Now Warren is finding a new purpose: tackling his outsized waistline.
Warren, 58, says the revelation came about a year ago, during a marathon baptism session of about 800 people at Saddleback Church.
As he struggled to submerge members of his flock in the baptismal pool one by one, he realized his parishioners were heavy and that he, too, was fat, setting a terrible example.
Warren says his gradual weight gain — about two to three pounds a year — has added up over his 30 years as a pastor. To lose the extra pounds and inspire others to do the same, the former football player enlisted the help of three doctors.
Warren recruited a family physician, Dr. Mark Hyman; Dr. Mehmet Oz, New York Times best-selling author and host of NBC’s “The Dr. Oz Show”; and Dr. Daniel Amen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, and the lone Christian in the mix.
Together they launched “The Daniel Plan: God’s Prescription for Your Health,” named after a passage in the biblical Book of Daniel where the prophet and fellow Israelites refuse to accept “royal” food and wine from the Babylonian king, opting for water and simple vegetables instead.
The Daniel Plan encourages parishioners to link into Saddleback’s vast network of small Bible study groups as support systems to get fit. Congregants exercise together at weekly classes such as “Walk & Worship” and “Pump & Praise.” The three doctors offer tips on healthy eating and participants can create a health profile online.
Since the launch of the plan a year ago, more than 15,000 people have signed up and participants have shed a combined total of at least 250,000 pounds, according to the church. The 6-foot-3 Warren, who started the program at 295 pounds, shed 60 pounds in the first year.
Amen, a Saddleback member, said “churches are by and large a place of illness.”
“I’m tired of fat football coaches and fat pastors,” Amen said.
The advantage of losing weight in a church, he said, is the support of the built-in community. “When you’re surrounded by other people who have the same values, and they have the same health habits, you’re going to do so much better,” he said.
Tammie Allen, 41, a mother of two and a Saddleback parishioner, joined the Daniel Plan with other members of her Monday night Bible study group.
“You can’t do it alone, and you can’t do it without God’s power,” said Allen, who started exercising with other Saddleback parishioners and chose more fruits and vegetables. So far, she’s dropped 97 pounds.
“My daughter tells me all the time she loves being able to put her arms around me.”
Jim and Melanie Black, who just celebrated their 11-year anniversary, joined the program together and have dropped their taste for fast food. They say the motivation behind the change is noteworthy — it’s not for vanity’s sake.
“We’re doing it so we can serve God at a higher level,” said Jim Black.
Chiquita Seals, 45, a single mother of two, is so far the church’s biggest loser.
“In the beginning I thought, ‘This is just another diet program,’” she said. Seals said she assumed she was “going to be eating rabbit food.”
After all, Seals said, she had tried other diet programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, but this is the only one that stuck. When she began the Daniel Plan she weighed 267 pounds. She now weighs 135.
“All my life I thought that I could never be used by God,” Seals confessed in a video posted on the church’s website. But after losing the pounds, “I know I can be used by God.”
To be sure, the program has attracted scrutiny. The church posted an online response to those who questioned the use of non-Christian doctors to help lead the program, saying that members “will never compromise our belief that Jesus is the only way to heaven or that the Bible is the 100 percent completely infallible and perfect Word of God.”
“These doctors are helping us as friends,” the statement concludes. “But are in no way advising our church on spiritual matters.”
For his part, Warren still hopes to drop another 30 pounds. And, in typical Warren fashion, he’s spreading his message to other churches. The bottom line, Amen said, is those looking to lose weight are in luck.
“If for whatever reason your family won’t do it with you,” he said, “well, you now have the family of Saddleback.”
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The Advertising Standards Authority, the independent regulator of advertising in all British media, ruled that the ads generated by the group Healing on the Streets are irresponsible and misleading.
The ASA, whose tight rules are considered among the world’s most stringent, cites a leaflet produced by the group from its center in the spa town of Bath, England, claiming that God “can heal you from any sickness.”
Among illnesses that can be cured with divine help, it said, are “ulcers, depression, allergies, fibromyalgia, asthma, paralysis, phobias, sleeping disorders or any other sickness.”
The ASA told the BBC that someone had complained about the group’s leaflets and website, and the panel had “concluded that (the ads) could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.”
In a statement, the healing group said “it seems very odd to us that the ASA wants to prevent us from stating on our website the basic Christian belief that God can heal illness.”
