This is a video that I’ll be watching over and over and over.
It’s pure magic! I needed this to help focus on relaxing a little bit more! Taking myself a little less seriously, and taking fun seriously. That is what it’s all about, isn’t it?
I really like #4 especially. Scaring yourself is fun 
Popularity: 8% [?]
This video really made my day Josh. Thanks for that.
Now I will go the day and the rest of my life with a BIG grin on my face.
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Josh Crocker Reply:
August 28th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
It made my day too! Matter of fact, it made my week! I’m thinking I’d like to touch on these eight principles separately. Got any thoughts on that?
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I thinking touching on the 8 principles should look something like this, because this is one of the most godless, christless videos I’ve ever seen.
1. Stop hiding who you really are.
A child of God that is commanded to follow after him and his desires not ours.
2. Start being intensly selfish
That is so anti-gospel, so anti-Christ, its not about you and being “all you can be” its about living life for others as a “living sacrifice”(Rom 12) Where is selfishness in any of that? Good thing Christ wasn’t selfish or we would be in a lot of trouble!
3.Stop following the rules
Really? that will make you happy? to push the edge? How about for the believer Rule number 3 should be follow after the very words of God. That might be a little more helpful to all of us.
Honestly I didn’t feel like watching the rest of the video but those are my thoughts on the first three rules, I cant imagine it will get much better as you go. Hey man I’m all for fun, but life is way to short and way to important to be living all for fun, savings accounts, good investing, and great fitness. The greatest ivestment we must be making is in the life’s of others with the Gospel of Christ. Because once your gone, thats all that matters.
I’m sorry but Christ should permiate all of life, not Fun. But I guess that’s not what all the popular self help books out there say so it must not be true. I pray that the love of Christ compels us and captivates us and not what this world tells us should captivate and control us. i.e. fun, success, money, fitness, happiness, the american dream. Those should never be our main goals, EVER! Scripture says the extreme opposite of all of those things should be our goal!
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Josh Crocker Reply:
August 29th, 2010 at 1:16 am
Hey Critical Reader,
First, thank you for your comment. I’m serious. People sometimes say “thanks” without really meaning it. I honestly am thankful you took the time to share your thoughts. Although I don’t agree with everything you said, some of it has great value and I’d love to talk more in-depth with you offline.
Three things:
1. Please understand the context of the video. You said that you only watched through to the third rule. That’s only 3/8ths of the presentation. You quoted from Romans 12 to me (one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture by the way)…When studying the Bible, you don’t just stop halfway through a chapter and make an assumption of what the entire chapter is about, right? Of course not. You read through to the end and understand the context. The rest of this video explains somewhat of the philosophy behind the “8 Rules”, and also the website at the end goes into even more depth.
2. Please understand author-intent. My blog is not a sounding board for theological debate or intended solely for a Christian audience. You have correctly identified me as a fellow-believer, and I’m always encouraged to find other Christians online! This blog is intended for a few reasons. Two of the main reasons are to be an opportunity to share in-depth with my fellow-minded readers some thoughts and cool things I find online, the other is to be a tool to strike up conversation here on the blog, and to further that conversation in a more personal relationship (via email, Skype, phone calls, or in some cases, even in person) off-site. When you said “The greatest investment we must be making is in the life’s of others with the Gospel of Christ. Because once your gone, thats all that matters”, I smiled, because that’s exactly what takes place off-site based upon conversations I’ve had with relationships that were started right here, by someone commenting on a topic that interested them. You’re exactly right when you say that life is too short to be living for all of those things, but they are still a part of life, and are areas where some people truly lack in motivation and encouragement. Jesus met the physical needs of those whom he was in contact with (example: feeding the 5,000 in Matthew 14), and then addressed their spiritual need. Well…here in the online realm, there are quite a lot of people looking for encouragement and motivation (a need that I’ve perceived that I could help them meet). Out of the relationships that have formed from meeting those emotional and social needs, opportunities to present the gospel to the un-believers, and to encourage believers, have arisen.
