers, planning the overall event experience, preparing and mailing promotional materials, partnering with local churches to work together to have men attend conferences, and securing sponsorships from businesses who help us keep the registration fees lower. Blueprint leadership training This summer, we launch Blueprint, our new discipleship framework for men in the local church. In addition to the training, we will also be offering ongoing coaching to churches who want to implement the Blueprint framework. During the summer, we will also be working on writing new discipleship content that churches can use as they implement Blueprint and disciple the men in their congregations.

Workshops preparation One of the real growth areas of the ministry are workshops available in partnership with local churches. A few of the topics covered include: anger, purity, marriage, parenting and work. Summer is a time where we update our content and write new workshop content. Father’s Day The summer begins with a big project for our team as we work with local churches to provide a devotional to equip thousands of men on Father’s Day. Our team starts the summer by taking orders, ensuring the content is prepared, designing, printing, and mailing the devotionals to churches across the country so they have them in time to distribute on Father’s Day. Podcast We have launched a new podcast that is available to equip men on a monthly basis. Summer is a time of recording new episodes of this podcast, and that includes the time of preparation for the content and facilitating interviews with special guests. This is only a glimpse of all that happens in the ministry of PK Canada over the summer months. Our team is highly committed to doing what we can to walk with the men of Canada all year long. We know that helping men become, grow, and live as disciples of Jesus Christ requires a voice that is battling against all of the other voices trying to take men away from Jesus. You can get more information on everything that is happening in the ministry and how we can serve you and the men around you by visiting our website at www. promisekeepers.ca or downloading the Promise Keepers Canada app for your mobile phone.

Kirk Giles is the president of Promise Keepers Canada. However, his most important roles as a man are husband to Shannon and father to Carter, Joshua, Sydney and Samuel.

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Equip your men to have meaningful relationships with other guys.

Brothers A Workshop from promise keepers Canada

Learn how you can host a workshop at your church. Visit promisekeepers.ca to get started.

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Bits + Blips. Beats + Blurbs. by Rob Horsley, PULSE Editor

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SLIPPERY SITUATION ENSUES FOR BRONSON THE BRAWLER OUTBURST YORK, UK—“Those guards had butter be careful,” writes Simon McCormack of The Huffington Post in another weird one from across the pond. British prisoner and notorious jailbird brawler Charles Bronson found himself the recipient of several broken ribs after instigating a brawl at Full Sutton Jail in York, England, after his least favourite football (ie. soccer) team, Arsenal, was victorious over Hull in England’s Football Association (FA) Cup. Here’s where it gets weird: before going toe-to-toe with a dozen prison personnel, Bronson claims to have greased himself up beforehand to make himself harder to grab onto, aiding in the difficulty of his eventual apprehension. This isn’t the first time that Bronson, a fan of Arsenal’s archrival club Tottenham, has initiated such mayhem. Jeremy Armstrong of The Daily Mirror writes “the attack was a carbon copy of an assault on 12 prison officers at Wakefield prison in 2010.” In a letter sent to a friend and subsequently obtained by several media outlets, Bronson writes, “Not good news. I’ve had another rumble. This time with a dozen riot mob on the yard!” He adds, “Obviously I had my reasons and I’d sooner swallow my teeth than my pride. Sadly, I came up worst—got smashed up ribs.” Yikes. Bronson is often referred to as Britain’s “most violent prisoner,” and has spent most of the past 40 years behind bars, 36 of which in solitary confinement, and most as a result of in-prison scuffles with prison staff and fellow inmates. He was initially arrested for armed robbery in 1974 and sentenced to seven years. He has been granted release on more than one occasion, only to wind up back in prison shortly thereafter each time. In addition to his activities as a frequent fisticuffs partaker, Bronson also keeps a hobby as an artist. His website reads: “Come and join us on a journey into madness. But if you’re coming…bring a torch.” Yikes again. (Huffington Post/The Daily Mirror)

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NEW RECORD CELEBRATES CAREER AND COMMUNITY FOR STEVE BELL WINNIPEG, MB—When asked what he thinks of his latest album, Winnipeg musician Steve Bell responds, “It’s fantastic.” But while Bell, 53, hasn’t been shy to speak to the quality of his work, in this case it was how the project came together that has been so encouraging. For his latest record, an ambitious four-disc set called Pilgrimage, Bell turned to the popular crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, wherein artists turn to their fans directly for financial support of upcoming projects, something that Bell says has been especially helpful given the less-certain climate of the music industry today. “Up to five or six years ago, if you wanted to do an album, you could justify taking out a loan—you’re going to get the money on the other side. That’s changed,” he says. “We now know that music has been brought back down…where there’s going to be no money on the other side.” Giving himself a time frame of 40 days, Bell reached out to fans for a total of $20,000—a goal that was met in two weeks. The project raised a total of $56,010 at its conclusion in mid-June. Pilgrimage commemorates the 25th anniversary of Bell’s first solo record, Comfort My People. Disc one will contain an album of entirely new material, whereas discs two and three respectively feature stripped-down re-recordings of fan-chosen favourites, as well as reprised covers from some of Bell’s musical peers. “A tribute album is great because it allows people to see that one version of a song is not definitive. I think that’s a really important thing,” he says. Bell describes the project’s fourth disc as a collection of instrumental remixes of several songs spanning his career, an inclusion originally conceived by long-time manager/producer Dave Zeglinski. For Bell, the timing for Pilgrimage seemed an appropriate commemoration of a celebrated musical career, something he still finds surreal. “Twenty-five years is fun for me—I’m just surprised I’m still here,” he says with a laugh. Bell hopes the crowdfunding model is something that sticks around the music industry for a long time, and hopes aspiring musicians will recognize the potential in re-thinking what it means to be “successful” as an artist. “Artists have to see themselves as public servants,” he says. “And I think when they do, [their] community will reward them. I just think that’s true.” Even so, Bell is quick to emphasize the importance of hard work. “A young artist said [to me], ‘you’re lucky. You just put out an e-mail and raised $30,000.’ I said, ‘No, I put out 30 years and raised $30,000. This doesn’t just happen.’ “People don’t realize that I spend most of my time in small-town Saskatchewan playing to 150 people. But they just see the big concerts.” When asked whether he feels a greater sense of connection to fans, given that it was through their dollars that the project was made possible, Bell responds in the affirmative. But he also points out the added incentive to produce something people will enjoy. “I think in general what we’re seeing, as music goes back to a patron model rather than a commercial model it really means that artists can’t be anywhere near as narcissistic anymore,” he says, “because no one is going to give me money to project my own ‘unique angst’ and ‘personal genius.’ “People are going to give to the arts now when they think that that art is going to produce a social good,” he adds. And for Bell, Pilgrimage really is something inspired by community. “There’s something about [that] personal ‘Thank you’ that makes you realize, ‘This Steve Bell project is a community project. It’s not mine.’ Steve Bell is not me. “I’m the Steve Bell everybody sees, [but] Steve Bell is a ‘we’ thing.” (This article was originally appeared in and was reprinted with permission from ChristianWeek, and was written by Pulse editor Rob Horsley, who also serves as managing editor of ChristianWeek.)

