The Story Never Ends

April 1, 2016April 6, 2016 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

(It’s WrestleWeek on POP GOD! In celebration of WrestleMania 32 this Sunday we’ll be looking at the intersection of faith and wrestling. You don’t have to be a fan to hop in the ring on this journey. Read on to see how this fake sport provides real lessons for anyone who’s ever grappled with God.)

wm main event On Sunday April 6th, 100,000 people of all ages, races, genders and nationalities will congregate upon Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. This happening could possibly set an indoor attendance record. The fans crowded in will scream and cheer for 6 hours until the main event where 2 middle aged warriors will set foot in a predetermined battle inside a structure known as “Hell In A Cell”.

This, my friends, is WrestleMania.

If you’re not a wrestling fan this must seem bizarre to you. How is that professional wrestling can possibly draw so many fans to its biggest attraction? How is that the WWE Network is one of the top 5 streaming video services in the world? How is that WWE’s signature show “Raw” has been on the air for over 20 years and over 1,100 episodes?

The answer is actually quite simple. It’s all because in pro wrestling the story never ends. Continue reading →

3 Plus Ways To Reboot Your Relationship With God

September 18, 2015September 21, 2015 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

Are you suffering from reboot fatigue?

It’s a new phrase for the current entertainment landscape where it seems you can’t get on Twitter without reading about a new reboot or remake of a classic TV show or movie.

You’ve seen the stories about shows like “Full House” (now redubbed “Fuller House”) and “The X-Files” coming back to our screens. Shows you didn’t even realize anyone cared about are being relaunched for a new generation to not really care about them all that much.

(Me? I’m just over here waiting for a new “Double Dare” series. Come on – we need more Super Sloppiness on our screens.)

Though I may be suffering from a little fatigue from reading about reboots and relaunches and remakes every day, that doesn’t mean they’re a bad thing.

You might say they’re just a side effect of our MORE MORE MORE binge watching culture. Instead of being satisfied with a great story we demand another and another.

But I think something deeper is going on. I think the reason we love reboots and remakes is because we are relational. Continue reading →

How the Bible Taught Me to Be More Creative

June 2, 2015June 9, 2015 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

(GUEST POST: Today I’m excited to share with you a guest post from Jackson Dame. Jackson is a young writer I’ve been following over the past few months who blogs at JacksonDame.com. He’s in the process of self-publishing his first book Ex Materia about the impact of faith on creativity. I jumped at the chance to have him write a guest post here on the blog so that you can learn more about him. Check it out and be sure to check out the Kickstarter page for Jackson’s new book to see how you can support this up-and-coming author.)

A couple of years ago I couldn’t come up with a good idea to save my life.

I wanted to exercise my creativity, but it was almost as if I had none. Was I really cut out to be creative?

Fast forward to today, and I’ve never been more confident in my ability to generate ideas and execute them with excellence. What changed?

Well, a lot of things, but overall it was one crucial action. And it was an action that I discovered while I was reading my Bible of all things.

My faith actually taught me that I was skipping over the first and most important part of the creative process: consuming. Allow me to explain. Continue reading →

Why The Apple Watch Might Not Be Terrible

April 14, 2015April 27, 2015 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

I’ve been pretty steadily hate-reading test reviews of the Apple Watch. I don’t know why I’m so interested in reading about a product I think is so dumb.

Seriously – ever since Apple’s announcement back in the fall I’ve been shaking my head at this new digital wearable.

Maybe I’m being short-sighted. I just can’t see myself ever purchasing one. Of course I said the same thing about the iPhone when it debuted, and I finally came around to those in 2012.

There is however one feature of the Apple Watch I find intriguing. Apparently the watch has an innovative way of delivering alerts. They’re called Taptic Notifications.

The Apple Watch buzzes every few minutes, always reminding you of its presence and of your connection to your various networks. Continue reading →

The Bible Is Not A Pop Song

September 4, 2014September 26, 2014 / Alex Doriot / 5 Comments

Counting Crows are not the best band you’ll ever hear.