The group added that it had tried to reach a compromise with the advertising panel, “but there are certain things that we cannot agree to, including a ban on expressing our beliefs.”
For more information, the group said, “see the Bible.”
According to the BBC, the Healing the Streets ministry was launched seven years ago in Northern Ireland and its tenets have been taken up by scores of churches throughout Britain.
]]>Bible League International is working with the Digital Bible Society to carry the thumbnail-sized chips to Christians in countries, such as China or Saudi Arabia, where possessing unapproved religious materials can result in prosecution or even death.
“It’s like a miniature Christian bookstore,” said Robert Frank, Global CEO of Bible League International, an Illinois-based non-profit evangelical ministry dedicated to training church leaders using the Bible.
The digital ministry continues the historic work of the Bible League, which went international after World War II when Gen. Douglas MacArthur asked U.S. Christian groups to send Bible to Japan.
The Bible League’s 2011 merger with the Texas-based World Bible Translation Center expanded its abilities to get materials to Christians around the world in their own languages.
The Digital Bible compresses data for maximum storage, then copies the material to cell phone cards, thumb drives, CDs and DVDs, depending upon the country where they will be used. The advantage of the format is that a person can use them, but leave no trace on a computer of their use, unlike the trails left by accessing websites.
Publishers who made their work available for the chip have also agreed to allow the copying of the cards without a fee, Frank said. The works have been translated into Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin and other languages of areas where Christians are persecuted.
“And the content has been donated,” said Synetta Armstrong, senior director of global communications for the Bible League, who demonstrated the chip at last fall’s Religion Newswriters Association conference. “We want to spread the word of God.”
In addition to several versions of the Bible, each of the Digital Bible libraries include worship music, movies, Bible commentaries, a study library, a copy of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” and other landmark books about discipleship, ministry and history, as well as more than 1,200 images which can be used for a pastor’s study and for teaching others.
“Pastors in these countries want to be trained, but they have no seminaries,” said Melany Ethridge, a spokeswoman for the Bible League.
]]>The only real reason I saw Spike Lee’s new film at the Sundance Film Festival here is because it is set in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, where my oldest daughter started her career in an elementary school with Teach for America.
Even though I think and write about religion for a living, I didn’t attend “Red Hook Summer” because the program guide describes it as the story of a “firebrand preacher bent on getting (his grandson) to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior.”
After all, why would anyone expect a nuanced, respectful exploration of the black church in America from Spike Lee? Let’s face it, the words “Spike Lee” and “theologian” don’t roll off the tongue very easily, if at all.
So imagine my surprise when “Red Hook Summer” delivered a humorous, honest look at the vibrancy, complexity, sincerity and messiness of African-American Christianity.
The story begins with Flik, a teenager who attends a private school in Atlanta and enjoys the finer things of life. His life is turned upside down when his mother sends him off to Brooklyn for the summer to stay with his preacher grandfather, Enoch.
Flik is certainly unprepared for life in the projects, but is even less prepared for working every day at his grandfather’s Little Piece of Heaven church. The only upside is meeting Chazz, a sassy teen who has learned to negotiate life on the streets of Red Hook with her life in the church.
She’s a believer but not stuffy about it, and helps Flik get through the Sunday worship service, which is punctuated by Enoch’s theatrical rants, the spirited “Amens!” of the congregation and the melodramatic sounds of the Hammond organ.
The heart of this film is grandpa Enoch. As the story begins we get hints that Enoch is a man with a past, and it reaches its dramatic climax when we realize that though Enoch is done with his past, his past is not done with him.
Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon from “The Wire”) in the role of Enoch delivers a textured, multi-layered performance that does for the role of a black pastor what Robert Duvall did for revivalists in “The Apostle.” These characters are believable, complicated and likable.
At the Q&A following the film, it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one surprised that Lee delivered a thoughtful, respectful and savvy film about religion. The first audience question was about Lee’s personal religious background. He never attended church as a boy in Brooklyn, he explained, although some summers he was sent to stay with relatives in Atlanta who made sure he did.
Suffice it to say that church and religion have not played a central role in Lee’s life.
So what is the source of the film’s religious content? To answer that question, Lee introduced his co-author on the script, James McBride, and the richness of the film immediately made complete sense.
I interviewed McBride in Chicago in the 1990′s about his best-selling book “The Color of Water.” It was an autobiographical account of his Jewish mother who converted to Christianity and, with her husband, founded the church where “Red Hook Summer” was filmed.
