Just heading back from The Ordinary Radicals screening at Cornerstone in IL.  It was so great to be back with good folks after a year of shooting, post production, screenings and festival.  Crazy how much life can progress in just 12 months, eh?
Anywhoo, Logan Laituri and Brant Russo made it out for the screening which was completely packed.  About 200 people took breaks from the hundreds of shows to see the film (we ran out of seats, picked up more seats and ran out of those too!)
I headed over to a tent that had  two great bands: our good friends Jon Felton and Soulmobile Eternal & The Illogical Spoon.  Jon and crew killed it as always and The Illogical Spoon was magical (full disclosure, I’m a bit biased as The Illogical Spoon has members of Psalters as well as Jesce Walz from The Simple Way, but they are in fact magical).  Musical love by way of beards and banjos

Special thanks to Mike Hertenstein of Flickerings and animator Steve Leeper.  Steve and friends invited me to a great film nerd meeting at the festival, Deep Focus, held after hours in the Speaker Hospitality center.  2+ hours of fantastic conversation.
So yeah, hanging out in a lovely Perkins restaurant in Peoria, IL right now typing up this missive and wondering how you’re doing.  Let us know your experiences with the film and what’s going on in your neck ‘o the woods.
Planes, trains and automobiles, go go go!
~jamie

The blog at ihatechurch.com, which seeks to radically “rebrand” Jesus and Christianity in modern culture, mentioned the film and our Cornerstone Festival screening today:

…This week the Cornerstone Music Festival will host scores of bands, films and incredible people from all walks of life. This festival will become the epicenter for young Christians in America who cling to the beliefs of The Ordinary Radicals Film. The excitement builds as one person tells another how Christ has changed their life and is passed on to others throughout the week. A movement grabs traction and builds throughout the Heartland of America…. Many will never know… but those who are there will have their life changed forever. Are we giving it all or are we holding some back for a rainy day.

Read the rest of the post here, and check out the other postings that raise relevant questions and ideas on how to communicate faith and love in a commercially overwhelmed culture.

The editing for The Ordinary Radicals: Special Topics is underway here in Kensington! The multi-disc DVD set will include thematically-organized, hugely expanded presentations of many of the same interviews you saw in the feature film (Tony Campolo, Lisa Sharon Harper, Brian McLaren, John Perkins, Ron Sider, Shane Claiborne, etc.) along with some new ones we’re shooting. We promise you hours of great new content!

As with The Ordinary Radicals, we’re again looking for music to underscore segments on the DVD. Silver and gold we have not (just like last time), but in exchange for your talents we will feature your name in the credits (to hopefully generate unending dividends of fame and glory for you) and send you a copy of the film when it’s available.

Interested in contributing? Here’s the deal:

You need to have full ownership of the song and fill out a music release form allowing us to use it, which we’ll distribute in whatever ways we can (theatrical, DVD, online, via space ship, etc).

The fewer vocals, the better. Keep in mind that we’re looking to underscore the interviews and footage. If you have a great tune with vocals and can go back to the masters and get us a copy without vocals, that would be super useful to us.

The deadline:  We need the music as soon as possible, as we’ve already begun the editing process.

Here’s how to send us your music:

• Fill out The Ordinary Radicals music release form.
• E-mail it back to us completed and signed at musicforfilm@theordinaryradicals.com

You can then upload your song(s) via FTP to:

• ftp://upload-music.theordinaryradicals.com
• username: musicforfilm
• password: radicals

New to FTP?  Here’s a great application for Apple users and here’s one for Windows users

If the music file is small enough, you can also email it as an attachment to musicforfilm@theordinaryradicals.com.

We’re extremely grateful to those who contributed tracks to the feature film, and we look forward to hearing from some new talent, too!

The Christian Post has featured several articles since February about a growing Evangelical effort to push for reform in immigration laws, citing current policies as unjust, inhumane, and responsible for unfairly breaking up families. The effort is underscored by the belief that God calls his followers to welcome the stranger with love, compassion, and respect, and believers should make every effort to shape a society that will accomplish that with justice and mercy for immigrants and their families.

Here are the articles with more information:

Faith Leaders Re-Ignite Immigration Debate

Immigration reform, an issue that has been pushed to the backburner due to the state of the economy, was revived Wednesday when a diverse group of faith leaders launched a large-scale campaign to push U.S. lawmakers to quickly tackle the complex and emotionally charged problem.

