Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch by Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy was the guy behind The 40 Days of Purpose campaigns for Rick Warren's church in Saddleback. He left that job to start a church in New York city. Following his successes at planting numerous churches, including the one in New York, he decided to write this book: Launch.

Searcy has written other books that I want to get my hands on; including one on moving first-time guests to servers in the church. This seems to be a crisis for many Christian churches in America. The lazy-do-everything-for-me attitude has finally taken control.

Launch is more a how-to book for church planters. You will find correct ideas on how to properly set up and build a brand new church.

Seeing as my church is moving through the process of changing its name, I found some good ideas within.

Finding Neverland

Finding Neverland is a movie about imagination and how the story of Peter Pan came about.

It stars Johnny Depp as the author Sir James Barrie and Kate Winslet as Sylvia Davies.

Barrie has not been writing successful plays for a while when he meets Ms Davies and her boys. The impact of their meeting is what we see unfold as this film progresses.

I don't want to tell you too much of this movie. If I told you it was sad, you would already know why.

So let me not spoil it and tell you that you'll probably enjoy Finding Neverland and Depp gives another excellent performance. But will we really see him outside of Jack Sparrow?

4 out of 5 stars!

Nim's Island

Nim's Island is the story of a father and her daughter living on a secluded island while he conducts scientific experiments. They would prefer that no one finds out where they live to keep their home safe.

During one experiment, Nim's father (Gerard Butler) sails out to sea and gets caught in a horrible storm.

Now Nim (Abigail Breslin) is alone on the island with only her pet sea lion and bearded dragon to keep her company.

There's also the adventure stories of a person named Alex Rider that Nim enjoys. The author of the books (Jodie Foster) and Nim begin writing e-mails.

Alex Rider is afraid to leave her apartment but she wants to go help Nim.


This film is a good family film. There isn't a single moment of questionable content. Plus, it's enjoyable. (not too cheesy)

The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams

Based on the new video game, Star Wars The Force Unleashed offers some background leading up to Episode IV.

Darth Vader has a new apprentice dishing out the orders of death to remaining jedi.

Once the apprentice, Starkiller, has performed enough tasks, Vader instructs him to infiltrate a group of unhappy politicians to create a rebellion.

Whoops, I just gave away the twist. You get to meet Leia and Bail Organa and help set up the Rebel Alliance.

But not all things are so quick and easy whenever Darth Vader and the Emperor are involved.

The book was decent, I read it fairly quickly. (mainly because I had heard there was a phenomenal twist involved - this twist failed to get me)

I think I'd rather play the game.

The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield

Because of the political mess going on with the election, we've heard a lot about Senator Barack Obama. There have been e-mail rumors about his religion and other smear tactics used against him. Then we were introduced to the pastor who led him in his faith journey. People have already created an image of the man through the media. I wanted to read about his faith story.

The Faith of Barack Obama reveals all the answers. Is Obama a Christian? Does he secretly hate America? What is the faith of Barack Obama?

Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of George W. Bush, tells a compelling story of the journey Senator Obama has been on. He explains his childhood and of his travels and experiences abroad.

The bottom line: (so you don't have to read the book unless you want to) Senator Barack Obama is a Christian who believes there are many ways to God. He is the epitome of the postmodern generation. He is not bound by ancient Christian tradition, he has pulled from many sources to influence his faith. He is the emerging leader of what's come to be known as the Christian Left.

The Faith of Barack Obama is an easy read for anyone who wants a quick look into the story behind the media man.

The War Within by Bob Woodward

I must have been in the right state of mind because I loved this book! This is Bob Woodward's 4th book on the presidency of George W. Bush and like the first 3, The War Within takes you behind the scenes of the White House and the political/military players between 2006 and 2008 when the war in Iraq seemed to get worse every day.

Woodward explores the secrecy of a White House not wanted to show the American public it's problems. The war was a mess and no one had a plan. Woodward doesn't come across as someone who is politically motivated to smear the President. In the epilogue he does promote his other books which I found tiresome, but he waits until the very end to express his own opinions on the story.

Whether you support President Bush or not, this book takes you where the decisions, arguments, and discussions took place without the public knowing. It gives just a taste of how this administration worked...or failed to work.

One of the reasons why I really enjoyed this book was because of the place I am in. I was connecting with the ideas behind it. I was looking at it from a leadership standpoint. What do you do when a plan is not working, in fact it's doing the opposite?