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Photo credit: Darrell J. Rohl/Flickr

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TACO DAY FOOD FIGHT ESCALATES QUICKLY LEBANON, TN—If only the kids would have taken those “take a bite out of crime” messages more seriously… Several students in Lebanon, Tennessee are facing criminal charges after a “Taco Day” food fight at a high school cafeteria took a violent turn for the worse. Hilary Hanson of The Huffington Post, writes that the event “started as a senior prank” but “got so crazy that students were throwing chairs and turning tables over” according to one report from Nashville’s MSNBC affiliate, WSMV TV. In addition to the charges, some students reportedly will not be allowed to walk during graduation, a punishment that has been viewed as too harsh by senior student John Davidson. “I think everything else is tolerable,” Johnson says in regards to the charges that have been pressed. “You gotta do it. But walking the line, that’s taking away something that’s once in a lifetime.” While the escalation of the events no doubt is cause for concern and requires some sort of disciplinary action, some groups have expressed concerns that pressing charges goes to far in seeking to reprimand. The American Civil Liberties Union for one says it’s worried that measures that “over-criminalize” students in schools might lead to what they have called the “school-toprison pipeline” wherein students who might benefit from counselling services are oftentimes incarcerated instead, unnecessarily. Eight students have been charged with vandalism and disorderly conduct thus far, with more charges likely on the way according to the sheriff’s department. Who knew a food fight have such serious (and perhaps depressing) implications? (The Huffington Post/WSMV TV)

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Bibles on the Big Screen An insightful look into 2014’s religious cinema revival By Peter T. Chattaway

Whether by chance or design, 2014 is turning out to be the year of the religious movie. Things got off to a controversial start in January, when an obscure Christian film called Alone Yet Not Alone was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song—and then had its nomination rescinded because one of the song’s composers had improperly used his connections within the Academy to promote the song to his colleagues. As of this writing, the producers were planning to release the film across the U.S. in mid-June. Then, in February, 20th Century Fox released Son of God, a life-of-Jesus movie that grossed almost $60 million in North America despite the fact that it has no major stars and it consists almost entirely of footage recycled from last year’s TV mini-series “The Bible.” In March, there were two noteworthy films: God’s Not Dead, a low-budget Christian film that grossed over $59 million in its first two months,

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Bibles on the Big Screen

thereby earning almost double what the previous top-grossing independent Christian film, Courageous, had earned three years ago; and Noah, a big-budget Bible movie that grossed $100 million despite—or perhaps because of—the controversy around its loose interpretation of Scripture. These films were followed in April by Heaven Is for Real, an adaptation of the best-selling book about a real-life boy who claimed that he had visited Jesus and others in heaven during a near-death experience. Produced and distributed by a major studio, albeit at a low cost for a studio-based film, it grossed over $82 million within its first month. And then, in May, there was Moms’ Night Out, a comedy about a stay-at-home mom who is desperate for some grown-up time, but whose plans to spend a few hours with her friends go awry as the men in their lives lose control of their kids. That film had the smallest opening of this year’s “religious” films, and had grossed a little more than $5 million in its first week. And, there are more “faith-based” or Bible-based films on the horizon. Later this year, there are plans to release Persecuted, about an evangelist framed for murder, in July, as well as the reboot of the Left Behind series, starring Nicolas Cage, in October. In December, Gladiator director Ridley Scott will release his big-budget Bible epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, starring Christian Bale as Moses. Conservative filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh plans to shoot his adaptation of Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt later this year, possibly for release in 2015. Paramount Pictures (the studio behind Noah) has teamed up with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey (the producers behind Son of God) to produce a new version of Ben-Hur, which is due to hit theatres in February 2016.

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What accounts for this proliferation of films? And how should Christians respond to them? To a certain degree, all of these films are benefitting from the popularity of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which came out a decade ago. At the time, Hollywood didn’t really know how to cash in on the “faith-based” audience, but it has since become more open to making and selling films that are produced with that audience in mind. Initially, some studios created “faith-based” divisions such as Fox Faith that were designed to promote independent films to Christian audiences. And Hollywood noticed when ultra-lowbudget films such as Facing the Giants and Fireproof, produced with a mostly volunteer crew by a Baptist church in Georgia, grossed $10 million and $33 million respectively. Meanwhile, the major movie studios have been relying increasingly on the foreign market for the vast bulk of their profits (the typical blockbuster now makes two, three or even four times as much money overseas as it does in North America) and so they have become more interested in adapting Bible stories, which are well-known around the world, in the public domain, and filled with the sort of miracles that lend themselves to visual effects. The fact that three Bible films happened to come out in the same year is something of a coincidence. Darren Aronofsky had wanted to make a movie about Noah since the late 1990s, but it was only after his previous film, Black Swan, became an Oscar-winning hit that a studio was willing to give him the money to make it. Meanwhile, Burnett and Downey produced “The Bible” for television—a medium that has always had room for biblical content—and it was only after the fact that they thought of re-editing it into a movie.

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Exodus: Gods and Kings, for its part, was one of two Moses movies being developed by two different studios. Fox finally gave its film the green light after Noah had finished shooting, and after “The Bible” had proved to be a massive hit. (The other Moses film, which was being developed at Warner Brothers, never got past the development stage.) The fact that so many Bible films have been hitting the big screen lately may have also given the low-budget Christian films a boost. As the controversy over Noah raged on message boards and in comment threads on Facebook and other sites, it was common to find people promoting God’s Not Dead as an alternative. It became, in a sense, the “anti-Noah”, which might account for why it did so much better than any previous Christian film. The debates around these films have raised a number of points that are worth considering as we look ahead to the DVD releases of these films, and to the films that are still on the horizon. What should we expect from these films? How should we receive them? First, it’s important to recognize that there are many different kinds of films aimed at the “faith-based” audience, and each has its own agenda. Just this year alone, we have already seen independent films made by and for evangelicals, we have seen studio-based films made by Christians but with an eye towards the wider market, and we have seen films made by non-Christians that were promoted to the Christian audience because they happen to be based on Bible stories that appeal to Christians. Films like God’s Not Dead and Moms’ Night Out were made by Christians and depict people who speak and act like Christians, including references to popular Christian authors and musicians. Heaven Is for Real, on the other hand,

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was made by a secular studio intent on crossing over to an audience interested in a more general sort of spirituality. Thus, the film leaves out the book’s references to Satan and his demons, as well as the real-life Colton Burpo’s insistence that only people who believe in Jesus can get into heaven. Similarly, big-budget Bible movies like Noah and Exodus need to appeal to a general audience—and not just the

Christian crowd—if they are ever going to get their money back, so they tend to include lots of battle scenes and other kinds of crowd-pleasing spectacle. In fact, the North American church-based audience is only one piece of the puzzle as far as the bigger films are concerned. Noah, for example, has already made more money overseas than any other Bible movie, though it lags well behind The Passion of the