McBride talked about his belief in God and Jesus, and said his faith was renewed and strengthened during the writing and making of the film. He also talked about spirited debates with Lee about certain scenes where McBride’s desire to respect religion collided with Lee’s determination to keep it gritty and real. It was a productive tension, and it worked.
I still find it fascinating that Lee would make a film about religion, and that he teamed up with McBride to do it. Sundance is all about telling stories, and “Red Hook Summer” tells a center-stage story about the importance of religion.
(Dick Staub is author of “About You: Fully Human and Fully Alive” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at www.dickstaub.com)
]]>As the consultants, electricians, farmers and entrepreneurs in the Specific Ministry Pastor Program met up before reconnecting online from hundreds or thousands of miles away in the coming weeks, one student’s story truly rocked.
David Ellefson was an honest-to-God founding member of the legendary thrash metal band Megadeth.
Ellefson’s studies at Concordia illustrate why distance-learning seminary programs are increasingly popular nationwide as the convenience of online education brings new candidates to divinity schools who don’t have to uproot their lives to attend.
But for Ellefson, his new quest for the ministry is also about a peculiar foray through the apparent contradictions of rock and religion that began in his childhood.
Ellefson grew up in the church. Each Sunday, his family drove from their farm in southwest Minnesota to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, where David attended Sunday school and was confirmed at age 16. His mother sang in the choir; his father was active on the building committee.
Just a few years after his confirmation in the summer of 1983, Ellefson moved to Los Angeles. Within a week, he had formed a band and named it Megadeth for the unit of measurement equal to the death of 1 million people by nuclear explosion.
Soon, he was playing bass on stage in front of thousands of heavy metal fans in New York with other bands like Metallica and Slayer. In 1985, Megadeth released its first album, “Killing Is My Business … And Business Is Good!”
In the 1980s and 1990s, Megadeth gained a reputation for an intelligent take on heavy metal, earning several Grammy Award nominations, and was known for its album covers, many of which depicted a character named Vic Rattlehead, a skeleton whose eyes, ears and mouth were fused closed with metal.
But by the time Ellefson was 25, the rock star lifestyle had caught up to him. In a 12-step recovery program, he was reintroduced to his faith and embraced it. He moved to Arizona, married and had children. He eventually landed at Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church, a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregation in Scottsdale.
“I came from a good family, not a broken home,” said Ellefson, 47. “That became a model for me, and I saw church at (the) center of it.”
The Rev. Jon Bjorgaard, pastor of Shepherd of the Desert, asked Ellefson to start a contemporary worship service. Ellefson began to use lyrics from the Old Testament as a springboard for song writing, penning praise music and worship songs with a soft-rock hook.
“For a Christmas service, I remixed some classics, not quite in a Megadeth fashion, but in a pretty heavy rock fashion,” Ellefson said.
Combining his musical abilities and his faith led Ellefson to a deeper exploration of Christianity, he said. And it led him to start a new music ministry within the walls of Shepherd of the Desert.
He called it MEGA Life, partially a play on Megadeth. But it’s also a reference to a verse from the Gospel of John: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
MEGA Life became so popular that Shepherd of the Desert bought a new space for the ministry. Last year, Bjorgaard asked Ellefson and MEGA Life director Jeremy DaPena to enroll in Concordia’s Specific Ministry Pastor Program.
“Most people want to become a rock star,” Bjorgaard said. “David’s a rock star who wants to become a pastor.”
After two years at Concordia, Ellefson will be eligible for ordination, something he hopes will happen. “People take you more seriously when you’ve gone through the proper training to be able to help them,” he said.
David Wollenburg, director of Concordia’s distance learning, said more than 100 students are enrolled in the program, which is limited to students who have been sponsored by someone already working in the ministry. Classes include “Lutheran Distinctions,” “Preaching I & II,” “Introduction to Worship” and “Scripture and Faith.”
Wollenburg said students are as young as 35 and as old as late 60s, and their interests are just as varied — from church planting to inner-city ministries. Students return to campus every so often for “residential retreats.”
The trend of distance learning at divinity schools “is definitely growing,” said Eliza Brown of the Association of Theological Schools, the accreditation body for U.S. seminaries. But there is some debate about its merits, she said.
“Some feel you can’t be adequately formed as a church leader unless you’re engaged in a residential program that has serious face-to-face formation components,” she said. Despite that concern, 124 seminaries accredited by the organization offer some form of distance education.
