Hey there, if you came to The Rock or Epic this week, chances are you heard me start off our new Sunday series, “The Search for Meaning,” a journey through the book of Ecclesiastes. One of the things I touched on was Solomon’s comment in Ecclesiastes 1:9, ”What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, nothing new under the sun.” Solomon was a pretty wise guy, and I think he was right on when he wrote that, especially when it comes to movies this summer. Have you noticed all the “3″ movies this summer? Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and Pirates of the Carribean 3 have already all come out, and they are making tons of cash. Ocean’s 13, the third movie in the ”Ocean’s” series comes out today. Rush Hour 3, the fourth Die Hard flick, and the third Bourne Identity movie are coming out later this summer. Are there really that few original ideas in Hollywood? A summer full of nothing but sequels and old kids cartoons turned into movies (Transformers)? Don’t get me wrong, I have already seen Spiderman 3 and Shrek the Third and I plan on seeing the others as well, so I am just contributing to sequel madness, but I actually much prefer seeing a film that is truly original - like the first Matrix film or Memento.

Having said all that, I did get to see another sequel this past week - Evan Almighty starring Steve Carell. Some of you are wondering how I got to see a movie that doesn’t come out for another two weeks - I actually got to see a special screening of the film on Tuesday night. I got an invitation for youth pastors and workers to check out a sneak preview of the film - how cool is that?!?! Anyway, if you saw the original film Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey, it was a stinkin’ hilarious film with some excellent Biblical messages throughout the movie. When I learned that Carrey was not going to be in the sequel, I didn’t get my hopes up. But the movie turned out to be pretty good, Steve Carell is funny, Morgan Freeman returns to play the character of God, and John Goodman plays a convincing villian. And while there are some cheesy moments in the movie, there are several excellent messages about God’s love, man’s plans vs. God’s plans, and how God chooses to answer prayer. I don’t want to give away anything more, but I highly recommend the film. I took my three and five year old sons to see it and they really enjoyed it. And for you parents that are reading this, it is a clean movie with almost no innuendo. So go check it out when it comes out on June 22 and enjoy a sequel that you can have a meaningful conversation about afterwards.