Zombies vs. Jesus

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y2BrmcVf6c&w=640&h=360] I'm back from a glorious Texas vacation visiting my wife's family and a few friends from college.  And just in time for Spirit Juice Studios to release Zombies vs. Jesus, a short film about... well... just watch it.

What do you think?

Memento Mori!

***Stay tuned for my longest post yet, "We Need More Death", to be posted today or tomorrow.

All Hipsters Eventually Become Catholic

If you've been living in a bomb shelter under your parent's house since 1990 and don't know what a hipster is, then go here and read up to get a rough idea. I think they're Catholics.

Hipster refers to a subculture of contemporary young adults. They like independent music and wearing unpopular clothing styles. Hipsters love things that aren't mainstream, and they love irony and paradox. They love having their own art, culture, and hipster jargon. They love reading the books no one recognizes and listening to the music you wouldn't know about.

Lots of people I know have opinions of hipsters. Some flat out hate them. They have been called names like "the embodiement of postmodernism" by critics. Some turn their noses up in contempt, but secretly (or not so secretly) dress like them. In fact, a hipster would turn up his nose if you called him a hipster.

The Word on Fire blog gives some good insight into how to evangelize this subset of our modern culture, but I don't think we have to be too worried:

Hipsters eventually become Catholic.

This is less of a fact and more of a prophecy. But haven't you felt the same way deep down?

Aren't you, as a Catholic, somewhat charmed and intrigued by hipsters?

Next Generation Hipster Manifesto

Isn't it true that living out the Catholic faith in modern society is the ultimate anti-mainstream life of non-conformity and going-against-the-flow? And the Catholic culture we've inherited provides a wealth of uncool topics to chose from.

Eventually all the dingy coffee shops will be places where you can spot a guy wearing skinny jeans, an impractical scarf, and donning a green tattoo of St. Basil on his arm.

The new hispter loves going to daily Mass at his parish, where the pews are filled with no one under the age of 50. He did it before it was cool.

That guy in the corner with the thick rimmed glasses and bowling shoes sipping a chai latte? He's wearing a St. Benedict crucifix while reading a leather bound copy of “Medieval Religion and Other Essays” with yellowed pages. He’s been on a Christopher Dawson kick these past months. (If you don't know about him, you aren't a Catholic hipster and you should really look into him.)

You can tell the likes of the Next Generation of Hipsters by their out of place lingo. They use words like "interretium" when referring to the internet, are known to dance and shout "Veni, veni, veni Locamowae cum me", and have stickers on their bikes that say "Sona si Latine loqueris".

Latin is a "dead" language you know. How much more not mainistream can you get?

They form book clubs and meet in the back of the local open-mic cafe to chuckle over G.K. Chesterton - you wouldn't understand.

They argue about how Tantum Ergo should be chanted, and have Gregorian Chant for all Seasons as a channel on Pandora.

They believe whole heatedly in subsidiarity, and they pick up their vegetables from a local farm CSA program wearing their paradoxical clothing.

They date seriously and are excited to live a life of chastity and monogamy. Being single and sleeping around is so safe and boring and mainstream anyways. It's a cowardly garden-variety life running from responsibility, never risking rejection or failure, and being too timid to attempt the challenge of choosing the one you will spend the rest of your life loving in total selflessness. And try raising other human persons for 18 years at a time once you are married.

The next generation of hipsters refuse the mediocrity of self-indulgence. The popular existence of floating from one drunken party to another memory-less night, that's easy. It takes no thought or self-reflection or individuality. What a familiar story. Getting consistently high is too simple - what a lame and bland existence.

Try to make a decision that lasts the rest of your life - get married. That's risky. Have a child and try to get him to heaven. What a lofty goal. Live through the ups and downs and feel the pains and joys of REAL life experienced to the full with the wide spectrum of human emotion and experience.

