Thursday 4 September 2008

Twit 027 – August

(July) 23rd - 25th – Moved from Grand Rapids to Vegas (realized that the drive from Denver to Vegas should be on everyone’s list of things to do before they die).

(July) 26th – Moved into the Vegas house with El Clinto and family, Sammy K and Stephen.

(July) 29th – Started work on completing the new XXXchurch Youtube accounts. Check em: www.youtube.com/triplexchurch
and www.youtube.com/triplexchurchpress

2nd – Went to see The Blue Man Group at The Venetian.

3rd – Drove an hour out of Vegas to shoot some film in the desert for XXXchurch.tv. (Exceptionally beautiful scenery…)

3rd/10th/17th/24th – 4 different dates. 4 different churches. No comment.

4th – New duties include answering info@xxxchurch.com. More people with porn problems, new people with obscure XXXchurch related issues.

14th – Met Tara from Skate Church at In n’ Out Burger to give her some merch. Love In n’ Out Burger!

15th – Started new project to invite XXXchurch friends to Social Vibe. If you’d like to accept that invite, click here: www.socialvibe.com/?r=243464


27th – Woke up in Denver and spent the whole day telling the Democratic National Convention that “Porn is Bipartisan”.

29th – 31st – Sold merch at Life Light. Got on stage for Switchfoot, Family Force 5 and MxPx.

(Sept) 2nd – Spent the whole day in Minneapolis telling the Republican National Convention that “Porn is Bipartisan”. One critic-turned-supporter was kind enough to get us into the convention itself. I watched Laura Bush give her speech. Bizarre.

Sunday 27 July 2008

Profound Thoughts 006 – Confessions

Elaborating on my work with XXXChurch would not be complete without reflecting on one of my main responsibilities. The Confessions blog is there for anyone to submit their story. My responsibility is to read and publish their story on the web site. Some are spam and so all of them need to be read and approved…

These people are opening their lives up and many times for the first time ever. They write about discovering porn at a young age and being unwillingly attracted, they write about living in fear of getting caught, they write about being a forty-something mother watching porn at home and feeling like the only one, they write about being introduced to “sexual things” years before they even know what sex is.

I’m thankful that I get to read these stories. They remind me that people really are out there struggling to overcome pornography’s grip. I am most thankful to read the comments that people leave and they are giving advice and encouraging and then, the best part, the first person comes back… and leaves thank yous and updates about their progress. None of us can even be sure who’s using a real name but the connection is so powerful that people can start to become whole again!

Friday 25 July 2008

Twit 026 – Basketball

Jon, Whom you may remember from HeartSupport, had a Birthday Basketball Tournament. We played half court three-on-three outside at his parents house. It was a beautiful day and his folks were the best hosts laying out so much food that it was tough to decide what to eat that wouldn’t come back in later games…

I was pretty stoked because I won one of the two championships up for grabs: The Toilet Bowl. It might have been the loser’s championship but it does mean we won at least a game.

Thursday 24 July 2008

Twit 025 – Impactu-ous



When one makes an impact it is an impactu-ous occasion. When one is nominated and wins and Myspace Impact Award, one is then elevated to the title of impactu-full.

Allow me to introduce The Love Alliance, winners of this months Myspace Impact Awards for Social Justice. It is a privilege to know David and Lauren of The Love Alliance and to have been able to aid them in spreading the word about their nomination to secure the win. Their baby organization will now receive ten thousand dollars to keep doing what they’re doing. It’s exciting to think where they will be in five or ten years…

Thanks to everyone who voted.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Twit 024 – Podcast

Earlier this week we recorded the last of the podcasts for Dirty Little Secrets. For me the whole process was new and exciting. I guess that’s what you call a first and last time experience.

As it turns out I misread the email briefing and, rather than spending time finding something specific to bash Brandon about, I came ready to join in with whatever everyone else was saying about him. I did that fairly well. I should have just said “Prayer wall moderator” a few times and it would have been fine.

If anybody is dreaming about the glamor of being on a podcast you should know that all you need Garage Band, a mic, and a thing with twiddly buttons and wires sticking out of it. As we discovered, you don’t even need chairs to sit on! Now that's not glamor, that’s punk rock.