As Megadeth kicks off a new tour with Motorhead, Ellefson plans to tackle his studies during down time on the Megadeth tour bus with his laptop and some books. He’s under no illusion about how difficult it will be.
“This is going to be the acid test,” he said.
Classes begin each Monday, and on Tuesday nights, Ellefson and eight other students wired in from around the country sit in on a two-hour live session with a professor teaching from a Concordia classroom. Once a week, he meets with Bjorgaard to discuss that week’s work. Finally, late in the week, he uploads his homework for the professor to grade.
“It makes higher education possible for me,” he said. “As a guy my age, to be involved in any kind of higher learning is a great thing. And so far, it’s worked.”
]]>Beauty is the third film of the famed “Disney Renaissance” period after The Little Mermaid and The Lion King and was the first animated film ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. (And that was when they only allowed 5 pictures to compete for that title.) Even without the 3D hoopla, the film is beautiful as is. It tells a great story with memorable songs and characters. At the very least, this reissue is a good excuse to see the film back on the big screen.
An extra special bonus is the new Tangled short about the wedding of Rapunzel and her prince. However, the story is more about the horse and gecko chases after the bridal parties’ rings. It is hilarious and almost worth the price of admission by itself.
Like many Disney animated pictures, Beauty is a simple story that tackles some pretty deep themes:
Entertaining Angels Unaware
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2 (KJV)
At the very beginning of the story an old beggar woman offers a young prince a rose in exchange for a night’s stay out of the weather. Disgusted with her appearance, he turns her away unaware that she is actually a beautiful enchantress in disguise. Because of the prince’s selfishness, she casts a spell over him turning him into a hideous beast and his servants into furniture and household items. This is similar to the verse, Hebrews 13:2. This isn’t to say that your guardian angel is armed and ready to change you into a creature at a moment’s notice, but more of a challenge for us to act in a way that is honoring to God whether someone is watching us or not.
Christians are Odd
“You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:22 (NIV)
Belle loves books more than people. She loves to learn, dreams of leaving her small town and wishes she could see the world. Because of this, all the townspeople think she is odd. As Christians, we sometimes get the same treatment. We love God’s book and we long for a better afterlife in heaven.
Sacrifice
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 (NIV)
When Belle’s father, Maurice, is thrown into the Beast’s dungeon due to his trespassing into the castle, Belle offers to take his place. Maurice of course objects to this arrangement but is thrown outside before Belle can change her mind. She would rather sacrifice her life as a slave of the Beast than to have her father face a similar fate.
Kindness
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4 (NIV)
After a fit of anger the Beast chases Belle away. Soon, she and her horse are attacked by wolves. Surprisingly, they are both rescued by the Beast but he falls due to his injuries. Belle turns to leave but decides to care for the Beast instead. The Beast is touched by Belle’s decision and in return offers to give her his entire library.
Unconditional Love
“But God show his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV)
At the climax of the story, the Beast lays dying in Belle’s arms. In tears, she whispers that she loves him, the hideous Beast. Suddenly, the Beast is revived and turns back into the handsome prince, but Belle doesn’t recognize him. It’s not until she looks into his eyes and sees that they are the same that she rejoices in his salvation. Belle was able to accept Beast as he was unconditionally. The fact that he was really a handsome prince was just a bonus.
Originally posted on Examiner.com
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Watch the trailer at http://filmtimes.net/joyful-noise/
Almost everyone know someone who isn’t all quite together, but you love them anyway because deep inside they are a wonderful person.
That is much like Joyful Noise, the new Queen Latifah/Dolly Parton flick about dueling choir directors and their families. Latifah can do no wrong in my book and you can’t help but like Parton. She pretty much plays herself in every role she plays, but she is so dog gone likeable.
Bernard Sparrow (Kris Kristofferson) is the choir director of Divinity Church in Pacashau, Georgia. Each year his choir enters, and loses, the Joyful Noise Gospel Music Competition.
After he passes away from a heart attack, Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) appoints Vi Rose Hill (Latifah) to be the new leader instead of Bernard’s wife, G. G. (Parton). Vi likes the more traditional music while G.G. likes to mix things up.
Living practically as a single mother, Vi raises two teenagers on her own; Olivia (Keke Palmer) who is also a member of the choir and Walter (Dexter Darden) who struggles (unconvincingly) with Aspergers syndrome. G. G. Is all alone until her wayward grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) shows up and takes a shine to Olivia which furthers the struggle between the two choir mistresses.