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Christ in North America. Similarly, while Exodus is still in post-production, it has already been the subject of magazine articles overseas but has received relatively little attention here. Second, we need to receive each film on its own terms. For example, many people, believers and otherwise, assumed that Noah was going to be a Christian movie, but the men who wrote and directed it are secular Jews who did a lot of research into the rabbinic traditions surrounding Noah. As a result, many of the things that some Christians objected to—such as Noah’s darker impulses, or the snakeskin that his father wears— were perfectly explicable from a Jewish point of view. If non-Catholics could benefit from Mel Gibson’s film on the death of Jesus, which was deeply informed by Catholic mysticism, then presumably Christians could benefit from a Jewish understanding of the Noah story, without necessarily agreeing on all the particulars. Third, we need to be careful to treat stories as stories, and not as boundary markers. One of the most interesting and encouraging things about filmmaking these days is that the tools have become increasingly affordable, and it is possible for Christians and others to make films that reflect their own experiences and their own communities. Sometimes the results have been fairly positive, as in films like Fireproof and Courageous, which are kind of like church dramas writ large: made mostly by amateurs (in the best sense of the word), but with a heart for ministry and a desire to help people become better spouses and parents. At other times, the results have encouraged a sort of us-versus-them

thinking that is not so positive. Such films can foster a divisive approach to the world that feeds into a sort of persecution narrative—and this narrative sometimes affects the discussions around these films. When the Oscar nomination for Alone Yet Not Alone was rescinded because the composer broke the Academy’s campaigning rules, many Christians accused the Academy of trying to shut Christians out of the awards ceremony. Similarly, Moms’ Night Out was initially promoted as a fun film for everyone, but in the second week of its release, the discussion around that film zeroed in on some of the most negative reviews as evidence that the Christian lifestyle was under attack, and that Christians needed to buy tickets to the movie to take a stand for “our way of life.” What we need are films—and conversations around the films we see—that can encourage greater empathy. The best films don’t simply show us things or tell us what to think, they draw us into experiences that encourage us to ask what we would do in other people’s shoes, whether that person is a frazzled stay-at-home parent, a witness to the destruction of the world as he knows it, someone who knew Jesus personally, and so on.

The best films make our world bigger, not smaller. Instead of allowing us to retreat into the safety of our bubbles, they challenge us to see the beauty in creation and the humanity in other people. And when they are made—and watched!— properly, they can open our eyes to new ways of loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves.

Peter T. Chattaway is an award-winning film critic who lives in B.C. and blogs for Patheos.com.

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Back For More: The Kevin Sorbo Interview God’s Not Dead star talks acting, faith, family, and the

state of America in original interview with SEVEN By Rob Horsley

Grossing close to $60 million at the box office, God’s Not Dead, a Christian independent film from Pure Flix Entertainment, has been a huge commercial success. Telling the story of college freshman Josh Wheaton who decides to take a stand of faith against philosophy professor and vehement atheist Jeffrey Radisson through a series of in-class debates on whether God is, as the title suggests, dead. Despite several negative reviews from mainstream critics, the film has resonated deeply with the scores of Christian moviegoers who have trekked out to see it. We sat down (over the phone) with God’s Not Dead star Kevin Sorbo (most famous for his role as the title character in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” and as Captain Dylan Hunt in the award-winning science-fiction series, “Andromeda”) to talk with him about onscreen achievements, career challenges and what being a family man looks like in the life of one of Hollywood’s most prominent Christian actors.

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SEVEN: Tell us about your introduction to God’s Not Dead: What led you to take on this project? Kevin Sorbo: I’ve worked with Pure Flix a number of times. I’ve done five movies with them through the years. I think my very first movie I shot with them was probably about four and a half or five years ago, called What If…. I think that What If… is an even better movie than God’s Not Dead. But at the time, they just didn’t have the game plan, the power, the money, or whatever it was to really get it out there. I think (God’s Not Dead) is just a really good movie…it’s a great family movie. They came to me with it, and said, “Hey, this is going to create a little controversy,” but I read the script and I jumped on board right away. I said, “This is a great story.” We need to create a discussion out there. It’s a $2 million movie…and it’s grossing $60 million in America alone at the box office. It’s incredible. I think, dollar for dollar, it’s probably the most successful faith-based movie ever done. They’ve just done a great job. It all starts with a great script—that’s what it comes down to and it comes from a tremendously strong word of mouth from people who’ve gone to the theatres to see it. Why do you think God’s Not Dead has been so meaningful to the audiences that have received it so well? I think it’s just very smartly written. You get the atheist point of view, or the scientific view, so to speak, and you also get the Christian point of view. It was a great way to sort of attack the atheist world that’s just so angry and crazed [in] their attack on anybody who wants to be a Christian. I don’t get it when I’m turning on the cable station and I’m watching some atheist CEO of this ‘Atheists-R-Us’ company, just going crazy. I’m looking at the veins bulging out of the guy’s neck and I look at my wife and every time I say, “why are they so angry about something they don’t believe in?!” It’s amazing to me. To me, the anger stems from the fact that they do believe, but they just don’t like the fact that there could potentially be something that’s there watching them and judging how they live their lives…they just can’t stand the fact that there might be somebody out there that’s actually keeping tabs on what they do.

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God’s Not Dead definitely captures what a lot of Christians are feeling in some of the more secular parts of Western culture, universities being a prime example: How helpful do you think a movie like God’s Not Dead is to the ongoing dialogue that Christians are having with “mainstream culture”? Pure Flix is great at…getting it out there and talking to pastors all across the country and saying, “Look, this is kind of what we want made, what do you think?” And they actually do put their input into what they believe would be a good discussion type of movie, and that’s what happened. I’ve got atheist friends that went to it and actually enjoyed it; I’ve got agnostic friends that actually said, “You know what? I believe in God now.” And, [the movie is] shot well. The biggest problem, I think, for Christian movies is—and it’s gotten better over the last five or six years, but prior to that—all the cheesy storylines, preaching the choir. People don’t want to have that to happen to them. In today’s media-television, magazines, movies, the press, everything-there is so much negativity, so much brainwashing so to speak. So I think you’ve got go after it in a way, as a Christian, to sit there and go, “Okay. What do we need to do get ourselves involved with more people that are just sort of out there saying, ‘maybe, maybe not’?” I think this is the type of movie that does it. The technology, more than anything, has gotten cheaper… they’re able to shoot movies now at a lower budget that look just as good as a $50 million Hollywood movie.

How helpful do you think the types of intellectual conversations that take place between characters like Josh Wheaton and Jeffrey Radisson are for Christians in the real world? I think it strengthens their faith. That’s what I’m getting from people on the Twitter and Facebook feed. People stop me every day I go out…somebody walks up to me and says, “Thanks for doing that movie. I appreciate it.” In some way or form they come up and say, “I saw the movie…wow. It’s amazing.” It’s pretty cool to see people’s response. When you look at a movie like that compared to a movie like Noah, which they [made for] close to $200 million…and I don’t think it made $100 million in the States. I think they made their money back, but it was a disappointment to so many people. I looked at my wife halfway through and I said, “This is Waterworld meets Transformers.” Such a strange movie… I think the direction they went with that movie was just an odd choice…I didn’t know that Noah was a psychotic alcoholic that wanted to kill all of mankind (laughs).

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It’s my understanding that you grew up in a Christian home, specifically a Lutheran home. I did, it was a Lutheran household. St. John’s Lutheran Church in Mound, Minnesota, a little town of about 10,000 people, about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. What was your family like? I was the fourth of the five kids and [I remember] going to church every week. Our church got to be pretty big, so that Sunday school became a Wednesday night [thing]…and then of course, we were at church every Sunday. So it was just a part of life. I was about 11 years old, you know when you start to get a little bit older, a little bit more mature [and] you ask more questions. I remember my pastor was a very ‘fire and brimstone’ kind of guy, and I just looked at my parents finally…and I said, “You know, I don’t think God is that angry…I think He wants us all to be good people. That was sort of a turning point with me—not turning away, just sort of questioning. I don’t [really] consider myself reborn. I mean, yes I’ve done things in my life and sinned—I’m certainly not a perfect person whatsoever, but I’ve never stopped believing in God, I’ve never stopped believing in Jesus; I know they’re part of my life. I try to pray every day. I’m sure that I don’t, but I mean, I pray anytime, anywhere. On the golf course, in my car, walking down the street with my eight-year-old daughter, wherever…I think most of the time I do more of a grateful prayer. I’m grateful for a beautiful sunny day, I’m grateful to have running water, I’m grateful to have three great kids…a lot of the things that people take for granted. All the time I try to remind myself that I’ve been blessed.