This book will not be for everyone. I know there are many people who could care less about government and politics and that's fine. But since this is my blog and I read this book, I decided to post it and let you know that it was a good read.

It has a few pictures so some of you may enjoy that part of it!

5 out of 5 stars!

Tropic Thunder

Too much bad language. Too much.

I don't understand why Ben Stiller thought this would be funny. There was some promise to this film. It could have been really funny. With a cast like Tropic Thunder had, you would think this film would be unstoppable.

You have Ben Stiller as the action hero Tugg Speedman, Jack Black as the drug addict Jeff Portnoy, and Robert Downey Jr as Australian actor Kirk Lazarus who changed the color of his skin for the role.

These guys are trying to make a big budget war movie. But things aren't going so well. They're behind scheduled and tempers are flaring. So the director and author of the book, decide to fly the actors into the middle of the jungle and have them think they are making the movie. (Think The Three Amigos)

There are some drug cartels in the forest who think the actors are DEA agents and we let the games begin. Stiller's character gets abducted by a child-led drug group and forced to replay a mentally retarded character. This is where the film goes from lame to just stupid.

Supporting cast includes Tom Cruise as a foul-mouthed studio exec. and Matthew McConaughy as Stiller's agent.

The constant crude language and horrible story kept me from enjoying what should/could have been a great comedy. They don't all have to be rated R you know.

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

Okay, first of all this movie is rated R, it's a horror movie, and it's based on 7 previous films (6 of them were full of blood, violence, and language). This means: blood, language, violence will be the highlight of Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.

After the first AvP came out with a rating of PG-13, many fans felt cheated. They wanted to see the gore they had come to love and expect whenever the predators showed up to collect some skulls.

The cast is made up unknowns so I won't even attempt to give them any kind of recognition. (see later in this post why*)

AvP 2 picks up right where AvP left off. There's a predator who has an alien inside it. The alien bursts out of the predator while it flies off into space. This alien happens to be a hybrid of Alien and Predator. An attack follows and the ship crashes back on earth.

Elsewhere, on the predator homeworld, a buddy locates the downed ship and travels to earth to "clean up" the mess.

We now have aliens running amok in a small town and a predator trying to fix everything.

*Basically, the humans are in this movie to provide the deaths. Heads explode, faces dissolve, arms get blown off, people get impaled against the wall. You can understand that this movie is ultra violent.

The sad part is that this movie, nor the first one, live up to the original Alien and Predator movies.

Too much stuff to keep most people away from this movie, but then again, it is rated R for a reason.

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

After watching the trailer for this film I decided to find it at the library. Watchmen is a graphic novel about vigilantes. There was a group of people who fought crime even though they really didn't have super powers. The only guy to really have powers was Dr. Manhattan (the blue guy).

The story is set after the US government created a law making it illegal to fight crime as a vigilante unless you're employed by the government.

We enter the story after one of the crime fighters, The Comedian, is killed - pushed out of a window. For the rest of the comic, we're introduced to each character and learn of their back story while the surviving heroes try to solve the murder. You'll find characters like, Nite Owl, Rorshache, and Silk Spectre. Their stories intertwine and create a depth that is now expected in graphic novels.

So why was The Comedian killed and who is at fault. That is the quest Rorshache and his vigilante ex-partners must complete.


This graphic novel won a few awards and the storyline is actually good. I can't wait for the movie.

Sinner by Ted Dekker

I have already reviewed this book when I received the Advanced Readers Copy here. Now that I've picked up the hardback, final draft, I wanted to review it again to see if there was anything different.

Sadly, the changes were minimal. Ted Dekker has created a story where The United States has become so intolerant of public expression of faith that they amend the Constitution and make it against the law to speak out about Jesus Christ. In the name of tolerance, people must respect everyone's beliefs and keep it personal. The idea of Jesus being the only way to an eternal life with God is seen as belittling and disrespectful of other people's faith.

There are characters from his previous books that come into play here, Billy, Darcy, and Johnny. They each have special abilities and are used to battle a villain, Marsuvees Black. When Johnny learns that the nation will outlaw the speaking of Truth, he builds a coalition of over 3,000 to oppose the law.