That being said…
3. I really do appreciate you reaching out to me. I would prefer that you had left me a real email address, but hopefully you’ll read this response and we can strike up a conversation and go into more detail on this. I actually smiled when I saw that your email was “youdontknowme@gmail.com”, because I would eventually like to know you. You’ve got some good insight and you could really help me out (and I think vice-versa if you’re willing). Anyways, shoot me a line at josh at joshcrocker dot com, or even click the link on the right-hand side to give me a call. I’d love to get to know you more.
Thanks again,
Josh
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This is to the critical reader,
That is a really interesting perspective on the video. I did not get that at all when I watched the video. Now, I have been reading the Bible but am not sure of all the details. One thing I did learn though is that you always look at the Bible. You mentioned in your comment, “I pray that the love of Christ compels us and captivates us and not what this world tells us should captivate and control us. i.e. fun, success, money, fitness, happiness, the american dream. Those should never be our main goals, EVER! Scripture says the extreme opposite of all of those things should be our goal!”
I have a question about that. I am not sure where it says those things and was wondering if you could share those with us. Would you help me out with that?
Also I am just not sure of all the stuff your got from the short video, I encourage you to watch the entire thing so as we discuss it we are on the same page. I do think as you go it clarifies some of the things that may have confused you. But again I might be wrong.
Thanks – I look forward to hearing from you. Your perspective really interested me.
Oh yeah one last thing – Just an observation but I served in the Marines and have done a lot in my life, the only people I have met that do not stand next to their name are cowards. Now I do not want to call you that because I want to be sure of it before I make so bold a statement. So I would really appreciate your response with a name.
As for me – My name is Timothy Morris. My email address is rusty.tim@gmail.com I have an online presence at http://www.intentionalinfluence.wordpress.com At the top of the site there are pages that are named Tenets I believe and About. They describe me in great detail and I would love for you to interact with my site to. I do not mind critics either.
Last word.
Josh – You have won my respect – way to go allowing this post. I know that you did not have to do so. Well Done!
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Short and sweet…
I like “ALOT” about this (that was for you Dale) as well as disagree with some points.
Hmmm… negative first haha:
No “fun is not what it’s all about”
No we shouldn’t be “selfish”
No we shouldn’t get rid of all the rules
There, now that’s done with, so here’s some positive:
Yes, we SHOULD lighten up
Yes, we SHOULD break some rules… the stupid man-made ones that are unproductive and unbiblical
Yes, we SHOULD be enjoying ourselves AND finding out who we are… In CHRIST though, not how the world allows for.
So, here’s the bottom line. I see what “Critical Thinker” is saying – when we take this outside of a Biblical framework, it IS very ungodly and Christ-less… but I don’t think that “Critical Thinker” is thinking critically.
As a Christian, I have my worldview filter all of those statements, and I learned/was reminded of a bunch of true life-lessons. It was fun. It was “cool”. It was refreshing. The problem is that at first glance (with out understanding that we wear Biblical glasses so to speak) this seems very worldly. Why? Well, because it is. It is, and that’s ok – we can STILL learn from it. For instance, “Critical Thinker” can learn from it – like loosening up and at least trying to find a nugget of truth or even humor… (or how to persevere and actually finish an 8:45 video before spending 10 minutes writing a response?)
So this brings up a problem with worldy-produced things: they are incomplete truths. The truths are interpolated within non-truths, or as we should call them “lies”. But, taken as an entire thought, like Tim pointed out, we should be able to learn nonetheless. On the other hand I’ve heard it said, “there’s good food thrown out every day, but that doesn’t mean we should be dumpster diving to look for it.” Either way, we’re confronted with these worldly materials all the time, so it shouldn’t be so hard to pull those truths out and enjoy them.
God’s truths are woven into all parts of life, and as Christians, we have the ability to discern those things when we see them. I saw some good truths tonight and will apply them. I saw some lies of the Enemy as well, and well, I’ll leave those in the dumpster. Please do the same.
