Never one to pass up a learning experience, I walked away from the film with a little bit more than just a greater appreciation for all things rock. As I listened to each of these masters talk about their experiences I couldn’t help but jot down a few notes for myself. I feel like I got a good dose of rock ‘n roll today but I am even more appreciative of the leadership lessons I gleaned from the movie. Here are 5 Leadership Lessons I Learned from It Might Get Loud:

1) ABL- Always Be Learning: Jack White, 34, is the youngest guitarist in the film’s trio. He is fourteen years younger than The Edge, 48, and thirty years younger than Jimmy Page, 64. White is featured in the film because, without a doubt, he has developed a distinctly unique sound. When you hear him play you know for certain that it is Jack White. White could have strolled into the studio, unique sound in hand and a chip on his shoulder, ready to show the old guard a thing or two. Instead, White showed that he understood the opportunity handed to him through this project. White, with a huge knowing smile, says, “I plan on tricking these guys into showing me all their tricks.” Always be learning starts with a humble attitude and a desire to make the most of every opportunity. Yes, White has a lot to bring to that table but someone with a teachable spirit and a heart for learning will walk away from experiences like these richer for it.

2) Disregard Most Critics: Everyone has a shared experience in receiving criticism. Critics love to cut you down and write you off. A perfect example of this comes from Jimmy Page as he is discussing the harsh criticism that he and the other members of Led Zeppelin received with each album release. Page says that Led Zeppelin IV was only given a one paragraph review. One paragraph!!! For those of you who are unaware, this album contains a wide variety of music and some of rock’s quintessential tracks including Black Dog, When the Levee Breaks, and Stairway to Heaven. Everyone can listen and learn from constructive criticism. However, most critics just love to hear themselves talk. Learn to discern the helpful from the hurtful. Get better from the critics who want to see you do better and ignore the ones who just want to cut you down.

3) God Moves In Mysterious Ways: Jimmy Page says that the only reason he even began playing guitar was because they had moved into a new house and the previous owner had left a guitar behind. The only reason one of the world’s greatest guitar players even picked up a guitar was because some man’s trash became another boy’s treasure. I don’t know what Jimmy Page’s religious persuasion is. I believe that God determines the steps of the believer and non-beliver alike. I believe that coincidences like this are not really coincidences at all. That well worn passage in Jeremiah says that God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. He does this- directs our steps- so that we will call on him and seek him with all of our hearts. Maybe God has led you to this place, opened this door, or given you this gift so that you may see him, know him, and seek him. What ever it is you do, do it for the glory of God.

4) Do the Hard Work: The Edge is a master technician. A great aspect of the film is watching him run his guitar through various amps, filters, pedals, and gadgets to produce just the right sound. In fact, The Edge calls the sounds from his guitar “his voice” and righty so. In the film, you get to watch The Edge alone in the studio with just his guitar, equipment, and computer tweaking away at a few chords for what ultimately becomes the opening of “Get On Your Boots.” You see him working late into the night- strumming here, moving a dial there, stepping on a pedal over here- until the final product emerges. What started out as a straight-forward lick becomes and full fledged rock riff. It all came about because the Edge put in the hard work. Many may never know the behind the scenes struggle, the tweaking, or the long hours you put into something but you know that it was in those moments that the project was given life and brought to fruition. Do the hard work every time- even if you are the only one who ever knows.

5) Seize Opportunities: Every U2 fan knows that the band was formed when the boys were schoolmates in Ireland. Larry Mullen, drums, put a flyer up on the school bulletin board to recruit band members. The rest they say is history. The film takes you back to the school with the Edge as tour guide. He walks through the halls and over to the bulletin board telling us that this was where the flyer was posted. The Edge admits that he probably would have joined another band at some point but he wonders what would have been different. Would he have gone on to fame and fortune if he had ignored the flyer? He admits he couldn’t play very well at that time. What if he had seen the flyer but had been too afraid or self-conscious to follow up on it. In a very matter of fact way the Edge says, “Who knows? I could be working at a bank somewhere.” Seize every opportunity! Don’t let fear or critics or even your “small” abilities keep you from pursuing the right opportunities when the present themselves. The Edge answered that flyer and found what he was looking for.

I absolutely loved this film. If you like rock music or documentary films or if like me, you like both of these things, find a theatre showing It Might Get Loud and rock out with your bad self. The music is great, the conversation is great, and you might walk away thinking about more than just rock ‘n roll.