They’re not the best band of the 90s. Adam Duritz is not the best lyricist. He doesn’t have the best voice. His band is not comprised of the best musicians.

That being said, Counting Crows are the best “drive your car down the highway trying to figure out why the girl left you and what’s wrong with your life and what to do about it all” band.

Something about cruising down the freeway listening to “August And Everything After” makes pain and heartbreak a little easier to understand.

To put it simply, the music of Counting Crows has a way of making you feel a little better about the things that make you sad. Continue reading →

Is God Funny?

May 14, 2014May 30, 2014 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

It’s funny the things you remember.

I have this vivid memory of playing at a park with a friend in elementary school. His father sat on a bench reading and keeping an eye on us as we pretended to be Power Rangers.

At one point I looked over and saw him laughing. As I walked by him later I asked him what he had read that had been so funny.

He told me it was The Bible. The Bible had made him laugh.

This startled me. How could someone laugh at The Bible? Continue reading →

Throwback Thursday: Making The Most Of Your MMMBOP

January 16, 2014January 19, 2014 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

***Last week on the blog I asked for your requests and ideas for POP GOD. This week we have our first reader-requested post from my friend Ogden, who asked for a post on Hanson’s classic song “MMMBop”. If you have a current or classic pop culture item you’d like to see discussed on POP GOD, leave a comment and I will make your request happen:

Has there ever been a song quite like “MMMBop”?

In 1997 the Hanson brothers exploded onto the pop scene with arguably the most infectious and nonsensical song of the 90s.

Everybody knew “MMMBop”. A lot of people still know “MMMBop”. Just play the video if you can’t quite remember the song and it should come rushing right back to your brain.

(Click Here if you can’t see the video above.)

You can sing the chorus right now. It’s just a bunch of nonsense bebops and dubadops.

But do you know the rest of the lyrics? Can you sing the other verses of “MMMBop”? Continue reading →

The Retail Worker’s Prayer

January 3, 2014January 9, 2014 / Alex Doriot / 8 Comments

The Folding. Don’t get me started on The Folding.

This holiday, after leaving my full-time job behind, I got a job at a major department store to earn a little extra spending money. I’ve mainly been running the register. But in between customers one of our main duties in the store is The Folding.

It’s incredible, really. You spend a few minutes folding a stack of shirts. Everything on the shelf looks in order. You turn around to check out one customer. You turn back around and a dozen shirts are back on the floor again.

As an employee I begin to wonder what the point is. I wonder why I bother picking up all these clothes off the floor just to see them knocked over and out of place just a few moments later.

But The Folding has to be done. We must go through the motions of The Folding and The Re-Folding day after day after day to keep the store in order. If we deny our duties just one day then the store would go into disarray. Continue reading →

How To Live Before You’re Dead

October 28, 2013November 1, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

Would you want to know the way you die?

In the movie “Big Fish”, young Edward Bloom and his friends seek out the neighborhood witch. The rumor is she has a magical glass eye. If you look into the eye, you’ll see the way you die. Continue reading →

My Favorite Verse In The Message

August 1, 2013August 6, 2013 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

Some people hate on The Message, the modern translation of the Bible crafted by Eugene Peterson. Not me. While it’s not my everyday Bible translation, I often turn to The Message for a fresh perspective on God’s word. Plus it’s probably the only Bible translation with a quote from Bono on the back.

There’s a lot of great translations in The Message. John 1:14 gets tossed around a lot by Younglife leaders – “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

But my favorite verse in The Message doesn’t come from the Gospels.

It doesn’t come from Genesis.

It doesn’t come from a prophet major or minor.

It doesn’t come the Psalms or the Proverbs or the Song of Solomon.

In fact, it doesn’t come from any of the 66 books of The Bible.

My favorite verse in The Message translation comes before the table of contents: Continue reading →