The Super Mario Bros Movie “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:7–11) Three Kinds of Stories Dane Bundy, founder of Stage and Story, offers three helpful categories of stories: Whole, Bent, and Broken. A story fits into one of these categoires based on how it realtes to God's Ultimate Story (ie the Christian Worldview). Whole Stories are… Bent Stories are… Broken Stories are… The Thing to keep in mind with all these stories is that they will raise different kinds of questions or reactions in the audiance. For example, and whole story like Super Mario Bros will celebrate an idea that God's story celebrates. The story then asks us to consider why this idea is good, right, and beautiful. In a similar way, a Broken Story, in which Evil seems to prevail forces the audiance to long for a world made right where that doesn't really happen. It too can reflect God's Story by saying, “This is not the way things really shoudl be…” Mario Bros and the Necessity of Relationship “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”” (Genesis 2:15–18) We are made for relationships. Relationships of Love “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:7–11) Key Word: Propitiation Experiencing Loving Relationships Lifegroup Interest Form