Friday, April 11, 2008

An Uncommon Experience

My wife and I spent several days in southern California last week. Do not let the term “southern” fool you, there was nothing southern about our experience in California, and though I enjoyed my time away with my wife I am thankful to be back into a truly southern experience. But with that aside Noelle and I underwent and uncommon experience while in southern California.

We walked into a Blockbuster, not uncommon for us, walked immediately to the drama shelf chose a movie, rented the movie and walked out the door in less than five minutes, uncommon for us. What lead us to this uncommon experience?

We visited Ransom Fellowship http://www.ransomfellowship.org/movies.asp online. They have put a number of movie reviews online and added to their reviews discussion questions that are helpful to use in family or neighbor gatherings after the viewing of the movie. Noelle and I read a number of the reviews before deciding to watch Everything is Illuminated http://www.ransomfellowship.org/articledetail.asp?AID=226&B=Travis%20Scott&TID=2
a 2005 film by Liev Schreiber. Elijah Wood stars in the film as a young man searching for his grandfather’s family history in the Ukraine. Ransom Fellowship was very helpful in allowing us to think through and make an educated decision about watching this film together. They also are helpful in challenging Christians to do all that we do for the glory of God. Watching film is like eating and drinking and doing whatever we do for the glory of God (1Corinthians 10:31). They challenge us not to sit idle but to think through entertainment cultivating it for God’s redemptive purposes in all of culture. Just as walking in and out of a movie store in less than five minutes is an uncommon experience for us, so watching a film for the glory of God is an uncommon experience for many Christians.

1 comment:

Nicholas T. Batzig said...

Jim,

Thanks for this post. I was actually looking for something like Ransom Fellowship yesterday online and could not find it. This is a very helpful link. Thanks brother.