Preaching: Movie Style (Pt. 3)

Why do a movie series? We’ve talked about two reasons, here’s a third: People love it.

One of the things that has surprised me at Forefront is the power of doing repeating series. That never occurred to me before starting this church. But we now have several series we do every couple years. And each time that old series comes back people get excited. They tell new people how great it was the last time we did it, they invite their friends more than for any other series we do. This is true of all our recurring series, but it is especially true of our movie series.

We do the movie series every Fall. About two weeks before it launches we’ll announce, “Hey, two weeks from today we’re starting our ‘At the Movies’ series,” and a big (unprovoked) cheer erupts. People start asking what movies we’re doing, small groups start doing movie nights as they watch the movies together.

Why do people love it? I’m not sure. I think part of it is that they enjoy coming in on a Sunday morning “in the know.” One time I went with a couple people to a movie but it was sold out. We decided to see another movie, the only other movie about to start, a movie we had never even heard of. I did not like walking into a movie having no idea what it would be about. I felt kind of uncomfortable, like, “What am I getting myself into here?” I don’t want to know everything about a movie I’m going to see, but I want to know something. Maybe that’s why people like the movie series, because they have some idea of what the message will be about.

I think it also has something to do with getting to “play detective.” In the lobby on the Sunday mornings of an “At the Movies” series the thing I hear repeatedly is, “I think I know what you’re going to say today,” or, “I can’t wait to hear what you found in this movie.” People seem to enjoy trying to figure it out.

It also might be that it’s such an easy Sunday to invite a friend. Most people want to bring their friends to church, but they’re very nervous about it. But the movie series just seems so relevant, fun, creative, cool – it makes inviting much easier.

I’m not sure why, but people love it. And that’s not a bad reason to do it. Tomorrow reason number four, but until then remember the place where music and passion were always in fashion.

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