Profound Thoughts 005 – Living Biblically

This is very profound, even if it isn’t me. There are insights in this that are reminiscent of Nooma. It’s worth watching the whole thing if you get a chance.

Saturday 19 July 2008

Twit 023 – Behind the Scenes

Ok, Some of you might be interested in some of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on at XXXChurch. You know, when we aren’t making ridiculous films about going to the Mac Store, what do we do to keep this thing ticking over?

Well, one answer is that last week I labeled, sorted and posted 5,000 postcards to church youth groups in the west. We hit every church with over 500 members in the states of California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. This took me about 3 days of my time.

The funny thing was that the company that made the list for us didn’t remove the churches of the Mormons or the Scientologists! Needless to say very few churches in Utah made the final cut…

On that note here's a video entitled, "Cartoon banned by the Mormon church". I have no idea if this is what they really believe but it sure makes a great cartoon from the 80's!

Friday 18 July 2008

Twit 022 – Apple

It’s an interesting phenomenon that Apple is running many aspects of my life. Apart from the plethora of Apple hardware dotted around the flat I have made several trips to the Apple Store. Not once have I been on my own account! First Brandon got his entire keyboard replaced… that was boring.

Then Sammy K’s computer died and in a moment of frustration did what he knew to be right and bought a new MacBook Pro… for almost $3000. There were torrents of sweat beading up on his brow! We even made up a word to describe his excitement... but you’re going to have to request that privately!

Then there was the new iPhone… and I’m running to keep up with Brandon as we race to get in line to get one.

This is becoming ridiculous.

Monday 14 July 2008

Twit 021 – Pornmobile Controversy: The Video…

It is here!

Just as promised, unedited and in it's entirety, the video footage of our encounter with Michael in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Needless to say we had a difference of opinion.

If you have no idea what I’m are talking about click here for the original post including heated debate on the comments section.

By the way, if you would like to thank Michael personally for his input his email address is michaelmarkley@yahoo.com. Please keep your encouragements pleasant and to the point.

(Look out for the cheeky grin from the lady trying to get to her car)

Sunday 13 July 2008

Twit 020 – Cornerstone

Rob Shevlot
(Rob Shevlot)

The last festival of our stint of five was Cornerstone. This was a big one because everyone had built this one up as better than all the rest. Hippy Christians ran this festival and they were generally more hands off and more creative and grass roots as opposed to formulaic and established.

It delivered in both those ways. Bands that blew my mind were Bradley Hathaway and mewithoutyou. They both played on the same stage at the same time on consecutive nights and both times I was backstage. mewithoutyou included a stage invasion and we all danced on stage together. It was great.

Also we stayed with a family called the Shevlots who are friends of XXXChurch. They were the most genuine people you could hope to meet.

Saturday 12 July 2008

Twit 019 – Mackinac

Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island is off the coast of Michigan in Lake Heron. Brandon and I went there because the Lutheran church of Michigan was having their senior high retreat there and they wanted us to go and talk to them about looking at porn.

Mackinac is an odd place. You can only get there by ferry and you also cannot take your car with you. So we walked… and rode in a hoarse-drawn taxi.

It also had the quaintest little shops that sold fudge and the most quaint and picturesque hotels and the most quaintly decorated rooms in those picturesque hotels… I felt like I had just walked into The Truman Show.

The Lutherans didn’t help much. We had our tamest T-shirt pulled from our merch table and two angry mothers trying to tell us how we should run our question and answer session. One of them swore at me about it.

Great. Still, we had some awesome conversations with some pretty switched on kids… so it wasn’t the end of the world.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Profound Thoughts 004 - Fighting

This... is... GOLD!

Twit 019 - English Lesson

This is a video from when I first started but I just thought I would put it on the ol' blog:

Monday 7 July 2008

Twit 018 – Creation Controversy (Creation Festival)

On the second to last day of Creation Fest we met Ryan. I missed most of what happened because I was talking to someone about XXXChurch. That was broken up when David asked me for help gathering our “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” T-shirts and everything else that said ‘Porn’ on it.

Ryan was helping to run the merch tent and on day three discovered what we were selling and… freaked out! He went so far as to confiscate the merch and tell Rosh (who I talked about in Twit 016) to take off the JLPS t-shirt he was wearing.

