Thoughts

NARNIA
We woke up early to drive out to the Puente Hills AMC to see a special showing of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It was sponsored by our sister church Evangelical Free Church of Walnut. My aunt and cousins are members of that church. And let me tell you, they did a really good job sponsoring it! First, they asked members for donations so they could buy out one theater completely with the intent of inviting non-Christians. They also provided one free popcorn and soda to every attendee. Now granted, popcorn and soda at 9am isn't the breakfast of champions, but it was very thougthful and went above and beyond.
Prior to the start of the movie and immediately after it ended, one of their pastors Byron Chung (who spoke at the 1993 Alpha retreat) shared briefly about the Christian themes from the story. They also had a raffle where they gave out a few sets of the books, some stuffed Aslan toys, some Narnia kids activity/coloring books, and some cookies/chocolates (I guess to be like Edmund's Turkish delights). I was happy that my parents and my uncle went so they could hear about Jesus' life and death through the movie.
As for the movie itself, I felt it was really well done. Of course, the beginning started out slowly as they had to introduce all the characters and Narnia itself. But after all that intro stuff was done, the pacing improved, although that left little time for the war scene in the end. But, I felt they did a good job representing Aslan's sacrifice and Edmund's wayward ways.
It's a must-see . . . and I haven't said that about a movie in a long time.