September 24, 2008

The Ordinary Radicals


Last night, I went with a small group from church to see a screening of Jamie Moffett's The Ordinary Radicals. In June and July of 2008, Jamie traveled with Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw and friends on an 11,000 mile journey of the United States (and Toronto). He filmed everything he saw, compiling some 5 terrabytes (wow!) of footage. With the help of 10 friends, Jamie edited the movie into 3 hours and 45 minutes. The real work started. After a couple more weeks of serious work, the movie is now a solid 99 minutes.

The movie was fantastic. Interviewing dozens of people whose imaginations are engaged in bringing heaven to earth, The Ordinary Radicals shows that there are people who are passionate about living out the words of Jesus, not just using/manipulating his words to defend a lifestyle of comfort and convenience. For too long, the media has (accurately) painted a very narrow picture of Christianity--obsessed with abortion, homosexuality, and other social taboos--drinking, smoking, tattoos. The Ordinary Radicals accurately shows that following Jesus means loving and living with the poor, feeding the hungry, and dreaming of ways of subverting the empire through small acts of amazing love.

The Ordinary Radicals comes out on DVD in a couple of weeks, and it will be one for my backpack. I'll carry it with me to show students (and others) that we're not following Jesus alone, but there's a whole community of ordinary people who are dreaming of bringing heaven to earth.
Here's the link to order or find out when it's coming near you:

6 comments:

The Waiter said...

Glad to hear it was good. I hated to miss it and can't wait to see it on DVD.

The Waiter said...

oh, what was most memorable to you from the experience?

Ethan said...

The winner from the Price is Right giving away everything to go play with orphans in Uganda was incredible. I loved all the stories, though, from the greasel bus to the "normal" family at the end, a college student who adopted two homeless children and bought a house.

Matt Paul said...

Cool stuff, bud. Thanks for sharing...

Sally said...

Can I barrow it when you get it? I was going to go, but the homework ate night.

When is Jamie leaving? I can help with the girls an afternoon or two if you'd like me to.

Anonymous said...

Ryan Quinley told me about this, and he might have seen it from this blog. But we are definitely going to buy that DVD!!