In the end it turned out Ryan was just a volunteer who went over the top. We still were not aloud to sell the JLPS t-shirts but we could sell the JLPS bibles and Ryan came by to ‘apologize’.

Stephen tried talking to him at the end just casually to clear it up but he obviously was not having it. Apparently his eleven year old is not going to be warned about any of the dangers of porn.

Sad…

And scary…

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Twit 017 – Bradley and friends (Creation Festival)

During this festival I had the pleasure of meeting one of David and Lauren’s friends, Bradley Hathaway. Bradley is a poet/singer/songwriter. That is a lot of /’s but he is a talented man so he can handle them. He hung out behind our booth the whole festival and even though I had to postpone meeting him due to the crash that I talked about in Twit 016, I don’t think he was offended.

We also met the members of the band that was there too: Matt and Ric. They were both super ace guys as well and lots of fun to hang out with.

They did a show on a small stage that started at 12:40am. It was the best part of the festival as far as I'm concerned. Not much sleep happened at this festival, but I got over the crankiness…

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Twit 016 – Camping (Creation Festival)

We set up for Creation the first morning of the festival. It was different because at all the others we got to set up the night beforehand. We stayed at this guy Rosh’s house the night before and he lives two hours away so it was an early one and a long day.

Rosh is one of the other vendors on the festival circuit who works with a Pro-Life organization called “Rock for Life”. They were great guys.

The evening of the first day I hit a ‘brick wall’ and crashed out emotionally! I was freakin’ out in my head because it seemed like everyone else were being jerks. The truth was my body needed sleep and I was getting paranoid. I decided to go to bed before I ended any friendships in one easy insult!

Twit 015 – Podcast

We did another podcast with David and Lauren. This was the second ever podcast for The Love Alliance. It was pretty disjointed and Lauren was raggin’ on David for having a robo-tronic voice every time he spoke into the mic. Chris talked about Invisible Children and his involvement with the Deep-south tour and visiting Uganda. If you still do not know what I am talking about from Twit 014 then click the link. I insist.

Also, while we are at it, did talk about The Love Alliance yet…?

Monday 30 June 2008

Twit 014 – Skiing

The day after Alive Festival we went skiing with David and Lauren’s friend Chris who let us stay with him for that week. Chris is a super nice guy and had just got back from tour managing the Deep-south leg for an organization called Invisible Children. If you have not already heard of Invisible Children then stop reading… and click the link. It is one of the most incredible grass roots movements of love in action I have ever come across.

So, anyway, Chris lives next to a lake and his parents have a boat. So we went water skiing. It was my first time. I stood up first time, easy as that. Chris was impressed with Stephen and I for that. So fun!

Sunday 29 June 2008

Profound Thoughts 003 – Storm (Alive Festival)

On the final day of Alive there was a storm. This was fun because we heard lots of things about tornadoes touching down in the area etc. I say fun because it is always fun to tease fate and tread the edge of good conditions for growing humans. The best part of the storm was that we, being inside the tent, suddenly got hit by wind that shook the sides and made the roof swell and shake like the end of the world. Then I stepped outside…

It felt like a gentle breeze…

Funny how things look totally different when you step outside of them.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Twit 013 – Strange (Alive Festival)

Alive was a smaller festival than Ichthus. Strange things happened here though... People are so funny here. Lauren decided that she was going to hand out flyers and really promote the message of The Love Alliance… the problem was that every other person would decline the FREE flyer!

I had a similar thing. When asking a woman (who was looking through our T-Shirt bin) if she wanted to know what XXXChurch was: she said, "No" and walked off!

I threw a kazoo at her back… but she didn’t notice.

Twit 012 – Pornmobile Controversy

After setting up for Alive Festival we went to Wal-Mart to pick up some food that we could have for the festival. We got our food and then went to leave. As we were putting our shopping in the car a guy comes up and says,

“‘#1 Christian Porn Site’! What does that mean?”

“Well, We’re an online ministry that helps people with pornography addiction.”

Then it all kicked off! I’m not sure if he heard me but he was not impressed. Words were banded about like “abomination” and “of the devil”.

After some ‘discussion’ we said we had to go and I went to shake his hand but he refused saying, “I DON’T shake hands with sinners!”

WOW!

We videoed the whole thing, watch this space…!