Five religious leaders from Christian and Jewish traditions were joined by two U.S. congressmen to launch the “Prayer, Renewal and Action on Immigration” campaign. The campaign seeks to engage and educate congregations and people of faith on the immigration reform debate.

…All the speakers, from religious leaders to the U.S. Congressmen, criticized current U.S. immigration laws for breaking up families and mistreating illegal aliens. They call for new policies that provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to earn residency.

“Immigrants are not the problem,” said United Methodist Bishop Minerva G. Carcano of the Desert Southwest Conference.

“Immigrants are part of the solution to our national problems,” contended Carcano, the first Hispanic woman to be elected to the episcopacy of The United Methodist Church.

“As people of faith, we cannot stand and will not stand while families are separated, while individual freedoms are ignored and the immigrant community in the United States is mistreated unjustly and inhumanely,” she said.

…“We have, literally, tens of thousands of American citizens whose wives are being deported, whose husbands are being deported,” said U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.). “We have millions of American citizen children who when they wake up in the morning to go to school fear all day long whether or not their parents will be there at the end of the day.”

Read the full article here.

Evangelicals Make Case for Welcoming Immigrants

Usually, conservative evangelicals are not known to support immigration reform. But several prominent leaders of the movement made their case Tuesday evening for new immigration laws, joining a growing number of Christians who refer to the Bible for support in “welcoming the stranger.”

The evangelical leaders – including Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals – urged American evangelicals to engage in the immigration debate and call upon the U.S. government to work on new immigration laws this year.

…“I get asked a lot, why this issue? Why as Christians and evangelicals, in particular, do we need to care about immigrants and policies in particular,” said Matthew Soerens, co-author of Welcoming the Stranger, at the book’s launch event on Tuesday. “It is because those people we talk about, those immigrants, those aliens, they are us as part of the church.”

Soerens, who works directly with immigrants as a World Relief staff, says he has met many Hispanic, Asian, and African immigrants in his line of work. What he realized was that the church, which the Bible says is the body of Christ, includes a lot of immigrants in the United States.

“Corinthians tells us if one part of the body suffers then the whole body is suffering,” he said. “As Christians, as part of the church, we don’t have a choice but to engage in this issue. And people are suffering, they are living in fear.”

The leaders also referenced the New Testament story in Luke 10 of the Good Samaritan – “a stranger or alien himself” – who stopped to help the Jewish man.

“This and other parables remind us that ‘we are all aliens sent out to help other aliens find a place of safety in this world,’” says a 2006 statement by World Relief in support of comprehensive immigration reform. The statement references Jonathan Robert Nelson’s 2006 remarks for The American Bar Association’s “Fortress America: The State and Future of U.S. Immigration Law and Policy” event.

…Anderson and other evangelical leaders talked about the inequality in current U.S. immigration laws and criticized how they break up families. He also called on the government to provide adequate finances to implement immigration laws and reduce the “enormous” waiting time for immigrants applying for legal status.

Pastor Derrick Harkins of the historic black Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., stated, “We are calling for nothing more than for those persons who are presently immigrants to be able to function and thrive within the context of what is just. We are talking about an earned right to citizenship. We are talking about them operating within the framework of a just set of laws.

“But we also talk about extending mercy. I hope that again – the language of the church thrives in this regards – that we understand that we are called to extend that measure of mercy. And that mercy means that the issue of family reunification act is indeed significant priority.”

Full article here

Immigration Reform Advocates Renew Calls on Postville Anniversary

To mark the one year anniversary of the Postville raid – the largest immigration raid in U.S. history at the time – proponents of immigration reform renewed their calls for new laws that protect workers and family unity.

Faith leaders joined with labor spokesmen to remind the public of the dire consequences that immigration raids have on communities. They recalled the hundreds of workers who were arrested and their children who had no one to care for them after the massive raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, last year.

Speakers during the media call on Monday sponsored by Justice for Immigrants and the Interfaith Immigration Coalition urged lawmakers to quickly move on creating new immigration laws.

“As we commemorate this anniversary we stand in solidarity with the 389 workers who were detained,” said Sister Mary McCauley, BVM, who was the pastoral administrator for St. Bridget’s Parish in Postville at the time of the raid. “We vigorously call for comprehensive immigration reform, just labor practices, family reunification and an end to raids.