These Catholic Hipsters of the New Generation don't accept the widespread belief that suffering (and therefore life) is pointless.  These hipsters have the radical notion that they are in a love affair with a God that is bigger than the universe, knows them better than they know themselves, and longs for them and their perfection like a deer pants for water. Now there is the premise of an outside-the-box life worth living.

Because Jersey Shore and the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of the average has so been done before a GAHJILION times.

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This is part of a series of posts called the Catholic Hipster Manifesto.

**Comment and add some of the activities and interests of the Ultimate Catholic Hispter.  I know you've seen one.  Of course you're not one.

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Engage Volunteers in Ministry with WHY

Getting people in your parish to support your ministry or to volunteer their time can be extremely taxing, stressful, and full of rejection. In this video, Simon Sinek gives an inside look at what makes leaders inspiring, and how the best are so effective at recruiting people to support their mission - why some leaders are able to inspire and others aren't.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4&feature=player_detailpage]

Why is Apple so popular, when plenty of other companies make products comparable or better than what Apple puts out?

Why did Martin Luther King become so popular, when there were plenty of other talented orators for the civil rights movement at the time?

Bottom Line for Your Ministry: Start with WHY, not how or what, because people don't buy what you do they buy WHY you do it.

EXAMPLE: What This Looks Like in Youth Ministry: Starting with What: We have youth group on Sundays, retreats, pizza parties, dodgeball, and lots of fun. We do praise and worship and camping trips. We need your help.

Starting with How: We try to build relationships with teens and love them where they are at. We try to witness with our lives and catechize in a fun way. We try to give the teens a life changing experience of God. We need your help.

Starting with Why: We believe that Eucharistic based ministry has the power to transform teens, transform parishes, and transform culture. (hat tip to Life Teen) We believe the culture teens are exposed to is a culture of death and mediocrity, and that Christ is the only thing worth giving their lives to. We believe Jesus entrusted us with the mission of presenting to teens the full truth of the Catholic faith, in all its rigor and vigor, and we believe that with the Holy Spirit God will work amazing miracles in the lives of these teens. We need your help.

Which one sounds more exciting to you? People don't buy what you do they buy WHY you do it. Skip telling people what your ministry does and how it does it, and be passionate about WHY you do ministry. Like Simon says (pun acknowledged), Dr. King didn't tell people what needed to be changed in America, he told people what he believed. He gave the "I have a dream speech", not the "I have a plan speech".

What are the best ways you have found to get people involved in your ministry? Share your insights below in the comment box.

**Caveat** It's all useless without prayer.

He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.'" Luke 10:2

The First Steps Out the Door

Welcome to the results of a favorite past time of mine: productive procrastination.

In college I was not the type to drop studying for a 10 hour video game binge. But I would get sidetracked from my homework for hours at a time to read a spiritual classic, learn about roughness, attempt to make graham crackers, or teach myself graphic design.

This list of recreation might sound dreary but to me (and many in my generation), learning first became one of my favorite avenues for the vice of procrastination - and then a passion.

The term paper can wait - I have got to read Dawson! Quiz tomorrow? I wonder how St. Patrick would do youth ministry...? Project due? Benjamin Zander would make a great Catholic... Final coming up, better finish Henri de Lubac. Spanish? (Okay, so I liked Spanish.) Me gusta!

Over the years this has evolved from vice to hobby to discipline.

I constantly keep a notebook on me to catch my thoughts, questions, and ideas. I often think of how unproductive it is to keep these matters private. Maybe they are the most foolish of ideas and thoughts, but if they could at least be a small benefit to one other then it would be worth sharing.

For the past year I have been sitting on this blog debating and praying about whether to make it public. I have come to the conclusion to suspend judgement and dive headlong into the wild of blogging and judge this tree by its fruits. (Luke 6:44) I think the saying should go: "If its worth doing, its worth doing badly the first time."

A lofty goal would be to hope that something I write would bring you closer to Christ; and I very seriously do. But if you would be entertained in the least I would count it as a gain.

This blog is a step out of the comforts of my house. Thanks for indulging me.

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." --Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

+JMJ