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You’ve been quoted as saying you feel as though your acting career has been limited by Hollywood based on your political and religious beliefs. Would you say that’s accurate? Oh, there’s no question. It’s pretty old news, but Hollywood screams for tolerance yet they have none whatsoever. They stand for freedom of speech—but only if you agree with what they say. It’s sad to me. I don’t have a problem with people’s politics if they’re different from mine. I don’t mind getting into debates and discussions, but I don’t get angry about it—if anything I might get more sad about it (laughs).

Photo by Neal Goggins/Flick

I ask because, as I watched God’s Not Dead, I began drawing several parallels in my mind between what was taking place in the classroom scenes and what you’ve been quoted as saying has been the case in your career. How much did you personally identify with that concept of being limited or held back in your career aspirations, and was that at all a factor in your decision to be involved with this film? Yeah, I came out of the conservative closet, so to speak, years ago. It’s known in Hollywood, for anyone who gives a hoot, that I’m not a far left liberal—I’m just not. So I knew when I started

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being a little bit more vocal that it would hurt my career. I mean, I shot “Hercules” for seven years and “Andromeda” for five years, so I was very busy. [Between] 1993 and 2005 I was always shooting my TV series, but after that I saw a very quick drop off in studios wanting to see me for movies or for TV series. This year I read for one. One! Between all the cable networks, there are probably 70 or 80 new shows that they were casting and I got to go and read for one. I’ve shot about 50 independent movies in six or eight years on the heels of God’s Not Dead, which was a huge success, but it’s a faith-based movie, so Hollywood doesn’t want to deal with that—they don’t like that; they don’t even give me any credit at all being in that movie. It’s a drag, it’s a bummer, it makes me sad, but I’m still making a living doing these independent movies… I’ve seen it cut into my career, there’s no doubt about it. If you interviewed Hollywood people in front of a camera, they would totally deny it…but behind doors they definitely have their darts out. They’re throwing at pictures of people that are opposite of what they believe in…I don’t get it. I don’t understand where the anger comes from. But, it happens.

Outside of your film and TV career, what are the things you’re most proud of? How do those things compare to your onscreen achievements? Well obviously, it’s my family, first and foremost. My kids are the most important things to me. We homeschooled, so I travel a lot; they travel with me. I’ve shot five movies over here this year, (laughs) all of them independent films, nothing to do with Hollywood…so the kids get to travel a lot with me there. Pretty much my only private vice is golf. I love to golf—that’s sort of church in a way to me because I love being out there on God’s green earth. Trust me, I thank Him pretty much every time I’m on the golf course, for being able to enjoy the grass, the trees, the blue sky, all those wonderful things that we have. How do you find the balance between work and family? For you, does being a family man mean making sacrifices career-wise? Yeah, it does. Because there are times when I’ve had to take a job that’s [being] shot way over here, or way over there that they couldn’t travel because of personal things they had going on, whether it was football, basketball, or whatever sports they [happened to be] involved in, school groups, and dance…and I just said, “You know, I’m not going to take the job.” I’ve already done that this year! There were three jobs that I turned down because it didn’t match up with the things we had planned as family. So, my career is very important to me—I love to work, I love to be on the set, I love to be able to provide for my family— but, it’s important to be able to hang with them and be with them whenever I can as well. My wife is quite a pillar. She runs the household; I think most wives do (laughs). We need to juggle it all; you do what you can. I always try to have one-on-one time. There are weekend trips…I’ll take one child with me at one time, and then three months later I’ll take the other ones just so they get to fly with me, hang with me, be at the hotel with me. That for me is a lot of fun, I love doing that. Why did you decide to become involved in the A World Fit For Kids organization? Why was that particular project something you were passionate about? “Hercules” started shooting in 1993, by 1996 we were the most-watched TV show in the world. We passed “Baywatch.” And when that gets out publicly, all of a sudden you get hit up with a lot of different people coming at you—foundations saying, “Hey, he’s famous; he’s popular around the world. Let’s get him to do this, or do that.” I found my manager and I told her, “I want to work with kids. I want to do some kind of after-school program. See what’s going on in L.A.” And what’s funny is that she got a call before

she even got a chance to look into it by a woman that was running, at the time what was called “L.A. Fit For Kids.” She said, “I want to meet with Kevin Sorbo [about] my after-school program because my kids watch his show, they love his show and we are looking for a celebrity.” So I met with [CEO] Normandie Nigh and I loved what they did. We changed the name to “A World Fit For Kids” back in 1997. We’ve grown now about 12,000 students that we work with every year. We’re the number one after-school program in the state of California in one of the worst school districts in all of America. What kinds of change have you seen through the work of the organization? We have a 98 per cent graduation rate, compared to a 54 per cent drop out rate [for L.A. unified], and we have a 57 per cent higher G.P.A. It’s amazing to me that the backlash you get even from the school board there. We’re embarrassing them— we do a better job than what they do with our three hours in the afternoon with each one of these kids. I’ve gone to Washington, D.C. every year since then, met with congress members, shown them all the numbers, shown them the stats, try to get them to budget us to a place that would not only increase the 12,000 [kids] we take in, but I want to put the program into every school district across America. All I get in D.C. on both sides of the political aisle is a pat on the back and [hear them] say “You’re doing a great job.” Here we are seven years later and we’re still in L.A., and our education keeps getting worse and worse and worse. The only deduction I can come up with from that is that there’s a purposeful dumbing down of our kids, with this whole celebration of mediocrity…controlling them through education. We have this whole celebration of just not letting kids get ahead of other kids because it makes other kids feel bad. It’s just like sports—every kid gets a trophy now just for participating (laughs). I tell my kids, “No. Your baseball team was 2-11. You didn’t earn a trophy. You want to earn a trophy? Let’s go throw the baseball every day, let’s hit the ball more, let’s practice grounders.” They understand that now. I’ve done my own brainwashing. I tell them that the way to succeed is to keep trying. Not to just hang out and get a trophy because [they] went to practice—and that’s what we do. When [kids] get in the real world at 22 and they want to get that Mercedes, [they’re told] “No, you’ve got to work hard for it.” Why can’t I just have it?” It’s a real eye-opener for this last generation and the one coming up now. That’s why we’re creating so many lazy people.

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Where does that sense of purpose and hard-working values come from in your life? I grew up in a very competitive household of four boys and one girl in the middle. We were in a dead-end neighbourhood with about 25 kids and we were playing sports all the time. My dad was a hardworking, blue-collar Democrat, he was a teacher to seventh and eighth gradersâ&#x20AC;Śbut the one thing he said was pretty much what conservatives preachedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my dad always preached hard work. You work hard, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect handouts from peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;if you can work, you work. I saw how hard my mom worked raising five kids. And my dad: not only was he teaching at school, but [in] the seven months out of the year that you can golf in Minnesota he was working on the golf courseâ&#x20AC;Ś he just had to make ends meet. By nine years old I had a paper routeâ&#x20AC;ŚI was getting up six days a week at 4:30 in the morning, delivering 80 papers in the rain, snow, 40 below windchill in January and February in Minnesota (laughs), 12 months a year for seven years. And I learned the value of a buck and the value of hard work at a very young age and my dad instilled that into me. As far as sports go, I was playing sports every day. I probably shot hoops every day, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter if it was 20 below outsideâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d chip the ice off the driveway. Baseball, footballâ&#x20AC;ŚI played them all and I loved them all and I was motivated by better athletes than me to make myself better. I remember when Tiger Woods came up, first thing that Phil Mickelson said was, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to make all of us better.â&#x20AC;? Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your lesson about how good competition is. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and then Michael Jordan, and now LeBron Jamesâ&#x20AC;Śthese guys come along and motivate other people when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re eight, nine, 10, 12 years old to bust their butts and become better. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next for you? What can we expect to see from Kevin Sorbo in the months ahead? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve shot five movies already this year; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got one that I just love, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s called The Secret Handshake, by Howie Klausnerâ&#x20AC;Ś one of his biggest hits was Space Cowboys years ago with Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones and James Garner. And this is a very funny family movie; you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even have to have kids to love this film, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great comedy. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hoping to get it out in theatres by October, hopefully.