The climax is not as explosive as I was hoping it would be. However, we are told that Ted Dekker has plans for at least three more books as part of this ongoing story. So we'll have to wait and see what comes of this.

To hold us over until then, he is going to be releasing a book called Kiss. Not much is known about this story, but it certainly looks inviting from the cover!

Watcher in the Woods by Robert Liparulo

Book 2 of the Dreamhouse Kings series by Robert Liparulo focuses on the second oldest son, David. We witness what it's like for a middle child to go through the first day of school in a new area.

We deal with bullies and their warped view of how things work, and we get to experience a twisted town that the King family has moved in to. What's the secret this place is holding back?

The family also begins their search for their kidnapped mother through the bizarre portals found within their new home.

As with classic Liparulo style, the characters are fleshed out perfectly. Each time you read about one of the family members, your concern for them grows. You want to keep flipping through the short chapters to find out what happens next.

However, this second book is not as engaging as the first. There are new characters that bring some nice twists to the story which will lead us further into the series. The ending has a great cliff-hanger.

I still find Liparulo's Dreamhouse Kings young adult series to be better written than Ted Dekker's Lost Books young adult series.

4 out of 5 stars for this book!

The Dark Knight by Dennis O'Neil

I picked The Dark Knight up from the library while I was hoping to get a different book. I saw it on the "new books" stand, and had it finished in two days. (or maybe one)

I hadn't heard of author, Dennis O'Neil before, but it looks like he's really into writing comics. He's also written the novel tie-in with the Iron Man movie.

Like most movie tie-in novels, O'Neil gives us a little more background into the characters' thoughts and feelings. However, maybe because I have seen this movie three times, I really didn't care about what the characters were thinking.

I found myself mentally keeping myself from skipping ahead to the parts that I remembered from the film.

This book isn't a waste of time by any means. It isn't as good as the movie though. Sometimes books add a dimension lacking in movies, but this one just couldn't provide that addition.

Stick with the movie if I were you!

The Emperor's New Groove

Our final cartoon movie was The Emperor's New Groove. I had been told over and over again that this was a great movie. And after playing Disney-Pixar Scene It, I decided it was time for my eyes to feast upon this supposedly epic movie.

Starring David Spade as the Emperor, John Goodman as the commoner who ends up helping him, and Patrick Warburton as the evil henchman, this movie does deal out some well deserved laughs.

I think the loudest I laughed was from a scene I saw while playing the Scene It game; when the emperor (as a llama) is in the middle of sleeping pumas and a squirrel pops a balloon. For some reason little animated squirrels are always cute and funny.

The film is about an egotistical emperor who wants to destroy a village to build his summer home and his evil sorceress who wants his throne. She turns him into a llama and her henchman chucks him into a wagon heading out into the forest.

The emperor and a commoner team-up in order to return him to the palace and be restored.

Not the greatest Disney movie, but worth the time it took to watch. Maybe I was just in a toon kinda mood for these films.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Meet The Robinsons

This was a weekend of toon movies and our second film was Meet The Robinsons.

A boy, Lewis, is waiting to be adopted. He enjoys creating things but this creates problems with couples looking to adopt. Something usually happens which causes them to run away.

Lewis wants to know who his mother is, that's a big purpose for him. While at a science fair, a boy from the future bumps into him and they go into the future to save humanity.

The twists and turns make this film a good one. The Robinson family is quirky but funny to watch. And some of you may figure out everything before it's revealed, but it's worth the watch.

A quality computer-animated Disney movie without Pixar; who would have thought.

3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

The sequel is better than the original. Ice Age: The Meltdown carries the same funny as the first one, but brings animated to a new level. I really enjoy these movies. (Let's see if they become the new Land Before Time series)

The new film stars the voices of Ray Romano as the Mammoth, Manny; John Leguizamo as the Sloth, Sid; and Denis Leary as the sabertooth tiger, Diego. These guys were in the first film and are hilarious again.

As the title explains, this film deals with the end of the Ice Age. The ice is melting and the heard of animals need to escape.

Part of the focus is on Manny. He seems to be the only mammoth left alive. While being ridiculed for it and thinking on the end of his species, he stumbles upon a female mammoth who believes she's a possum.

Will all the creatures escape the meltdown? Maybe not because, along the way, they are hunted by buzzards and two nasty creatures just below the surface of the water...

Ice Age: The Meltdown is a great family film. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.