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Hooray for … hollywoodjesus.com

Pastor’s Web site links cinema to Christ

Billy Graham challenged attenders at his San Jose crusade to use the Internet for evangelism. So David Bruce started Hollywood Jesus, a Web site that appeals to pop culture through reviews of current and classic films and videos (www.hollywoodjesus.com).

Bruce, who pastors a church in Patterson, California, is on a Net mission. “Just like a missionary who goes to a nation where a people group has never heard about Jesus Christ, I learn the language of the people. Movies are a common language around the world.

“I use them to tell the story of Jesus Christ. And every review on the site includes a link to the gospel message.”

His approach is popular. The site has registered 3 million hits since March 1998. More than 800 other sites now link to it.

“If I can get someone to look at three of my reviews on Hollywood Jesus, they will never see a movie in the same way again. I had an 18-year-old girl walk up to me in church and say, ‘Pastor David, I can’t go to a movie any more without thinking about Jesus or a Bible story.’ “

Bruce is careful not to bash Hollywood. He wants to use the culture to win people for Christ.

“It doesn’t matter how bad the culture is or how good the culture is. It’s where people live. Use it to win them for Christ. And by winning them for Christ, you change culture.”

from Christianity Online magazine (Sept/Oct 1999)

Movie Reviews by Christians

http://movieguide.crosswalk.com Reviews by critic Ted Baehr. Some require subscription.

www.family.org/pplace/pi/films/ Reviews from Focus on the Family.

www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/ Rates movies on sex, violence, and language.

And the winner is …

If there were Oscars for churches, we’d probably hear awards for:

Best Parking—Church of the ‘Burbs attenders are welcomed by tuxedoed valets. After the service, their cars are returned washed, waxed, and buffed.
Best Sacraments—Community Presbyterian serves oven-fresh bread, still warm, from New Harvest Bakery and wine from the best local vintner. Children receive Kid’s Sac, a decorated bag with a sweetened wafer, fruit punch, and an action figure to complement the day’s sermon.
Best Coffee—no church wins this category.
Best for Senior Citizens—St. John the Divine wins with short sermons, padded pews, 50 handicapped parking spaces, a parish nurse, large print bulletins and KJV Bibles, and absolutely no choruses, keyboards, drums, or guitars. (Hold your applause, please.)
Best Staff Transition—First Baptist wins for the tenth consecutive year. “We are very proud of our record and consider any year in which we don’t fire a pastor to be a loss,” says deacon Will Handlit. “We’ll be back for this one next year.”

—Jim Schmotzer Bellingham, Washington

Roll the Clip

Movies you can use in a sermon

Opening a sermon or lesson with a movie clip is a great idea, but who has time to watch all those movies, find the scenes, and develop the messages from them? Two youth ministers, apparently.

Videos That Teach is a compendium of Bible studies featuring clips of 75 movies—everything from Willy Wonka to Jerry Maguire. This list is not for the faint of heart. It includes a variety of movies—11 are R-rated—and there’s even Madonna. But none of the clips uses foul language and the issues raised by authors reflect contemporary life.

The start and stop times for each clip are listed, along with Scripture and discussion questions. Every preacher or teacher who has tried to retell a scene from his favorite movie will appreciate this easy reference.

Next stop, the video store.

Videos That Teach by Doug Fields and Eddie James (Zondervan, 1999)

Update

Prayer Movement Goes Door to Door

Effort tied to Holy Week Scripture distribution in 40 metro areas.

The Lighthouses of Prayer movement gets a boost when local churches distribute Scripture portions during the week before Easter.

Mission America, a coalition of ministries and denominations that includes the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptist Convention, has teamed with the Christian Broadcasting Network in the next phase of their Lighthouse prayer campaign. The objective is to have every home in the nation prayed for in 2000. In Mission America’s plan, praying for neighbors is the first step in leading them to Christ.

CBN is providing churches with the “Book of Hope” to deliver to homes in major U.S. cities. Door hangers include a booklet of verses, information about the prayer effort, and an invitation to the sponsoring church’s Easter services.

“In 11 test markets, we’ve found that 80 percent of the people who receive the booklet read it,” says Glenn Barth of Mission America. CBN will back up the distribution with a flight of 200+ television commercials in each participating city. “They’re buying good time slots in local newscasts and evening programs.” The spots feature celebrities like Reggie White and Della Reese.

Barth’s organization is recruiting pastors to join the project. “We’re meeting with as many as 500 pastors in each metro area,” he says. “We’re encouraging them to commit their churches to become Lighthouses and to lead their church members to become Lighthouse pray-ers. We want a Lighthouse church in every zip code in the nation this year.”