It is Indiana Jones Week at the Felkers. We watched Raiders last Saturday and we are trying to squeeze in Temple of Doom tonight (somehow). Tomorrow we will watch Crusade. I am not sure my wife has ever seen The Last Crusade so we will definitely have to watch that one before seeing Crystal Skull on Thursday. Whew! So much action, so little time!

I love watching Dr. Henry Jones run, swing, and punch his way through these adventures chasing after “priceless” pieces of antiquity. There isn’t a risk he isn’t willing to take and we, the audience, cheer him on every step of the way.

Scripture tells us that the kingdom of God can be compared to these great treasures. In fact, the kingdom of God is the greatest treasure of all. In the parables above, Jesus says that when we encounter the kingdom we should treat it like the world’s greatest treasure and that we should do whatever it takes to obtain it. The men in his stories sold all they had just to get their treasure.

Do you realize that we trade the glory and freedom of living in the kingdom for mere trinkets everyday? It should be the other way around!

Spend some time today and meditate on how great the kingdom of God is and what is standing in the way of you obtaining it.

Until last week I knew virtually nothing about Iron Man. I spent about three hours in a crash course study of all things Tony Stark. I was extremely thankful for two books that helped me craft my lesson for last night. First, I learned a great deal from Iron Man: Beneath the Armor by Andy Mangels. This a brand new resource that I would define as the definitive tome on the Iron Knight. Mangels takes the reader from the jungles of Vietnam where Tony Stark was injured, captured, and forced to escape his captures in the first Iron Man suit through Stark’s battle with the bottle to the film and the current story lines found in the comic book pages. The book contains some great artwork and gives you all you’d ever need to know about Iron Man.

The other book that really helped me out was Who Needs a Superhero? by H. Michael Brewer. Brewer connected the life of Tony Stark with the life of King David. Both men had issues with their hearts. Tony Stark has a piece of shrapnel that inches closer and closer to his heart threatening to kill him at any moment but he struggles with the heart go deeper than mere flesh. He is unlucky at love (one girlfriend shot him) and business (he has made fortunes and lost each and everyone). All the pressures on his life drove him to battle with alcoholism. King David’s issues with the heart are also well documented. Bathsheba, Amnon and Tamar, Amnon and Absalom, Absalom and David. Heartbreak after heartbreak all because David began to trust in his armor over his God.

After his sin with Bathsheba, David penned this psalm:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalms 51:1-12)

So what can we learn from this multi-million dollar summer blockbuster and what can we learn from this ancient shepherd-king of Israel? We can look for purpose and joy in the things of this world and trust in the strength of our hands but it won’t heal our broken hearts.

Our hearts can only be made whole again in the hands of our Creator. When we give him our hearts of stone he will give us hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). Only then will we find true purpose and lasting joy.

Yes Lord, create in me a pure heart!

We’ll start with…

And end with…

What do you think?

I began thinking about this verse and I remembered a scene at the beginning of one of my favorite movies, Seven Samurai.

Kurosawa’s 1954 classic film begins with a gang of bandits tearing through the Japanese’s countryside. They come to a stop at the top of the a hill overlooking a small, poor, insignificant village. They are about to attack the defenseless hamlet when their leader reminds them that they attacked this village last season. He tells them that they should come back when the barley harvest is in so that they could really wreak some havoc. They agree and they ride off vowing to return and destroy everything. An older man from the village had been hiding on the hill and he overhears the bandits plans and he rushes down the hill to warn the people.

The very next scene show the entire village weeping and wailing and sitting in the dirt in the center of the village. Some are crying out they they wished that they could die right now. Doom and gloom is all around. Most have given up every ounce of hope.

One young man stands up and proclaims passionately that the villagers must fight the bandits. Most of the older men shout him down telling him that his idea is ludicrous. The older men agree that the course of action must be decided by the leader of the village. Every villager stands up and marches to the old mill where the oldest and wisest man living among them resides. The old man will tell them what they must do.

After much deliberation and thought the old man agrees that they must fight these bandits off. He tells them that they must hire samurai to help protect the people. Many of the men argue with the old man’s words saying that they could never afford to hire samurai. They ask him incredulously, “What Samurai would work for barley and rice?”

The old man responds to their doubt by saying, “We will look for hungry samurai.”

That’s vision.

Without his vision, the people would perish. The old man knew that his people were in trouble. He knew their fears and he knew their limitations. They needed help and they needed a different perspective. The old man exhibited vision to see beyond excuses.

Effective vision is most often the most practical. The people were focused on what prohibited them from surviving. The old man focused on what they had and what would help them survive.

Quit whining and crying about your situation and what you think is keeping you and your people from success.