I sold a show to the Hallmark Channel. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to shoot in August up in Vancouver...itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Get Arrested.â&#x20AC;? For those older people out there like me, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sort of in the vein of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Moonlighting,â&#x20AC;? which was Bruce Willisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; big start with Cybil Shepherd. It was a very funny one-hour comedy/drama back in the 80s. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m staying busy. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been doing a lot of speaking engagements. Since Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Not Dead has come out, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been hit up a lot more speaking at churches and at hospitals, a little bit off Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Not Dead, but mostly [for] my book, True Strength. I think the movie has just touched so many peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives, and I think they just want to hear my account of what it was like to be on it. People like meeting people within the industry that have a life vision that they have. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fun for them to hear because I think the press dominates so much of the news that they just get one side of the story from Hollywoodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the other side very often. People appreciate it, and I get that from people walking up to me all the time.

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A New Story to Tell This is Me TV: Year One in review By Steven Sukkau

“This is Me TV,” a new video series by Promise Keepers Canada in partnership with Bottled Media, is capturing the attention of a new generation through the intimate stories of celebrities, entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, and athletes who are unashamed of their faith. Thousands of online viewers have already discovered the site’s pilot season. Episodes feature musician Manafest, graffiti artist Jeff Goring, progressive rock band Leeland and Keep it Real founder Laura Bronson. Promise Keepers Canada president Kirk Giles has worked almost two decades in ministry and believes that for most men, the idea of Jesus is not enough.

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A new story to tell

The theory of Jesus’ love and power doesn’t penetrate the hearts of young men; it’s only in experiencing Jesus for themselves that men believe, Giles says. It starts with hearing an honest testimony from another person you can relate to. “Story is incredibly powerful,” Giles says, and brings to life the Jesus who keeps His promises. It’s one of the many reasons Promise Keepers is partnering with “This is Me TV” as it interviews artists, musicians and other men who are living a real life for Christ. “In 18 years of ministry, I’ve found the more honest you can be, the more men listen and connect,” Giles says. The honesty and vulnerability of the experiences that men share on “This is Me TV” are a powerful reminder that life is not perfect, Giles says. “God still meets us in tragedy and the great moments. We want to point young men to Jesus.” Not just the nice thought of Jesus, but a Saviour who is real and relevant, Giles explains, Someone who has everything a man needs and desperately desires. “Our focus as a ministry is creating strong, faithful men,” Giles says. This includes engaging those who are using smart phones and tablets. “We need to utilize the medium they are accessing,” Giles says.

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Promise Keepers sees the opportunity to partner with “This is Me TV” as a way of bringing the message of Jesus to the next generation of men, “shaping them into the men God created them to be,” says Giles. “This is Me TV” is content that can easily be shared on social media, queued up on a tablet and shared with a family member around the table, or passed to a father or grandfather to become a conversation piece between generations. “It’s a timeless truth about God’s desire for men,” Giles says, adding the appeal of “This is Me TV” is the honest, personal storytelling. “Human history is based on story,” Giles says; the Bible itself is grounded in a tradition of storytelling. The power of the tradition continues, only re-imagined for a new age, retelling how God’s spirit still shapes lives around the world. “It’s an opportunity to declare the faithfulness of God,” Giles says. “It reminds us at the end of the day our hope is in Jesus.” Promise Keepers joined forces with Dave McSporran, owner of media production company Bottled Media. McSporran had already created episodes for “This is Me TV,” but needed help taking the project further through distribution and funding.

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He says it was something he started because he felt it needed to be created. “Everyone wants to know about their favourite artist, entrepreneur, athlete, author or actor,” McSporran says, especially when it comes to how they are doing in their respective fields and how they’re doing it for Jesus. “It shows people unashamed about their faith,” McSporran says. “You can own a business and keep hold of your faith.” As a visual storyteller, McSporran brings a compassionate yet revealing eye to the project, digging deep into the subjects’ lives to see the good and the bad. “The best is when we see how they fail, that it’s a place you visit and move on,” McSporran says. “You need to be shown how to get out” of those hard times, he says. Hearing a celebrated musician describe their humble beginnings reveals how readily we like to think successful people have always been successful, which McSporran says it just simply not the case. “[Viewers] need to hear how they tried for three years to make it, yet made no headway, or struggled with their faith until someone spoke into their lives,” he says. Too often faith-based media is tempted into the “cheesy

Christian television” genre, focusing on the positive elements and whitewashing the hard times. Not so with “This is Me TV.” “You get to see their hearts,” McSporran says. “It’s not about putting on an act.” “This is me, don’t put me on a pedestal,” is the whole point of the series, he says. “It’s saying, ‘hey I struggle, you don’t need to see how I’m perfect, but rather see how the perfect Jesus changed me.’” “It’s about the journey—everyone has bumps along the way,” McSporran adds. He continues to look for subjects who are relevant to today’s culture and have a love for Jesus. Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile,” is the project’s guiding verse. McSporran has just finished the pilot season, all on a shoestring budget of $500. Within a month of airing the first episode, and with zero marketing or advertising, more than 10,000 viewers have watched the videos after hearing about them through word of mouth. It’s another reason McSporran is excited to be working with Promise Keepers Canada, bringing the project to a bigger scale. “It’s humbling,” McSporran says. “I had a dream, it wasn’t to

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A new story to tell

produce a TV show, just inspire this generation to take the gifts God has given them and use them to their potential.” Whether viewers are in school, working towards a promotion or figuring out life, “This is Me TV” is meant to inspire, and share the message that they don’t have to lose their faith to find success. There are plenty of opportunities to forget our morals in pursuit of success, McSporran says, but the series reveals there is another option that many others are taking, holding out to pursue a better way. “It’s amazing to see the stories of how these people have kept their faith,” McSporran says. “There’s this idea to get ahead you have to do it without God, and you have a lot more opposition.” McSporran wonders if the Church has been too quiet in promoting the idea. “The Church has not said, follow your passion with God,” McSporran says. He envisions how young men would respond if only their church community would give them the permission to follow their passion with permission to try and fail. He longs to hear, “Please fail, it’s okay, we will be there for you.” If there is a theme that has emerged through the first season of “This is Me TV,” it is “It is worth it, to be unashamed, to not compromise, and it is possible,” McSporran says. Chris Greenfield is one of the artists sharing his story in the show’s first season, and says he hopes it inspires others to do the same. Now an internationally renowned musician known as Manafest, Greenfield battled through a tumultuous childhood after his father committed suicide. An injury later destroyed a promising skateboarding career before Greenfield found his voice in the music world. Over the past 14 years, Greenfield has played across the world in nine countries and thousands of shows eventually scoring his first number one hit, “Bring the Ruckus,” with nearly 200,000 records sold worldwide and three Juno Award nominations. He sees his success as a platform to share his faith and how God has seen him through some of life’s darkest moments. He lets his fans know that despite his success he’s just like everyone else, and it’s Christ that takes centre stage. It was a perfect fit for “This is Me TV,” an opportunity that arose when Greenfield met McSporran at a video shoot while touring in Japan. “Sometimes you’re not sure what to share,” Greenfield says. “And different questions pull that out. The more real and honest I think the more people relate.”

