trey taylor

This is the funniest video from Icon (our student ministry) that I’ve ever seen, and probably the strangest sermon from Pastor. Will and the guys did a great job on this one.

I can cross one more off my ‘Need to See‘ Oscar list coz I finally got to see Doubt last night, and I’m so glad I did. 

It’s 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A vibrant, charismatic priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is trying to upend the schools’ strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James (Amy Adams), a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence. (Miramax)

Doubt was incredible, an edge of your seat thriller with no guns, explosions or special effects (except maybe a wind machine or two). The power of this film rest on the stellar performances of its actors, and they are so good because of how they play off of each other. Especially Hoffman and Streep, when they go toe-to-toe you can feel the intensity and conviction that not many could bring to the roles. 

I think this film was near perfect in every way, the soundtrack was subtle and almost non-existent in parts and eerie and suspenseful in others. It compliments the way the story slowly simmers before the kettle explodes right off the stove. The characters conflict is one that you will leave the theater talking about, it leaves you doubting and rethinking the conclusions you’ve personally made to the last minute.

It reminded me just how powerful our words are, that they truly have the power of life and death. There is so much truth in this movie. It screams at how out dated and out-of-touch the old school thinking and religious people are. How they’ve lost touch with the world around them in order to keep their list and police those that don’t live by the same list. It makes evident the sad truth that religious people are further away from the heart of God because they’ve lost any sense of compassion for the people around them, as well as their sense of superiority and judgement over those who have a different approach to life and ministry.

In the end, you’ll have to make a decision about what you believe, and that’s why Doubt will stick with you long after you’ve walked out of the theater.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Oscar night is just around the corner (Feb. 22), this is EW’s list of movies you need to see before the big night:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Milk
• Frost/Nixon
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Revolutionary Road
• WALL•E
• The Wrestler
• Gran Torino
• The Reader
• Rachel Getting Married
• Changeling
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona 
• Tropic Thunder
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• The Visitor
• I’ve Loved You So Long
• Frozen River
• Nothing But the Truth
• Man on Wire
• Synecdoche, New York
• The Duchess
• Defiance
• Australia

I’ve only seen about half of them (oh the downside of living in a small town). I’m planning to catch a few more tho before the 22nd. How many have you seen? Which ones are you dying to see before the big night?

So true…

and yet so funny…

I love Demetri Martin… probably one of my favorite comics.

I finally got back into Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and wow is this book great. It’s really stretching how and what I believe. At times I feel like he’s more Jackie than Francis Chan and he’s picked up some random object and is kicking my butt with it. In chapter 6 his random object of choice is a quote from God Is the Gospel, John Piper simply ask whether or not we are really in love with God:

The critical question for our generation – and for every gerneration – is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

If you are truly in love with Christ, you could never be satisfied with heaven without him. So whats the verdict? Are you really in love with Christ? Is your life a reflection of Psalm 63:1-5?

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

When I read this last Thursday (no coincidence it was Jan 1), it rocked my world, made me really evaluate my heart toward my Savior. Maybe your not like me, but I need that kind of gut check as often as I can get it. I hope it does the same for you.

May it kick last years butt…

Ok, I’m back… took a much needed break for the holidays from both blogging and work. It was awesome. Since you’ve missed me, I thought I’d give ya a few highlights from Team Taylors Rockin Christmas.

• Spending time with my girls tops the list easily.
• Bella ate Ho-Ho’s cookies. We only had 2 and after she put one on the plate she said, “I weal hungy” and we told her couldn’t have one coz they were for Ho-Ho so she licked it. Too cute.
• Due to my own stupidity I caused myself to bleed twice on Christmas Eve. (whats the flippin deal with the packaging of these toys and why’s my brother-in-laws knife so sharp?)
• Beck got me the perfect gift. Perfect. (Is it wrong to love an inanimate object?) I’ve wanted one for a long time.
• I got Beck the perfect gift, even though she says I got it more for me than her. eh, maybe shes right. And yes, of course I got the HD one.
• Got my new MacBook Pro in on the 26th, and dang this thing is bad.
• Mrs. Barbs cookies and Christmas treats! Ah-maz-ing!
• Went out with a bunch of friends to see A Christmas Story at the Saenger Theatre in downtown Mobile. (deck the halls with boughs of horry, ra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra)
• Sunday night before Christmas we celebrated my grandparents 60th anniversary. Wow.
• We were blessed with a brand new beta fish (that bella named fishy) that we got from a dirty santa game that went terribly wrong.
• And our favorite Christmas pic this year is our monkey faces.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, give me a few of your highlights.

See ya next year!

This is pretty flippin sweet. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas everybody, I pray blessings on you and yours during this wonderful season.

This was my list last year… 

I love the lyrics of this Sanctus Real song. Its called Sing. It’s been playing over and over in my head lately, so I thought I’d share’m with ya. (also, I think this would make a killer “theme song” for next years One Prayer series)

Can we get back to where we started
When creation lived peacefully in Your hands
Before the wars began

And all these years we have been divided
Jesus’ voice has been gently calling us home
And we can’t wait anymore

Lord we feel You now
Wanting to come down and teach us how to

Sing oh sing
With one voice how sweet it will be
When we sing oh sing
One church under one King and we will sing

Pride has no purpose in God’s kingdom
Now’s the time for His church to join hands again
Oh together we must stand

Lord we need You now
Send Your Spirit down and free us as we

Sing oh sing
With one voice how sweet it will be
When we sing oh sing
One church under one King and we will sing

Hear the voices ringing out (You are King)
We will stand together now (You are Lord)
Hear the voices singing loud (You are King)
Live in peace
Live in peace and

Let the church of God ring out (You are King)
We will stand together now (You are Lord)
Hear the voices singing loud (You are King)
There is only one King

So what do you think?

Get the song (or the whole album) on iTunes.

It was a crazy weekend, so I’m just now getting around to posting my MCBC pics. I’ve got lots more to put on my flickr so check it in the next few days you’ll see a lot more.

We just started a new series called Christmas Stories. It’s about the smaller stories of Christmas that are somehow interwoven in The Christmas Story, and how miraculously all Christmas stories always come back to the ultimate one. This past weekend we looked at Giving and we used the story of the Little Drummer Boy as the launching pad for the message. When you stop and look at this season, giving is the one thing that makes the most sense, its the one truth that we can’t overlook. As told through the story of the Little Drummer Boy, even if you don’t think you have anything to give, you can and should always give yourself. 

To open the message we used a clip from the classic stop-motion version of The Little Drummer Boy and mixed it together with Mark doing his new version of the song live. I think it turned out pretty awesome, it was a really cool moment.

Here’s the Little Drummer Boy opener. Enjoy.

Also, let me just drop this in, this song is from Mark’s new Christmas From the Writers Room Ep. For those of you who don’t know, Mark is our Worship Pastor and he is an extremely talented songwriter and singer. Definitely stop by his site and check out the new album (which will be available on iTunes in a week or so).
 

What are you guys doing for your Christmas series this year?