I’m having trouble finding out any real details on this video, mainly because everything I find is in Spanish. But from what I can interpret, Jotta A. is a 12-year old singing sensation who appeared on a “Raul Gil” show and sang Michael W. Smith’s song, Agnus Dei.
The video is making its rounds in Christian-circles and I think is a powerful illustration of a young man using God-given talent to bring glory to the Lord!
Recently, I was sent a copy of the DVD, “Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl” by the folks who produced it – Beloved Pictures.
The DVD is self-described as:
“An idea film. A bookumentary. A cinematic treatment of a worldview. A poet live in concert. A motion picture sermon. VH1 Storytellers meets Planet Earth. 60 Minutes meets Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. In this unusual but fascinating film sequence, best-selling author N.D. Wilson gives an emotional and intellectual tour of life in this world and the final chapter that is death. Everything before and after and in between is a series of miracles – some of which are encouraging, others disturbing and uncomfortable.”
Here is the trailer for the movie:
As I took in this unique form of media I couldn’t help begin to write this blog-review in my head and if I’m honest had some trouble formulating my response to this piece of art.
N.D. Wilson has quite a resume of education, authorship, and accolades and is the main subject of this film. Not having read his book (or anything from him previously) I would assume that his speaking style in this film mimics his writing style (again, the DVD is described as a ‘bookumentary’).
I originally assumed this film would possibly be used as a possible discipleship curriculum. After reviewing it, I’m not so sure. There is an accompanying “study guide” in PDF format that I was able to download in a few steps and printed off, but I’m not sure in my context if this style of ‘curriculum’ would be well-suited.
I do think I will use this resource as a pass-it-on opportunity to those in my circles needing a new, relevant, thought-invoking look at the Gospel message who thrive on intellectual conversations.
Uhm. Wow. I will be seeing this movie.
More information can be found on the movie’s IMDB page here.
The movie is based on the TRUE STORY of Sam Childers.
His story is fascinating – I can’t wait to see the movie-adaptation of it!
Since the 80’s, the art-form known as “Spoken Word” has continued to gain in popularity. Some think of it as an offshoot of rap or hip-hop, and others as simply another form of poetry. Whatever the definition, I enjoy it.
I stumbled upon this video featuring a unique Gospel presentation by the artist, “Propaganda” that I think is worth sharing:
I agreed to spend a week at our district youth camp this Summer serving in numerous capacities, but one of the main one was as the “AV Guy”, handling the video & sound needs from the back of the room during our worship rallies. I love this role!
This year I happened to receive an invite to the music service, Spotify, just a few days before camp began and I instantly knew that I would be using it during our week of camp. During pre-rally times and during some of our events that take place in the tabernacle we oftentimes play music in the background to keep things flowing. This music is usually stored on one or more computers that we plug in and out of the sound system throughout the week.
This year we used Spotify. Spotify is a “cloud-based” music service and allows playback of millions of songs from their HUGE library! The service can be logged into from any computer with Internet-access and can get you streaming music from their library in a matter of moments!
For $4.99, we upgraded to Spotify’s “Unlimited” plan for the week. This was a month-long subscription, and I was able to easily cancel it after camp. This plan offered us NO advertising interruptions, which helped because we were playing songs one right after the other with no break. (I think with the FREE version, I experience a 15-30 second advertising once every 5-10 songs)
The big bonus for using Spotify at camp was asking for student-input into our camp-week playlist! I would grab student after student and ask them what artist and/or song they would like to have added to the playlist and was almost-always able to oblige because of Spotify’s huge library of music! Our playlist for the week offered songs from Toby Mac, Owl City, and dozens of others to attempt to satisfy the tastes of our 100+ students and leaders gathered throughout the week. I was continually impressed that Spotify had many of the Christian-artists that we wanted to add to our camp playlist.
If you haven’t yet joined Spotify, you’re not alone – they’re still limiting the number of users here in the U.S. and invitations are few and far between. The two that I was given a few weeks ago were gobbled up quickly via my offer on Social Media. Even without an official invitation, you can head to Spotify.com and enter your email address to be notified when they are accepting new members!
Also, be sure to check out some of Spotify’s features (even before you sign up) to know how it works and how to make it work best for YOU!
