My Worship Revolution

Interesting title.  Not sure what makes some art Christian, and other art not.  Didin’t realize art could be saved.  But that’s a whole different post sometime.  You get the point.

WARNING: todays post is really just a bit of a rant from Bobby’s head.

Last week I was watching a Christian movie that has become quite popular, in both the Christian and secular realm, and it kinda got me thinking.  Before going any further, let me preface this by saying that I had the opportunity to meet one of the guys responsible for this movie at Recreate.  I respect them and think they have great hearts.  Truth is, I am challenged by their commitment to dream and then just go for it.  Truth is, some of the acting in the movie bothered me.  Some of it was just bad.  And it has bothered me for a long that as the Church, rather than leading the way in arts as we did centuries ago, we continue to put out second rate art.  But knowing the story behind the movie and the hearts of the people doing it, this becomes very forgivable to me.

But there was one thing about the movie that really wore on me and I can’t seem to be able to kick it.  WARNING: if you haven’t seen the movie and want to, you may not want to finish as this is a big spoiler alert.  I’m gonna give it away.

As the movie begins, the lead character has been the coach of a losing football team for 6 years, is in danger of losing his job, isn’t making enough to make ends meet, has car issues as a result, and because of his own medical problems has just found out that he and his wife can not get pregnant.  They had been trying for 4 years.  He has a moment of revelation on prayer and following Christ unashamedly and changes his team philosophy.  By the end of the movie, the kids on the team all get saved, the team wins state championships, he gets a $6000 raise, a parent buys him a new truck, and his wife miraculously gets pregnant…twice!

I guess it’s a nice feel good story, and I can enjoy just about any movie with good football scenes.  So why does this all bother me?  It’s just not the reality that I have seen or experienced.  Does God work miracles today?  ABSOLUTELY!  Does God bless our socks off sometimes?  ABSOLUTELY!  Is this the typical response to following Christ?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  Even if only 2 or 3 of those things happened and they didn’t have a kid but chose to adopt or something I would have been happier.

This past Sunday we talked about Jesus calming the storms.  Sometimes he calms the "storms" in our lives.  Other time he calms us in the midst of the storm.  For us to create and share true and meaningful art with the world, we need to be real with them.  I think we need to create art that is honest about the struggles we face and the ability to make it through even when all hell continues to break loose.  That is inspiring.

I’d really like to see a "Christian" movie that depicts a Christ-follower screwing up and then understanding what true forgiveness and grace, or being a great person but experiencing enormous difficulties in life but clinging to God, in a real way, regardless…a modern day Job story if you will. I think that is when the rest of the world will really start to listen and we can actually begin to shape the culture through our art.
Maybe I should quit ranting about it, and go start writing that script, eh? 

This post has been a part of Watercooler Wednesday at Ethos.  Join the conversation today and maybe you’ll win an iPod.  Or win me an iPod!