A Lighthouse start-up kit is available to local churches for $15. www.lighthousemovement.com 1-888-323-1210

Currents

Smaller churches. Average adult worship attendance in the U.S. was 90 in 1999, down from 95 the year before. In 1992, the average was 102. Credit new church starts for spreading the faithful thinner. Don’t blame megachurches, says researcher George Barna. Those averaging 1000+ attenders are still only 1% of Protestant churches.

(Barna Research Group, Dec. 1999)

Bible Belt marriages unbuckle. Divorce rates are highest in the South. After Nevada, evangelical-heavy states Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Oklahoma lead the nation with 6 or more divorces per 1000 people per year. Rates are lowest in the more-Catholic Northeast at fewer than 3 per 1000. Factors: education, income, and whether the dominant religion forgives divorce or forbids it. National average is 4.2.

(AP, 11/11/99)

Values check. Teens are less likely than adults to approve of legal gambling: teens 52% to adults 63%. One in four teens admitted gambling in some form last year. And one in ten teens said gambling had caused problems in his family.

(Gallup/AP poll, cited in Emerging Trends, Oct. 1999)

Kids foresee more Mr. Moms. Gender roles are shifting. Children ages 6 to 17 were polled: 51% of boys said they will be the breadwinners while their wives stay home and rear the children; but 25% of boys said they will be stay-at-home dads. Of girls, 52% want to stay home while 38% plan to bring home the bacon.

(Roper poll, Reuters 11/9/99)

It’s a wired, wired, wired, wired world. And even more so for kids. Of children ages 2 to 7, 42 percent have a radio in their rooms and 36 percent have a tape player. Some 32 percent have their own TV and half of those have a VCR. Six percent have their own personal computer, and 2 percent of babies have Internet access in their bedrooms.

(American Demographics, Feb. 2000)

The New VBS

Forget School, S Is for Soccer

Special camps replace usual summer Bible studies.

Vacation Bible School is making way for science camp, music and drama camp, and sports camp. Parents want summer enrichment programs for their kids. While churches are still teaching the Bible, the themed “camp” makes it more attractive.

Soccer is the feature of camp at Glenfield Baptist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Dan Bovey, pastor of youth and evangelism, says the church was searching for a new way to reach out to kids. The church is in a suburb with many traditional VBS programs. In three years, the free, week-long camp has grown to more than 250 kids, ages 5 to 16. That’s an accomplishment for a church of less than 100.

Each evening, 70 volunteers from the church and the neighboring community college teach the basics. “We divide into 12 teams based on age,” Bovey says, “like the World Cup, with each team named after a country.” The teams rotate through skill-building sessions, a Bible lesson, and 20 minutes with a guest coach or athlete who shares a testimony. Concluding the week is an all-day tourney for all the teams on Saturday.

Soccer camp has become a significant means for Glenfield to reach unchurched families. “People are starting to call us ‘the soccer camp church,'” says Pastor Jim Rahtjen.

Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia, didn’t have enough athletes to mount a sports camp, so it brought in two teams from Athletic Ministries International. AMI sends college-age teams around the country all summer to host camps. Ingleside had 70 kids at both their soccer and basketball camps. There each child receives a workbook of object lessons and homework assignments. The athletes lead a 45-minute Bible study and review the homework each day during a break from the drills.

Contact AMI at www.athleticministries.org.

—from Your Church (Jan/Feb 2000)

Soap Operation

Shares the ultimate stain remover.

The population of Fraser Valley, Colorado, is only 500. But during ski season, more than 1 million vacationers visit the area. Some 5,000 service workers are hired to handle the guests. Fraser Valley Baptist Church reaches out to the workers, handing out coupons that can be redeemed at the local laundromat for a free wash (soap included) on Monday night. The church spends $150, about one-tenth of their monthly budget, on a single night’s laundry.

The outreach brings in customers on a slow night. And church members are there to share the gospel. It all comes out in the wash.

—from On Mission (Sept/Oct 1999)

If You Can’t Beat ’em, Sponsor ’em!

Team uniforms make great billboards for this church.

Last spring, we reported that some churches are facing increased competition from Sunday sports events. This church turned the trend to their advantage.

Many of our members work during the day on Sunday, so we meet on Sunday evening. And 95 percent of the congregation is from Central America. That presented two problems.

We wanted to let those who usually look for church services on Sunday morning know about the church. And we needed to reach Hispanics while spending our advertising money carefully. Soccer was a perfect match.

When our city started an adult soccer league, we sponsored a team. The players’ shirts advertise the name, address, and phone number of the church. Since our purpose is to evangelize, we welcomed players who are not Christian. We insist they comply with certain standards of behavior.

The rewards have been numerous. We’ve had a substantial number of visitors recently. And we won the trophy for best-behaved team in the league.

—Frank Vega Iglesia Fuente De La Vida Mount Kisco, New York