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“I think it’s good for people to know we are real people, just like them with the same struggles and dreams,” Greenfield says. “Just because someone is a celebrity we think they don’t have any problems which couldn’t be more false.” For Greenfield, hearing the stories of other high achievers and seeing their struggles inspires him as well, something he hopes his This is Me interview does for others. “I think to myself, if they can overcome then so can I. That’s what I want my story to do for others.”

Steven Sukkau writes as a staff reporter for The Winkler Times in Winkler, Manitoba, where he resides.

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Beyond the Boundaries:

Equipping your teen to fight back against porn

By Sheila Wray Gregoire

When I was a kid, seeing porn meant coming across a stash of dirty magazines in a friend’s dad’s shed. Today it means typing “little bo peep” in the search engine for an elementary school project—with surprising results. It’s all too easy to stumble upon porn. The average age of first exposure to porn is 11, when most children come across it by accident. By age 15 and 16, 80 per cent of teens have sought it out multiple times. The question, then, is not “how can we prevent our kids from seeing porn?”, but instead, “what are we going to do to equip them to stand against the onslaught?” Limit temptation Common sense precautions should be a part of every modern parent’s arsenal: filters on the computer and on devices that protect against pornographic websites, or send an e-mail if such sites are accessed; an “open door” policy for kids where bedroom doors stay open except when they’re changing; and computers kept in a central place. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that this is sufficient. One mom recently wrote to me about her boys. After walking through a full-blown porn addiction with their older son, who is now a youth pastor, she and her husband installed filters and controls on everything in the home. Yet their 15-year-old still found a way around it. “We thought we were safe,” she told me. “And yet he still accessed it and became addicted.” Internet controls can’t do the job for you. While part of good parenting is protecting kids as much as much as we can, smart kids can always find a way around our rules and controls. It’s far more important, then, to give them reasons to steer clear of porn. Give reasons, not just rules Quite simply, we have to start real and open conversations with our kids about sex. We need to share with them both the beauty and passion of sex the way God intended, and the way that porn warps that, while contributing to abuse, sex

trafficking, and exploitation. Too often we portray porn as simply sinful, which, of course, it is. But it’s not only sinful. It’s also very damaging, both to the people participating and to those watching. If kids understood the potential damage that porn can cause to their sexuality, then they would also have another way to fight against it. For boys, that involves teaching about what happens to the sexual arousal process when you watch porn. When you’re aroused, your brain produces pleasure chemicals, like dopamine. When porn viewing is paired with masturbation, as it almost always is, you add another layer to the process, since now the hormones involved with sexual release are also paired with porn. When this occurs with teens who are first starting to have sexual feelings, the connection between sexual arousal and pornography is even easier to cement. If the brain associates arousal with pornography, then it’s very difficult to become aroused with a living, breathing person—especially one’s spouse. Porn use among teens is highly correlated with later instances of erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and even low male libido. Since most kids use porn because they’re interested in sex, giving them the lowdown on how porn impacts their future marriages can help them fight that temptation. These warnings need to be given to our daughters, too. We often think of porn as being a male problem, but 28 per cent of porn users are now female. And while most girls may not be as tempted by what we normally think of as porn, many more are tempted by erotica. Too much visual pornography can cause severe body issues in girls, and can make it harder for them to see sex as something intimate. Erotica poses an additional danger: girls start to live their sexuality through fantasy. Erotica can pair fantasy and sexual response in girls, so that, when they’re married, in order to achieve arousal they have to “dissociate”, or fantasize. That can make a truly intimate marriage that much more difficult to attain.

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Just as cigarette packages come with warnings, so we need to tell our kids the warnings about porn, too. We’re not being spoilsports and we’re not being uptight religious parents when we say porn is bad. We’re concerned about their future, and we want them to have great marriages. Identify triggers For Christine and Hank’s son Nate, after midnight was the prime time that he was tempted to access porn. He was lying in bed by himself, the rest of the house was asleep, and there was no risk of being caught. Hank talked to his son about the spiritual ramifications of porn, and about the effects of porn on his future relationships. But he and his wife also did something practical: they turned off the wi-fi at 11 p.m. every night. And all the phones and devices like iPads went in a central charger in the kitchen, so that people didn’t have devices with data in the bedroom. They identified the triggers, and they reduced them. This works best when kids see you doing it, too. The restrictions aren’t about keeping kids away from porn; they’re about a Christian discipline which you’re teaching so that you all steer clear of things that can derail your spiritual life, your relationships, and your marriage. In this case, if kids grow up thinking, “we’re not on devices at night,” then they can carry this habit into their adult life. They will be more likely to head to bed with their spouse at a decent hour, and spend time connecting rather than surfing the internet or watching Netflix. What are your child’s trigger points? Common ones include boredom, stress, or being home alone. Talk to your teen and ask, “when do you find the temptation hardest to resist?” If stress is the issue, for instance, then let’s brainstorm other things to do when you’re stressed, like pumping weights, or going for a jog, or journaling. Even keep a list up on the fridge or in your bedroom, saying, “If I’m stressed, I can….” with five or six different options. You’re teaching your child to beware of potential triggers, and hopefully that habit will carry them forward into their adulthood. React with grace Early into his battle with porn, Nate walked into Kate and Hank’s bedroom at one in the morning, and shamefully whispered to his dad, “I fell.” His dad climbed out of bed, embraced him, and prayed with him. That week he helped Nate start an accountability group with his youth pastor and five of his friends, where they began discussing the negative effects of porn and praying for one another. That’s a much better approach than Chris’ dad took with him. When Chris, now 28, struggled with porn in his teen years, he asked his father to help. His father lectured him on sin, judgment, and giving in to the devil. Chris never told him about any struggles again, and over his teen years fell more and more deeply into shame. Be the kind of house where grace rules, and

where kids are free to share struggles, and then you can help equip them to handle that temptation later. After all, temptation doesn’t fade as soon as one hits 18. Our job as parents, then, is not only to protect our kids from seeing porn, but also to help them to fight against it when they have even more opportunities to access it. That means being honest about our own temptations, opening up about healthy sexuality, and teaching key spiritual disciplines, including accountability. It isn’t easy. It takes vulnerability as parents. But if we want to raise kids who can fight against our overwhelmingly pornographic culture, we really have no other choice. Sheila is the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and 31 Days to Great Sex. Find them at SheilaWrayGregoire.com, or your local Christian bookstore.

