(Editor's note: I must admit I was surprised by the turnout when my congregation rented a movie theater and invited our friends to a Sunday morning showing of The Passion of The Christ. The place was packed with more than five times our usual adult worship attendance. The question for our church now is how do we follow up with our friends and co-workers who were interested enough in Mel Gibson's movie to get out of bed and get to the theater by 10 A.M. on a Sunday morning? How do we make the connection between what they saw on the screen and our day-in/day-out faith?

I mention this because The Passion will be for us a terrific outreach opportunity—if we can make the connection from film to faith, from theater to sanctuary, from cultural phenomenon to the living Church.

In the past two issues of Leadership Weekly, we published opposing views on The Passion. Brian McLaren doubted the marketers' claims that this movie was "perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years." Rick Warren ...