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Putting Latifah and Parton in sparring roles is pure genius. Their verbal assaults at one another is hilarious especially a food fight spat that shown in a diner.
Like her real life counterpart, G.G. sports razor sharp fingernails, a plastic face incapable of frowning and tightly hemmed choir robe and pokes fun of herself. Her relatively good nature is a great foil against Vi’s uptight personality. Still, with all that spunk, Parton comes off a little fragile and the exchanges are too short.
The music, and there is a lot of it, is great. You already know that Dolly and Queen can sing, but Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee) and Jordan (in his first film role, but well known on Broadway) are a wonderful surprise. Kristofferson sings and appears only briefly.
He actually speaks instead of sings much of his duet with Parton, which was disappointing. Other cast members are fellow Broadway stars that fill out the choir well.
Joyful Noise is best when it focuses on its main characters, but instead, it insists on taking on multiple storylines that somehow waters down rather than add to the film. Overall, the plot is rather cheesy but it has heart.
Some scenes are genuinely touching and others are surprisingly realistic (don’t EVER tell Queen that she is not pretty!), but the overall it feels hollow. The message of hope and the need for Jesus in our lives is loud and clear, but the message is uneven.
For instance, it’s not clear why Randy shows up in the first place. He’s presented as a “bad boy” who never enjoyed “church music” before meeting Olivia. By the end of the movie, we know that he has a good heart, but he doesn’t show any signs of a stronger faith.
Now a warning: Don’t go in thinking you’ll be seeing a good old-fashioned Christian movie. While the music is great, you won’t be hearing any familiar standards and at least half of the songs are versions of popular pop songs that aren’t necessarily spiritual, but they are uplifting. Noise is more liberal than most faith-based movies with mild language and adult situations. It’s not a story for young children.
Watch the trailer at http://filmtimes.net/joyful-noise/
Originally posted at the Examiner.
]]>Twenty-one years later, the woman the world now knows as Saint Marianne Cope left Syracuse to work as a missionary among the lepers in Hawaii. Even during her lifetime, many considered her a saint for her bravery, compassion and leadership. She spent 35 years ministering to hundreds of people so feared that the Kingdom of Hawaii banished them to a remote, desolate peninsula of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai.
“When the roll of the saints is called, Mother Marianne will be there,” Syracuse reporter Fred Dutcher wrote in The Post-Standard after Mother Marianne died Aug 9, 1918. “Fifty-six of the eighty years of her life she gave in the service of the Man of Galilee whose touch made a leper clean, and thirty-five of those she devoted in ministration to the doomed people of Molokai.”
Dutcher’s prediction came true last month, when the Sisters of St. Francis learned that Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Cope a saint. She will be canonized next year. The designation came after an intense, 40-year-long process. The Franciscan sisters gathered thousands of pages of research about their heroine, toured the places she lived and worked and collected information about miracles, including two the Vatican ultimately ruled were healings of people whose recovery doctors could not explain.
The long journey to sainthood began with a modest life in Central New York. From 1862 to 1883, the future saint was a Franciscan leader and administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse.
Cope was born Jan. 23, 1838, in Germany. Before she was 2, her family moved to Utica and Americanized the last name from “Koob” to “Cope.” She moved to Syracuse after her father died of an illness in 1862. She took the name Marianne when she entered the convent
Cope was about 5 feet tall, with a towering personality. Accounts also hint at some unsaintly traits: a sharp tongue and perhaps a bit of impatience.
Cope lived at the hospital with the nurse-sisters she supervised while also supervising the St. Francis Convent and helping to lead the community of sisters. She made the 30-to-40-minute walk — wearing a full-length skirt and a headpiece — to fulfill work obligations.
Her order had been founded in 1860 by three sisters from Philadelphia responding to a request to work with immigrants in Utica and Syracuse, which were then part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
The Syracuse-based Franciscans are one of many men’s and women’s religious communities that take their inspiration from St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian friar who cast off his family’s wealth in favor of a life serving the poor and weak.
Cope kept journals while in Hawaii, and some survived, as have some letters. Few of her writings reveal personal thoughts; instead, the majority are businesslike records. Several biographical accounts describe her as constantly busy with the administrative work of the order and the hospital.