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seven – issue thirty-seven july – august, 2014 page 33

the single life

What grabs our attention? An hour of your time… By Paul H. Boge

Have we become more fascinated with our screens than we are with Christ? Watching the FIFA World Cup. Seeing a hockey playoff game. Catching a movie with friends. Checking out the latest episode of a favourite series. Surfing the web. Following a news story. These are some of the fun things to see on a television, cell phone, computer, theater, tablet or any of the other screen options available. But can screen-time begin to consume us? We are challenged on at least two fronts—what we watch, and how long we watch it. Statistics vary, but 20 to 34 hours a week have been cited as combined online and TV average weekly usage. On the positive side, watching screens can be an enjoyable, educational, or a spiritual activity. On the negative side it can become an all-consuming time-stealer, like the proverbial frog in an increasingly heated pot. What we’re watching becomes more and more questionable, sometimes even resulting in outright sin like pornography. As singles the challenge can be that much more difficult if there is no one to be accountable to. So what to do? C.S. Lewis said “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.” Viewing (or thinking) about pornography, watching too much TV, or addiction to other forms of escapism

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are problems in and of themselves, yet they are also a result of a root problem: focusing on things other than Christ. In John 3:14 Jesus gives us the key to where our focus should be so that He can live His victorious life in us. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This is a parallel between Christ’s death on the cross in the New Testament and the bronze serpent that Moses raised in the wilderness in the Old Testament. If a deadly serpent bit any of the children of Israel, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived (Numbers 21:9). This is our clue that by fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) we will be healed of our desire to look elsewhere, and we will become consumed with the strength, compassion and glory of Jesus. Still, we don’t have a physical bronze serpent or the physical cross to look at, so how do we actually look to Jesus? If our lives are surrendered to Christ, and if we have genuinely come to the end of ourselves, then spending time on our knees praying, being in the Word, and serving God is the best way to focus on Christ. As singles, we need to reflect on how we are spending our time and evaluate that against how singles in the Bible spent their time. The Bible says Jesus Himself would often slip away into the wilderness and pray (Luke 5:16). The Apostle Paul calls us to pray without ceasing. How do we see ourselves? Would we

consider ourselves to be men of prayer? Is it possible that Christ has called us to singleness not to spend countless hours in front of a screen, but rather on our knees with Him? Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in an instant. But even that was not attractive enough to convince Christ to take His eyes off the Father. As we find our identity in Christ alone— not in achievements, or marriage status, or bank accounts, or successes, or lack thereof—then we will experience the joy of “Christ in you” and the things of this world will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a great hockey game, a fun movie or catch up on a good YouTube clip. Far from it. But it does mean we need to challenge ourselves to re-evaluate what is attractive to us. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus challenged Peter, James and John, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” What would our lives look like if we as singles chose to spend an hour a day (or more?) in prayer with our Lord?

Paul H. Boge is the author of Father to the Fatherless: The Charles Mulli Story. He’s an engineer who works in project management. He’s single and lives in Winnipeg. paulb@boge-boge.com

sports scene

Renaud recognized for Christian conduct Blue Bombers’ punter named AIA’s Barwell winner By Scott Taylor

WINNIPEG—Mike Renaud might be one of the busiest people in the province of Manitoba. He has a hectic job with a major agriculture company, he’s helping to plan a wedding—his own—he’s about to head back to training camp with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and he’s just set himself a new goal. “If I can do as much for Athletes In Action as Gord Barwell did, I’ll be thankful,” he says. “I didn’t know much about Gord Barwell before I won the Gord Barwell Award, but after having done some research, I want to be able to do for AIA what Gord did for our association. AIA does so much that it’s amazing to me what he was able to accomplish.” Renaud received the Gord Barwell Award in early May at the AIA Pro Athletes/Chaplains Conference in Cochrane, Alberta. The Barwell Award is presented each year to a CFL player who “exhibits exemplary Christian conduct and leadership both on and off of the field.” It’s named after a legendary receiver, the late Gord Barwell of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who helped establish the Athletes in Action ministry across the entire CFL. To this day, AIA continues to provide a chaplain for each of the CFL teams. Renaud, the Bombers punter, became the fifth Blue Bomber player to win the award, joining Milt Stegall, Barrin Simpson, Arjei Franklin and Darryl Sampson. It’s a prestigious honour and for a young man like Renaud, it helps put “my profession and my faith in sharp focus” he says.

An outstanding punter out of Concordia University in Montreal, Renaud grew up in Ottawa where he says, “I was born into church life.” “I’m a Catholic and my family attended church on a regular basis,” he says. “My family also sent me to Catholic school so my faith has always been a big part of my life.” In recent years, he’s become the target of some good-natured family kidding. His upcoming marriage to Jill Enns is what one might call a “mixed marriage” in Manitoba. “Yeah, I’m Catholic and Jill is Mennonite and her family has been giving me the gears,” he says with a smile. “But it’s all working out. She was just baptized into the Catholic church so I’m really happy and proud for her.” Last November, when he proposed to Jill, he did it on camera by singing Adam Sandler’s novelty song, “I Want to Grow Old With You.” Obviously, she said yes and obviously, by giving, Renaud has also received. “Yeah, I guess you could say that since I arrived in Winnipeg in June of 2009, things have gone quite well,” he says with a smile. “I’m from Ottawa, but you could say I’m a Manitoban now.” He’s also a committed member of AIA. This will be his fourth season as the Bombers player chapel leader. “The Athletes in Action Chapel is great for me,” he says. “Because of it, we all get our devotion for the day and even on the road, the other team will offer a chapel so we can even get our devotion when we’re away from home.” No one is happier for Renaud than Blue

Bombers chaplain, Lorne Korol. “Mike has been a key member of our Bombers AIA ministry since his arrival in 2009,” says Korol. “He has been an exceptional leader for our ministry and has helped me tremendously. He is an extremely dedicated and reliable chapel leader whose faith has grown by leaps and bounds since joining our ministry and he is always willing to learn more.” Renaud is quite modest when he talks about what he wants to give back to AIA. Korol will tell you Renaud has probably given his share already. “Mike has a strong heart for outreach in the community,” Korol says. “He has become an excellent speaker with a clear message of God working in his life. He is a strong encourager for his teammates and is always promoting our weekly Bible studies and pre-game chapels to interested players. “Mike is committed to growing spiritually as a strong man of God and future husband. It is an absolute blessing to have Mike serve such an integral role in our Bombers AIA ministry. He is an amazing chapel leader and a very good friend.” Gord Barwell would be proud.

Scott Taylor is a Winnipeg-based sportswriter and broadcaster.

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p ow er pl a y

Great games. Great toys. Great gadgets. Reviews by Sandy McMurray

WHISKER WAR

TWO WHEEL DRIVE

cylo.cc What features would you put into the ultimate urban bicycle? Start with a strong, sturdy frame, but don’t make it too heavy to carry. Design for safety and speed, but don’t sacrifice comfort or looks. Add generous fenders and a chain guard, to protect your clothes from water and grease. Then add a headlight and brake lights, to help you see and be seen. The makers of CYLO, a new company based in Portland, believe they have all this covered and more. Their smart, simple design somehow manages to look modern and classic at the same time, with lights that are built into the frame. As you pedal, the carbon belt drive turns a dynamo that powers the lights. When you put on the brakes, an accelerometer increases the brightness of the brake lights as you slow down. CYLO is available in black, white, and poppy red. There are several different models, starting at $1,850. At that price, you might want to invest in a good lock, too.

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gillette.com Pull up a chair youngsters, and I’ll tell you a tale. Once upon a time, men shaved their faces using a single blade attached to a handle. Really! This went on for hundreds of years, until the invention of the safety razor. Instead of sharpening one blade, men bought new blades for their razors, and lo, some companies made a lot of money. After decades of this, some clever executive realized that two blades might be better than one. And that was the beginning of The Great Whisker War. Why stop at two blades? Get three blades! Four blades! Pivoting handles! Vibrating blades! Laser guided blades! Each new innovation promised a closer, smoother shave. FlexBall Technology is the latest salvo in the Whisker War. Near as I can figure, Gillette has borrowed a feature from Dyson vacuum cleaners. Finally, there’s a razor that can follow the curve of your cheek with minimal effort. No facial hair can escape from the FlexBall.