Signed,
Nathan Andrew Kauffman
(full name, wow!)
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Dear “A Critical Reader” – I love that you posted what you did! No really, I always get a kick out of people who are trying wield the Bible like a sword but have obviously missed some major points in it.
First of all, I doubt your name is actually “A Critical Reader” though if it is, I can understand your attitude; I’d be critical too if that was my middle name. As for the “A”, I have a guess as to what that would stand for. In short, have the courage to use your name.
But let’s get back to the Bible, shall we. You say that you pray that the love of Christ compels us. Tell me then why you’ve blatantly gone against scripture and tried to call someone out by addressing them in public first? (I’d email you if you’d have used your real name, but unlike Josh, you’ve made no attempt at posting your contact information.) You’d do well to go back and check out Matthew 18 starting at verse 15. You should have come to Josh privately first if you thought he was promoting something wrong.
I’m also concerned that this is “one of the most godless, christless videos” you’ve seen. I assume that you’ve not watched many videos, because I can think of many, many more. Make your point without resorting to over the top statements. Exaggeration is just a fancy word for lying.
I think the thing that bothers me the most is that you think all of these things can only be pursued at the expense of a relationship with God. Christ died that we could have a dynamic relationship with the living God of the universe. Yes, there is sacrifice…but nothing says there’s not fun either? Let me tell you, anyone who turns 6 big jars of water into WINE has some idea of how to enjoy themselves; they didn’t just sit and stare at the jars of wine.
Josh is a godly man. He seeks to bless those around him while living a life for his God. His God is much bigger than these restrictions you seem to have on your god though, so I can understand that must be frustrating to see. I do know that Josh is extremely approachable though so if you’d like to know more ABOUT his God, I’m sure he’d be more than receptive to you reaching out to him as a real person instead of a stupid fake name.
Josh, Tim, Nathan, and I are all men of God. And from what I can gather, all of us believe that journey is also one that can be pursued with enjoyment.
The difference between me and the other three guys though, is that they are much nicer people than I am. As for me, I’m one of those Southern Christians with redneck roots…which means I’m willing to call you out as the ass that you apparently are. Use your real name next time and make your criticisms known first through private emails, ass!
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Josh,
Great post man! The video is cool and I like the music. Tim, thank you for being the Marine that you are! I love you man! Nathan, thanks for being my best friend for over 20 years. David, thank you for speaking as candidly as you did.
I’ve stopped watching at the 3rd point here because that’s seems to be the chic thing to do. Thank you, “A Critical Reader” person, for demonstrating the first 3 rules through your comment. You’re focused! You know exactly who you are, a critic. It takes a lot of self-confidence to know that no one will ever remember who your are, Christian or not.
You’re intensely selfish! You hijacked Josh’s conversation on his website for your own purposes. That is crazy focused!
And you were creative! You made up a fake email on the spot, off the cuff. Jerry Seinfeld would be proud @
“A Critical Reader”, fellow BBC-er, thank you for your insight and demonstration.
Thanks for everything guys! I’m gonna go finish the video while I finish my French Press coffee. I’ll try not to enjoy it too much and will be sure to flagellate myself before work if I do.
Joshua Edward Buisch
814 Main St.
Rear 2nd Floor
Dickson City PA, 18519
josh.buisch@gmail.com
570.871.0685
P.S. – we don’t call 911
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P.P.S. – Have any of you read Ernest Shakleton’s book, Endurance?! It’s AMAZING!!!!!!!!! It will kill the bellyaching right out of you! It’s so fantastic. Once of the greatest stories of all time. Those were real men.
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Wonderful! Such a great mix of music, graphics and wisdom; maybe I’ll play it ever morning when I wake up, before I watch the news or look at my inbox!
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Josh Crocker Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Holy moly! Tammy Camp!
I’m honored to have you post at my blog. Thanks for sharing! And yes, this is one that I keep going back to for reminders to take things lightly and for added motivation.
Cheers!
- Josh
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Ditto on the “Holy Moly Tammy Camp!”
that’s fantastic!
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