…Government officials carried out a massive immigration raid last May on Agriprocessrs Inc. – the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. Dozens of federal agents and two law enforcement helicopters were deployed in the crackdown operation.

In the months that followed, church leaders reported that many families had left Postville to find jobs elsewhere, while a sizable number of illegal immigrants stayed behind taking refuge in churches. Those that lived in churches depended wholly on charity to survive on a daily basis since they could no longer work.

Some Postville pastors after witnessing the devastation caused by the raid urged politicians and Americans to not just look at the immigration issue as political, but to look at people as people and ask why they want to come to the United States and work.

“Although you might not find famine, you will find all kinds of political and economic problems [in their home country],” the Rev. Steve Brackett, senior pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Postville, said in a media call in December.

…Bishop John C. Wester, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration, called the current immigration policies “broken.”

He said that although he understands the “right and responsibility of the government to enforce the law,” the Postville raid did not solve the problem of illegal immigration but further added problems such as family separation and destruction of immigrant communities.

“Our religious and social response to such harm to our God-given human dignity is based on Scriptures, which call believers to welcome the newcomers among us, to treat the alien with respect and charity, and to provide pastoral and humanitarian assistance to individuals and their families,” Wester said.

Full article here

So what’s your take on this urge for reform?

It’s been a rainy, dreary start to the summer here in Philadelphia, but stumbling across this blog post brightened my day. A street artist in Toronto, Ontario, Canada has recycled some abandoned, empty newsstands that began collecting trash and graffiti tags and repurposed them as planter boxes as part of his “guerrilla gardening” project throughout the city. You can read all the posts related his project here, as well as view photos of all his flowerbox installations. Interestingly, it seems that all of his flyerbox planters have since been removed and the boxes themselves either taken away or completely replenished with flyers and advertising information. Still, what a beautiful way to transform a blight and inspire some action.

A repurposed flyer box from Toronto street artist Posterchild

Just got back from the Hoboken International Film festival with Jamie. Despite a slight misadventure with the GPS, the screening was a success with an enthusiastic audience who expressed their appreciation for the film and its message. Thanks to the super nice festival staff for helping everything go smoothly!

Next, it’s on to the First Batist Church in Red Bank, NJ for a screening on June 13th. Join us if you can! And as always, if you’re interested in setting up a screening in your area, contact Ryan at events@theordinaryradicals.com and we’ll make it happen!

-Rebekah

Monica Yant Kinney: Appeal to conscience carries the day 

by Monica Yant Kinney

Inquirer Columnist

“Twelve religious activists pulled off a legal miracle yesterday: They convinced a judge - who once worked for the Philadelphia Police Department, of all places - that it’s OK to break the law if the harm you cause is less than the harm you think you’re preventing.

…For six hours, a passionate prosecutor in a city beset by violence was put in the odd position of having to beat back factual evidence about a notorious gun seller.

…The protesters faced trespassing, disorderly conduct, and conspiracy charges for two demonstrations, one of which I viewed and chronicled as part of my efforts to beef up Pennsylvania’s anemic gun laws.

…On Jan. 14, I tagged along as the members of Heeding God’s Call staged a stand-in at Colosimo’s, hoping he would sign a voluntary 10-point code of conduct for responsible gun dealers.     

…Twenty percent of crime guns recovered in Philadelphia were purchased at Colosimo’s Gun Center, one of several somber statistics discussed at the trial. Another? That the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence crowned Colosimo’s the fifth-worst gun seller in America.

In a legal filing last year, City Solicitor Shelley Smith went so far as to say ‘Colosimo’s values profits over the lives of others.’ At best, she wrote, the store ‘knowingly continued its abysmally poor business practices after repeatedly being notified by ATF of its guns flowing into the hands of criminals. At worst, Colosimo’s knowingly traffics in crime guns.’

…’People are dying,’ activist Miriam Copp replied. ‘We have to take bold steps and personal risks to address the violence.’

…In closing arguments, defense attorneys Lawrence Krasner and Lloyd Long Jr. pressed the notion of justification, saying protesters hoped that temporarily stymieing gun sales would thwart crime.

…’Their behavior was justified,’ Krasner insisted, ‘because they were trying to prevent a great evil by doing a lesser evil.’”

 

 

 

 

Read the full article here.

