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Though many members work on secular productions in their day jobs, for BADD they must create things with a definite Christian bent. It's a unique challenge—to create entertaining and instructive stories that are appropriate for church, but not too cheesy or overly edgy.

"The Christian community is very uptight," says Lee. "In a church you might laugh, but you don't want to be seen laughing about some things."

One example of a video that never made it past the pastoral "censors" was a video that featured a militant Sunday school teacher, dressed almost like a Nazi and carrying a riding crop. "Too sexual for the church" was the response of the pastors who viewed the rough cut.

Most BADD films respond to or parody pop culture. The Small Group, for example, is a spot-on parody of NBC's The Office, using the aesthetic conventions and comedic timing of that show to portray the stereotypes of small group Bible studies, while The Tightwad Zone repurposes footage from a classic Twilight Zone episode to comically teach a lesson about giving.

An interview with Satan!

Other videos use VH1's I Love the 90s to provide historical background for a lesson about Martin Luther (I Love the 1590s), or parody a newsmagazine by having a reporter perform an intimate sit-down interview with Satan at his "modest" condo in Valencia.

The most frequent target for BADD's satire is the Christian culture itself. In Christianese, BADD presents a fake commercial for the tape series "How to Speak Christianese," an instructive tool to help outsiders or newly-converted Christians learn the correct religious lingo.

BADD's videos don't feel especially churchy, evangelistic, or amateur. They are actually quite sophisticated, witty, and culturally relevant—i.e., full of pop culture references, allusions, etc. Furthermore, the videos are remarkably well written and acted for a "church drama group," with quality technical merit as well. Over the years the BADD videos have gotten more and more involved, noted Edwards, who joined in 2000. Recent videos have even made use of green screens, stunts, steadicam, and original music.

The whole BADD team

Edwards, who has been with BADD for seven years, believes that a newly formed church film ministry must go through a process of establishing a rapport with the congregation. He suggests that a new ministry should initially make films with broad-based humor, like campy parodies or SNL-type sketches. Only after getting congregations used to the idea of film in the service should these ministries try to do more sophisticated, original comedy or even drama.

Most of BADD's videos are on YouTube and will soon be added to various "church media" aggregate websites where scripts and finished videos can be downloaded by other pastors and churches for use.

BADD is neither the first nor the biggest church film ministry, but it is a good case study in what a film ministry might look like in an era of rapidly changing media.

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