Sunday 15 June 2008

Twit 011 – Ichthus Festival Day 4

Today was a fun day at the festival. I figured out that I could get food back stage to take away and so I was able to get David and Lauren lunch and dinner to supplement their beef jerky diet.

The most fun was shooting some interviews for HeartSupport. We interviewed Dr. J first who is a Nutty-Professor-Creationist and a very nice and smart man who seems good at what he does: engaging with Atheists.

Next we interviewed David from The Showdown about his experiences with the openness he has with the band.

The last interview we did was, however, ridiculous. We talked to Xanadu, the Dance Guru/Choreographer of Family Force 5. We started out sitting outside the backstage porta-potty. We then moved the interview into the porta-potty because David Crowder had just gone onstage and it was really loud. After invading some guys’ privacy we decided it would be funny to get on stage behind David Crowder and do the interview there! We finished up in front of the Family Force 5 drum machine! Totally bonkers!

We wrapped it up around 2am and finally slept in the next morning…

Twit 010 – Ichthus Festival Day 3

Today things went pretty well with sales etc. I forgot to mention that Steve and me had backstage passes and we really loved getting free food that tasted awesome!

The real highlight was around 5pm when the storm knocked down one of the tent poles signaling screams and panic. Steve and I went to the car to wait it out leaving our things in the tent thinking we would be returning soon: may I take this opportunity to say that if you are ever in an emergency situation always take your belongings. We never went back that day and they closed off the “compound”.

We had some fun trying to record the first Love Alliance podcast. It didn’t work because the laptop died before we saved it. Good times though… getting a little wet and all.

Twit 009 – Ichthus Festival Day 2

Today was the first day of the main festival. We sold some merch, talked to some people. It was fun.

I got to know David and Lauren much better. David and Lauren are a couple who are sharing their booth space with us. They are both really cool with such a sense of what’s important and just pursuing that. (Also one of the first married couples I know who are capable of hanging out with single people! If you are reading this and you are married, no offence, but you suck at this.) Anyway, after experiencing some very frustrating times working for a popular non-profit they quit and out of that frustration was birthed The Love Alliance. The Love Alliance is their non-profit that aims to get people connected to various social action projects. It is awesome and worth supporting.

Twit 008 – Ichthus Festival Day 1

It’s Wednesday 11th and we rocked up to Ichthus at around ten in the morning after driving through the night from Chicago and arriving at around 8am! Turns out that the main merch tent that we were staying in was knocked over by the wind so we had to come back and check in at 4pm. We went and passed out at the house we were staying at.

After setting up the XXXChurch booth a girl from Gotee Records who was running something backstage with the Gotee show came by and asked if we wanted to MC for the night. Steve did not but I thought it would be a fun challenge. I even got to talk for about ten minutes about XXXChurch and throw out some free XXXChurch stuff.

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Twit 007 – Wrigley

On Tuesday, I returned to the city of my birth. Chicago has claim to it even though I have rarely been into the city. It bullied Naperville and stole the title because it is bigger I guess. The mission here was twofold: get tickets to see the Atlanta Braves play the Chicago Cubs at the historic Wrigley Field and, second, meet up with my childhood friend John Rhodes. Both were accomplished and I will not be the same because of that fact. The game will always be a special memory and John is a guy I hope I never loose contact with.

Profound Thoughts 002 – Church

I went to church twice on Sunday. Let me tell you about both times.

First, I played soccer with some new friends from Grand Rapids. It was intense and we sweated and I could not breath, but it was great. This is a very postmodern hip thing to call church, trust me. It is how we think outside the box and do not become trapped by church as a meeting with songs and prayer and teaching.

After Soccer-church I went to a meeting with songs and prayer and teaching. It was my first physical visit to Mars Hill Bible Church
. It made me think… a lot. Brilliant!

But hang on. I just described two events and called them both church. They are different events so are they two different churches? That does not work; there is only one church! Maybe on Sunday I actually did only go to church once… for twenty-four hours!

Aaaaahhhhh… now we’re getting suitably hip!

Profound Statement 001 - Trust

Ok, I’m going to admit that “profound” is a word that I band around a little and so this is likely to be a more tongue-in-cheek use of the word.