Go find you some hungry samurai and protect your village.

As the officials of Jordan College gather around the table in the conference room, Lord Asriel explains to them that they are about see something extraordinary. He shows them a picture of a man and his daemon (soul/conscience). Mysterious elements are flowing like golden flakes from out of the daemon into the man and into the sky. As these elements flow into the northern lights of the sky, a city in a parallel universe can be seen in the distance. The scholars seem confused and awed.

“That,” Lord Asriel tells them, “is Dust.”

From everything that I have studied about the novels, Dust is seen by the Magisterium as the elements of Original Sin. Dust is believed to be dangerous and is to never be spoken of. The Magisterium is seen as wanting to destroy it or suppress it from the people. Dust is what links humans with their daemons and what links us all to the universe and beyond.

However, in the film I was lead to believe that Dust was something good. It was seen as the life force in all living creatures. I never understood exactly why the Magisterium feared it. Lord Ariel seem to be exploring matters of faith and mystery and yet the Magisterium was asking people to give up their faith, to quit acting like children and grow up.

In this way, the Magisterium reminded me of the scholars behind the new atheist movement. Men like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris who discourage and deride any and every exploration of faith. They accuse people of faith of chasing after flights of fancy with little regard to reason.

Dust was portrayed in the film as the unknown, as a mystery beyond human understanding. It seemed that if life flowed from this ethereal spirit and that the Magisterium was seeking to cut this life away from the people. The Magisterium offered a life of security and control free from the mysterious Dust. Lord Asriel was seen as a fool who traded security for the unknown.

The Bible speaks of a spirit that brings us life and that connects us with a world beyond our own.

1Corinthians 2:10-15
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit within? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit–taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,”

2Corinthians 3:6
“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Galatians 4:4-7
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer slaves, but God’s children; and since you are his children, he has made you also heirs.”

1John 4:13
“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”

The Spirit is something that is promised to every person who seeks to follow Jesus. It speaks to the mysteries of the created world and guides us into the way of life. There are people that want to cut us away from these mysteries. They seek to make us grow up and to forget about the foolish things of our childhood. They seek to snuff out the “irrational, the unknown, and the religious.” These people however have nothing to do with true Christianity or with Jesus. Jesus offers us a life full of the Spirit, of wonder, of mystery.

I’m chasing the mystery.

Psalms 139:1-18
“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.”

I saw the film on Friday and walked away unimpressed. The story seemed rushed, the characters seemed flat, and the ending was paced very oddly. There was a great polar bear fight with a surprising and satisfying payoff but is was not enough to save this film for me. I could not imaging taking a group of 10 year olds to this film and expecting them to sit still during the almost 2 hour screening.

However, one positive outcome from seeing the film. I found 3 elements of this story that, I believe, Christians can use to discuss their faith with those who have seen the film. This week I’ll be posting these three points for you. Let’s get to it.

1) The Magisterium
According to Entertainment Weekly, the Magisterium is a “fractured church-like body with power over every aspect of life. No Pope, and about as Christian as the Inquisition.” In the film the members of the Magisterium dress like bishops and cardinals and are seen as opposing free will and free thought. The books refer to the Magisterium as “the Church” and they serve a higher being known as “The Authority.” The film briefly mentions “the Authority” but it wasn’t clear to me that the name addressed a being.

The members of the Magisterium meet is secret meetings and slink around with duplicitous looks. In one scene, a top official tries to poison one of the main characters. In another a group of elders are seen conspiring to consolidate power through fear and coercion. All of this leads up to what the Magisterium is really up to.

They seek to separate children from their daemons (souls) in an effort to keep them “safe” from Dust (more on that later) and to help them “grow up.” By growing up and maturing these children can put away childish questions and flippant behavior and get down to the real business of serving the Magisterium’s agenda. Soulless beings are more manageable than beings full of life. We meet one little boy who has lost his daemon. He is a shell. He is nearly physically dead and we see that he has been spiritually ravaged.

In my eyes, the men and women of the Magisterium seem more like Pharisees than a true church body. It was Jesus who said that in order to follow him into the Kingdom of God we must have faith like children.

“He called a little child, whom he placed among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place—becoming like this child—is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:2-6 )

This one was easy. Anyone or group who claims to serve the Lord will speak and act like the Lord. Their agenda is God’s agenda: bringing life to the dead. The Magistirium brought the characters in TGC nothing but pain, sorrow, and loss. That doesn’t sound like any church that I want to be a part of and it doesn’t sound like a church that seeks to follow Jesus.

Part 3: Dust to Dust