Shortly after reading the latest post from Hopper regarding ranting without giving thought to the people we rant about, I stumbled onto this article in the Wall Street Journal… “Banned From Church“. I have to admit, my first reaction was to join the author and tell my personal story of excommunication. Where is the “comments” link? But then I remembered, that won’t help anyone. The truth is, I’m really not sure what will, but I’ve been through a situation like this, so these stories hit close to home for me. Brings back a lot of bad memories, and a lot of hurt. I’m not sure what saddens me more, the stories of kids like I once was…

“Amy Hitt, 43, a mortgage officer in Amissville, Va., was voted out of her Baptist congregation in 2004 for gossiping about her pastor’s plans to buy a bigger house. Her ouster was especially hard on her twin sons, now 12 years old, who had made friends in the church, she says.”

…or the fact that here we are, almost 20 years have gone by since my “excommunication“, and there are still people being put through this hell.

Mark 12: 30-31

And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Not just the neighbor that lives up to your expectations. I think sometimes we forget that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

“Toy Story” films headed back to theaters in 3-D

The Walt Disney Studios plans to debut digital 3-D versions of Disney-Pixar’s “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2.”

“Toy Story” is slated to open October 2, 2009, followed by “Toy Story 2″ on February 12, 2010. Both films would be released in advance of Disney-Pixar’s “Toy Story 3,” which is being produced as a 3-D motion picture and is slated to open June 18, 2010. Veteran Pixar filmmaker Lee Unkrich (co-director of “Toy Story 2″) is directing the third installment.

As exciting as it was to read that in converting “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2″, the technical team is retrieving all of the original digital elements and rebuilding them in 3-D, I have to say, I’m kinda with Kottke on this one… 3-D has never done anything special for me. Of course, that won’t stop me from taking the entire family to see the third installment when it opens!

I just read a great interview with VeggieTales Founder Phil Vischer who wrote The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything–A VeggieTales Movie ( directed by Mike Nawrocki). Pirates opened Jan. 11, and despite Gabe’s begging and pleading, I haven’t taken him to see it yet. Not because I don’t want to! I love Bob, Larry and the gang. Gabe was given The Wonderful Wizard of Ha’s DVD for Christmas and we all had a few good laughs watching it.

Phil mentioned a topic that’s been discussed on Christopher Hopper’s site before. The “Christian” label. When he was asked “So in your mind, is there such a thing as a Christian business?” he replied…

“Business with Christian ownership, Christian values, Christian goals . . . I think a Christian business needs further definition. We had the same discussion about Christian movies. Is it a movie made by Christians? For Christians? Or a movie that has accepted Jesus as its Savior and is going to heaven when it dies?”

I think I’m going to get a copy of his book. Sounds like a good read.

I haven’t written anything here in FOREVER!!! To anybody that was actually reading… sorry. To anybody just now stopping by… uhm, what dry spell? Seriously though, I noticed a few friends and family members ( Nate, Mooney, & Hopper) were actually linking to me from their blogs, so I was thinking maybe I should actually spend a few minutes now and then and update mine.

OK. Done.