LATTISSIMA PRO

delonghi.com Espresso is not coffee. Not exactly. It’s thicker and stronger than drip coffee, with a creamy foam on top (crema) and a bigger dose of caffeine. Espresso is coffee-zilla. Likewise, the Lattissima Pro from DeLonghi is not a single cup coffee maker. Not exactly. It uses Nespresso capsules to make espresso and other café drinks including latte and cappuccino. The Lattissima Pro goes from zero to

perky in seconds. Pop in a Nespresso capsule and select the drink you want. Press another button to add hot milk to your brew. Each Nespresso capsule costs about 70 cents. That’s a bit more than K-Cups and T-Discs but this is a different experience. You’re not just making coffee. You’re making coffee-zilla.

PARAJET SKYRUNNER

flyskyrunner.com Part all-terrain vehicle, part light-sport aircraft, the Parajet SkyRunner just might be the ultimate toy. It’s fast—it can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and reach a top speed of 115 mph—and it can fly. You heard me right. Just deploy the paraglider wing while driving and the Parajet will sail into the sky. The original SkyRunner prototype, built in 2009, was a flying car built from a heavily modified off-road buggy. The second SkyRunner, built in 2012, was lighter and more manoeuvrable. The latest model, the Parajet SkyRunner, looks like a cross between a dune buggy and an Everglades fan boat. It’s Batman’s Tumbler with a big fan mounted behind the driver’s seat. Unfortunately, you need Batman’s bank account to get one. “The next step in radical lightweight aviation” sells for about $120,000.

NO SAND BEACH MAT

hammacher.com “Developed for military use,” begins the product description, “this is the beach mat that is impossible to cover with sand.” This sounds too good to be true. Designed to contain sand and dust when helicopters land and take off, the No Sand Beach Mat ($99) is made from two layers of “patented woven polyurethane” that act like a one-way filter to prevent sand from coming up through the bottom of the mat. It also eliminates dirt, dust, and water from its surface, ensuring a clean surface for camping or watching a concert. Metal D-rings on each corner accommodate ground stakes (not included). Sandwiches without the sand? What a great idea!

PIT BARREL COOKER

pitbarrelcooker.com The Pit Barrel Cooker combines the best qualities of smokers, slow cookers and barbeques in one big metal drum. Designed to pair perfectly with Kingsford Briquets, the Pit Barrel Cooker can reach temperatures between 275-300 degrees and will cook effectively for seven to eight hours without adding more fuel. You just season and hang your meat, then wait while it cooks. You can add wood chips to flavour the smoke, or season your meat with Pit Barrel Cooker dry rubs (sold separately).

There’s no need to clean up after cooking. In fact, the company says it’s very important NOT to wash or rinse the inside of your Pit Barrel Cooker. The more you cook the better it gets.

BBQ BATH BRINE

sweetwaterspice.com/collections/ bbq-bath-brine-concentrates How should you prepare your meat while the briquets are warming up? Try brining instead of marinating! Brining is faster and more effective because it tenderizes both the inside and the outside of the meat. Brines also protect meat from drying out while cooking. Sweetwater Spice of Austin, Texas, makes several ready-to-use brine concentrates including BBQ Bath, Fajita Bath, and Turkey Bath. Try one today in your new Pit Barrel Cooker.

FIRST PERSON SHOOTER

basecampx.com/shop/sling-shot Sling shots. They’re not just for zAngry Birds any more. Firing a sling shot is a bit like archery. It requires more strength and skill than you might imagine, and you have to be very careful. A good sling shot can hurl a pebble so far it becomes too small to see before it lands. Before you fire, make sure you’re nowhere near people, animals, windows, cars, and mobile phone screens. Do not fire directly up in the air. Do not aim the sling shot at your brother or best friend as a joke. You can make your own sling shot with a strong Y-shaped piece of wood, some rubber tubing, and a patch of leather. Once you’ve done that a couple of times, you’ll appreciate the craftsmanship of professionals like BCX, the Canadian company known for their axes. The limited edition BCX sling shot sells for $185.

Sandy McMurray writes about games, toys, and gadgets at funspot.ca

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out of my depth

Attention is Currency How much are you wiling to spend? By Phil Wagler

My four-year-old called me to attention. I was with him—I think waiting for him to finish going to the bathroom—when he pointedly declared, “Dad, you’re always on your phone.” You see, I had taken that space in time while he did his job to peer into my device. Again. His statement was an intervention. His words cut deep. Beyond what he was observing about my mobile-attachments he was really saying this: “Dad, do you realize you’re with me, your own flesh and blood, and I am actually in the room? Do you realize that I love what little time I have with you, even if I am taking a pee, and I think you’re awesome? Seriously, pay attention, Dad, is that other person really more important than me right now?” He had me. And, I knew I had become at least a borderline addict because of the excuses that lined up in my brain. I wanted to blurt them out, but they were lame and he was right. He trotted off to play, a test to see if I would follow I think, as I wrestled with my anti-social behaviour. I’ve had two tickets for operating a mobile device while driving. Dumb. I argue they were both completely innocent and a clear proof of Murphy’s Law, but that didn’t fly with the cop either. Two chunks of substantial coin and enduring the dreaded spousal stare have mostly weaned me off the phone in the vehicle. So, now I enjoy honking at others when they’re in cyberspace as they drift into my lane. Oh, the joys of those set mostly free!

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Does this sound at all familiar? Have you been where I was—and still sometimes am? Everywhere you go these days people are gazing at a very small world. Sure, it’s a portal to endless information and people we need and “need” to keep in touch with, but is this really what we’ve been made for? And, isn’t this world in an app lacking something? So, I have now been called out twice in regards to my use of devices: by the RCMP and my little boy. The law hit my pocketbook, but my son’s words hit harder. I’m not alone among drivers who slip up from time to time—even out of necessity—but I am alone as the father of this child. Then, as I pondered all this I’m driving along in my truck—honestly not using my phone—listening to a debate about how texting, phoning and social media have robbed us of the ability to actually relate to the people in our immediate presence. “Attention is currency” coined one of the radio-heads and it suddenly struck me, “He’s right!” The attention we give to another is the medium of exchange for healthy relationships and the reality is that I am very often giving attention to the inanimate, to short bursts of attention-less communication punctuated with LOLs, BTWs and #s, and to more information than I can even process while exchanging real life with those in my closest sphere of influence often seems bothersome.

I am beginning to wonder if our love of the device and social media is really about escape. Or, is it simply a way of exchange without attention. And then, as a disciple of Jesus, I must think about this theologically. I am struck by the way the Scriptures speak of God’s exchange with us. Psalm 139 tells us that the Lord searches us, knows us, that we cannot escape His presence, and that He even paid attention to us in the womb. The same Psalm has the believer, like my little guy did with me, inviting God’s attention: “Search me, God, and know my heart…” (Psalm 139:23). Something tells me He has no need to make excuses. I wonder what might happen to our anti-social, device-addicted, distracted lives if we really saw “attention as currency” this way? And, I wonder what an audit of our attention would reveal? I know a four-year-old well equipped for the task.

Phil Wagler is a pastor in Surrey, BC, a child of God because the Father paid attention to him, and is loving the discipline of paying more close attention to his non-screen world.

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seven â&#x20AC;&#x201C; issue thirty-seven july â&#x20AC;&#x201C; august, 2014 page 40

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