Author Archives: davetcourt

I was listening to an episode of Kingdom Roots podcast this morning titled Discipling Our Emotions speaking with scholar and theologian Becky Castle Miller, and they were unpacking the recent and revolutionary research on science of “emotions” that surfaced back around 2016 and has since been growing to become the dominant view. The shift representsContinue reading “Emotions As Construct and the the Discipling of our Emotions: Reflections on Kingdom Roots with Becky Castle Miller”

The best that can be said of Irish cinema today is that it certainly exists. Even with its strata of ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ films, its commercial entertainments and its dark dramas, Irish film at least now produces enough films for there to be such divisions in the first place. The identity of an Irish cinemaContinue reading “Happy St. Patricks Day: A Reflection on Irish Film History and My Favorite Irish Films”

Movies Help (2022) Directed by Marc Munden Who would have thought I would be ready for and fully emabracing a pandemic movie in the early goings of 2022. And yet here I am not only embracing it but fully feeling the emotional weight of its tightly woven and intimately drawn human drama. It really isContinue reading “Month in Review: Favorite Watches, Listens: February 2022”

*this is the transcipt for a sermon I gave on John 16 on Sunday, March 6th, 2022. Back in the summer of 2021 Jen and I took advantage of the recently opened provincial borders to travel to Eastern Canada. We were definitely feeling the isolation of the last year with the ongoing pandemic. We wereContinue reading “Reflections on John 16: In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world”

In his book Talking to Strangers, Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell delves into the psychology of our togetherness which makes us human. His particular focus is on how it is that we relate to on another in a world filled with competing information. Understanding that we come together with “different assumptions, perspectives and backgrounds” and differentContinue reading “Malcolm Gladwell and Talking to Strangers: Finding Order in the Disorder of our Living in this World Together”

Watching the news this week and with everything happening in Ukraine caused me to look back on the film travels exercise I did in 2020, where I travelled the world through film researching individual film cultures, watching their films, and then reflecting on what I learned through my travels. One of the biggest things IContinue reading “Ukraine, film travels, and locating a country through the story of its film industry”

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world.”John 16:33 So much hinges on this small verse at the end of a section commonly understood to depict Jesus’ followers as standing opposed to a world that “hates” them and persecutes them for simply believing in Jesus. To be hatedContinue reading “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world: What John 16 Can Teach Us About Pandemics, Truth, Convoys and Freedom”

Some thoughts that came from a discussion with someone regarding what, if we could just take a step back from the highly charged division and speak honestly for a second, it is that I genuinely think, fear and wonder about coming out of this past week living and Canada and measuring the reality of theContinue reading “Pandemics, Convoys, Freedoms and Fear: Some Thoughts on Being a Canadian and a Christian in a Divisive Climate”

Movies 1. The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966))  The story follows two essential characters- a man with a facial disfigurement who gets a mask which he wears to cover up his blemishes, and a young woman with a scar that holds in its presence the larger story of war, post war reality, and socio-politicalContinue reading “Favorite Watches, Reads and Listens: Month in Review for January 2022”

John 3:1-21 New International Version Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”Continue reading “John 3:1:21: Reimaging a Familiar Text As a Message of Hope For Our Present Times”