More articles on the story:

12 protesters cite faith in Pa. gun shop arrests

Clergy targeting gun dealers: A religious coalition wants retailers to sign a “code of conduct” to cut arms sales to criminals

As you know, The Ordinary Radicals continues to gain exposure and stir up conversation as it makes its rounds through film festivals and other special screenings. But if we really want to give our exploration of this great social and Christian movement the attention it deserves we need more publicity, and that’s where you, our fans, come in. We’re looking for reporters, television, or radio program hosts that you know of or have connections with in your area who would be interested in covering the film. Send us an e-mail with their contact information so we can send a press release their way and spread the word to an even wider audience! As always, your help is greatly appreciated.

First off, a quick introduction: I’m Rebekah, the friendly new Promotions Assistant for The Ordinary Radicals.  I’ll be helping to keep things updated around here alongside Jamie and Ryan.

Second, I wanted to share some updates with you that were passed on to us from Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and our other friends at the School for Conversion:

• Jonathan and Shane had previously shared a list of “50 Ways to Become the Answer to Our Prayers” in an article in Sojourners Magazine in preparation for the National Day of Prayer on May 7th, hoping to turn the annual event into a day of prayer AND action. Since then, they’ve received beautiful stories from people who have used this list at National Day of Prayer gatherings and in their own churches and families, making the day a success. You can order copies of their book Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers and read an excerpt at InterVarsity Press. You can also read their op-ed in Newsweek/The Wasington Post’s On Faith column.
• The new monastic community of communities, a partner of School for Conversion, is hosting weekend visits as a way of “introducing folks to community life in the way of Jesus”. You can go here for more information or to register for a visit. You can also visit the community of communities’ website here.
• Shane will be joining Kelly Johnson, Will Samson, and others in a conference on “economic faithfulness in an age of consumerism” at the Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis on November 13th and 14th to discuss community, contentment, and creativity in the midst of economic crisis. You can visit the conference website for more information.
• Lastly, our good friend Jonathan has written a new book entitled God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel, that is due for release on October 1st of this year. For more information and to pre-order a copy, visit his website at jonathanwilsonhartgrove.com.

That’s all from me for now!

-Rebekah

Things continue to be exciting here as we continue to take the film on the road and as it’s the official selection at another film festival. The Hoboken International Film Festival has officially selected “The Ordinary Radicals” for its 2009 festival! And the festivals are starting to pile up on our “splash page”, which is a great thing.

But we decided we wanted to try something for all of you who’ve helped to support this project. We are declaring May 29, 2009 “The Ordinary Radicals” House Party Day! I know, you’re wondering what this means… we’re encouraging everyone to throw a screening party in their house, local coffee shop, their friend’s house, etc, and to invite friends, family, neighbors, people you might not even like to come to your party and to watch the film together. We are also offering a special package in case you don’t already have a DVD of the film. If you order a DVD & soundtrack and mention the words “House Party”, we’ll throw in some stickers, and a disc with the trailer for our upcoming film, and the first 50 orders will have their DVD autographed by the director, Jamie Moffett. The only condition for throwing a house party, is that you have to send an email over to events@theordinaryradicals.com an let us know where you are, how many folks you’re inviting, what time the screening is, and if you’d like… why Jamie should attend your party. You see, things are really busy around here with some upcoming projects, and while Jamie really wants to throw a party, he’s busy working on a bunch the next film, and as a result, I told him that I would find a really happening house party and send him to it. So, all you have to do is send an email with that info by May 20, 2009 and you are entered into the contest!* Once we receive your email, we’ll also send you a .pdf for a special poster that you can print and use to promote your party. We think this will be a great event and I can’t wait to pick where Jamie goes!  (And if it’s a really happening party, maybe I’ll even come!)  I’ll also be having Jamie call in to a few house parties to do a sort of Q & A, so even if Jamie doesn’t make it to your party, he might still be able to call or video chat it.  So start sending those party emails!

Also, if you’re interested in a larger screening for May 29 (for an organization, church, local theater, etc), send an email to events@theordinaryradicals.com and we’ll make it happen with a special reduced screening cost for that day.

Have a marvelous May!~

Ryan

*Disclaimer: The winner of the contest will be selected by Ryan, who will pick a winner based on whatever criteria he picks (which could be anything from the funniest idea for a party, to the party that will have the most unusual food item).