I’m currently riding shotgun in the car. It is affectionately titled “The Pornmobile”. There is a driver and his name is Steven “The Intern” Rose. (It would be pretty dumb if I was sat parked in the driveway on my own! Because of course I would be sitting in the more macho position of Driver Seat!) Steven is one of those guys that says things how they are. He has a wonderfully humble awareness of this ability too. This allows him to make some intensely funny one liners leaving you in stitches in his wake as he plows through with the satisfaction that his work here is done. But maybe I’m exercising artistic license; the only way to know is if you have the pleasure of meeting him.

At this point it is 3:30am. This is important because at this moment my mind is moving. I’m thinking, “Should I go to sleep and trust that Steve will not fall asleep?” Now, this is interesting for two reasons. First, Steve is not likely to allow that to happen, he is way too trustworthy. Second, when presented with this idea of mortality relating to cars I always convinced myself that I was in God’s hands and whatever happened in the car I was in was his will. If I crashed then God would look after me and lead me into circumstances he thought were best.

That second one bugs me. Why don’t I still think that? Is that a reasonable thing to think? How is it that I put my trust in Steve’s judgement but also entirely on God’s will? And most confusingly, what part of being in a car should make me more nervous about the fragility of my life?

I have got answers. Answers I like and think make sense. I think I’ll leave it here though…

Sunday 8 June 2008

Twit 006 – The Importance of Being Scene

Due to excitement about the lake I skipped an important part of my week… I GOT MY HAIR CUT! At the BBQ mentioned previously in Twit 004 I bumped into “Danger Doom” Krissee Danger. Since she can cut hair and I had long hair it was inevitable. The best thing was that Krissee is the first hair dresser who’s been ready to square up and take up the gauntlet of my challenge to do whatever she wants with my hair!

So then a certain word got banded around a bit and it was set. I was going to get a little colour… just a little “Scene Stripe” stuck into my emo fringe. I have to say, it’s a beautiful sight to behold!

Twit 005 - The Lake

Saturday Steven Rose and his mom invited me to go to Lake Michigan. I almost said I was busy but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity! It was beautiful! Then we went out to the Outback Steakhouse and had the CRAZIEST waitress EVER! She was, as Steve put it, “a little bit chipper about her job". When she pretended to punch the top of our steak with her fingers I nearly died!

Twit 004 - Jon

I'm in G-Rap. Met everyone round at a BBQ (George Foreman out back, it's not as bad as you think) at the Gross' house. I met the confident Mr. Jon Bell who is a great guy working for the ministry on the Heart Support front. The morning after he came over to run through a talk he wrote for CIY Conference which apparently was much improved. I don’t know what it was like before but I loved it. Going to play stand in on the soccer game with him while the rest of the X3Team are in the west. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Twit 003 – New York

I’ve been to New York. I’d say I can cross that one off. In an afternoon I accidentally saw the Statue of Liberty while trying to find a Telectroscope, got lost and ended up on Wall Street and intentionally stood in Times Square for about 5 Minutes before I had to shoot back t the airport for my connecting flight. It’s a big fun place with lots of nuts-o people. Love it.

Twit 002 – Transatlantic

I did a bit of a casual one across the Atlantic. After camping out at Heathrow and getting no sleep I slept through the take and nearly missed airline breakfast. Before I left I hopped online and jotted down my itinerary. :-S Guess I got here ok so that’s cool.

Twit 001 – London

When I was in London before I left to go to the states I got a chance to be one of the last people to legally drink alcohol on the tube! Not the most upstanding claims to fame but it was an experience. We headed down to Euston Station and when the train pulled in the doors opened and sweaty drunk people spilled out as we got in. The train never left the station because of the behavior of some of the other patrons and large numbers of the fuzz came and politely told everyone to leave. One police woman particularly wanted my friend Guy to know that if he didn’t stop filming she’d confiscate the camera! Mental!

Introducing...

Direct involvement with xxxchurch is something I’ve dreamt about. Now the dream becomes reality and I’m sitting in the intern house ready to put everything I have into something I truly believe in. Porn is a phenomenon that typifies the boredom, quick fix, live-for-the-moment western world and the way we have become so detached.

To keep you updated I will post short updates which I call ‘Twits’.

To express myself artistically and thoughtfully longer I will post entries called ‘Profound Statements’.

It’s all a bit tongue in cheek. Hope you like it; don’t get too jealous (I’m way too blessed to ever figure out why).