Cope is said to have “administered the hospital from top to bottom … reverence for the patients was her main concern and she could often be found sitting by a patient’s bedside after the lights went out.”
She believed that everyone deserved to be treated respectfully, including alcoholics and lepers.
“The charity of the good knows no creed and is confined to no one place,” Cope wrote in 1870.
]]>This little app promises to do big things. With Bible360 you can “surround yourself in God’s Word” the website says. The program has many features that are divided in five sections:
- Bible – Provided in its natural order (canonically) and in four translations: NIV, ESV, The Message and KJV.
- Atlas – Not flat maps, but zoomable, pan-able online maps with tons of photos.
- Timeline – See where the events in the Bible happened in context with one another.
- Media – You can organize the content of your Bible by media type including videos, vitual realities and photo.
- Topical – Addresses major life questions of the Christian faith and helps you find biblical content by topic, person, place or thing through a zoomable interface.
“With Bible360, people everywhere now have the ability to explore Biblical History in an insightful, accessible and immersive way,” said Burnett and Downey in a joint statement. “We are thrilled to provide millions of people with a fresh visual experience as they enjoy this sacred text.”
“It is an honor to be collaborating with some of the leading content creators on this new, socially-charged app,” said Bible360 President, John Kilcullen. “It’s our hope that Bible360 will be a tool to empower people to dive deeper into the Bible and engage in valuable conversations about the book within their communities.”
A basic version of Bible360 is available now and free at bible360.com. A premium version of the app is also available. The app can be downloaded for use on iPads, iPhones, or your Mac or PC computer.
The above announcement comes with another announcement of Burnett and Downey’s doing. They are currently producing a 10 part miniseries, HISTORY, for the History television network to be aired next year. It is being produced by Downey’s Lightworkers Media and the footage will eventually be incorporated into the Bible360 app.
HISTORY is actually, Lightworkers’ second project. The first is a new animated series for preschool-aged children called Little Angels for Focus on the Family. Downey not only voices one of the characters, but produces the series with Phil Lollar, a writer for Focus’ Adventures in Odyssey series.
]]>Previewing January 2, ABC features a spin off of the series with Celebrity Wife Swap. The show is essentially the same except that these are celebrity mom or wives of celebrities. In the first part of the “swap” each mom moves into the other’s home and assumes the role of the other with the “house rules” written by the other mom. In the second half of the week, the “new” mom gets a chance to write out “new” rules for the adopted household. At the end of the episode, the two celebrity couples meet for the first time and discuss their adventures.
I was given the opportunity to preview the first two episode of the series and I think it’s worth watching. Some celebrities have hired help, others do not. Some are neat and tidy, some are not. Some have very strict rules, others do not – and on it goes. As the viewer, you get the unique opportunity to see what life is really like for celebrity families minus a little editing here and there.
Although the short series begins Tuesday, a preview episode was shown Monday at 10:00 p.m. The press materials describe the episode this way: “A self-described control freak, actress and producer Tracey Gold swaps her very organized home with free-spirited singer/actress/TV host Carnie Wilson, a believer that love is more important than rules.”
These two households couldn’t be different from each other, making this a fascinating episode. Both families have something to offer the other one. Everyone seems onboard with the project, except for Carnie’s husband, Rob, but he eventually plays along.
The series premiere (and regularly day and time) will be Tuesday, January 3 at 9:00 p.m. with what will be possibly the most controversial episode of the series. It features Gary Busey and his fiancee, Steffanie Sampson trading places with Gayle Haggard, the wife of former disgraced evangelical Pastor Ted Haggard.
The Academy Award nominated actor, Gary Busey, is known in Hollywood for his strange ideas and gave America further insight into his character on last year’s Celebrity Apprentice. He and Sampson believe in reincarnation and are skeptical of others in organized religion
We also get a chance to see how the Haggard’s family live and communicate. Gayle appears to be a saint, but isn’t a pushover either. She’s a strong woman and Ted is lucky to have her. Pastor Haggard looks a little too uncomfortable as he can’t stop smiling. The episode touches on redemption and shows a very realistic look at a family trying to overcome huge obstacles. Overall, it is very uplifting episode.
The following episodes include:
- Niecy Nash (actress/comedienne) and Tina Yothers (former actress of Family Ties and rock star)
- Flavor Flav (rapper) and Dee Snicker (rock star)
- Mick Foley (professional wrestler/writer) and Antonio Sabator Jr. (actor/model)