Preaching – Movie Style “If Jesus came today I don’t think he’d talk about seeds, dough, or sheep.” – He would talk about movies.

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Bill Reichart

7 Comments

  1. I sincerely doubt it.

    Seeds, dough, and sheep were all things that people from many sectors of life could appreciate (or at least suss out). Movies on the other hand are very particular things and unless you’re talking about the principles of how movies work (e.g. the use of films, the concept of climax, &c.), you’re losing huge numbers of your audience.

    Case in point: probably 80% of the films mentioned on CAPC in featured articles are films I’ve never seen. And I have seen a lot of films.

    This is one of the inherent dangers for contributors to this site. They put in a ton of effort to write about something or produce a podcast and because visitors are not familiar with the point of reference, they either don’t read/listen or they do but don’t have anything to add.

    I’ve never seen Oprah and don’t know anyone who watches Oprah. A post or cast about Oprah will by nature say little to me. I don’t know anything about Fallout Boy. A podcast about them means nothing to me.

    Every time a pastor chooses an example from a movie, he is limited the usefulness of his message. He uses Lord of the Rings as a lesson tool? Everyone who hasn’t seen the movie (or can’t remember the particulars) will either tune out or be confused. Or worse, people in his audience may think LOTR is inappropriate for Christians and be offended by his reference.

    No, I think Jesus would be smart enough not to use movies in his sermons.

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  2. -Dane

    I completely agree. I would also add that there is a difference between using the very real actions of people and animals in the world and using films as analogies. Ultimately, I think that when we rely on movies to share the Gospel we are really just trying to be “hip,” instead of accurate.

    As far as CaPC, I’d like to think that our goal is a bit different and allows us to focus on particular films cultural creations. Instead of evangelizing by co-opting these works, our focus is in exploring how our Faith ought to interact and respond to them. In some cases there might be (relevant) connections between a film and the Gospel, other times we might simply discuss the worldviews expressed in the film or TV show.

    So while I agree that Christ wouldn’t have shown the Matrix and discussed how He was actually similar to Neo, I will say that what we are trying to do is a bit different. Although, I will concede that by focusing on particular cultural creations we do limit our audience.

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  3. @Alan, I completely agree that the goal of CAPC, by its very nature, is far more particular than the goal of the preacher—and so, focus on specific examples from a variety of media is expected.

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