What about the rest of the movie?
by: Ben Ehmke | December 08, 2008
Movies are a very powerful tool. They tell a story like stories have never been told before. Using both the audible and the visual senses, a movie can draw a person into a story and arouse all sorts of emotions and thoughts. As a result, they can make great illustrations for teaching. They launch a person into an environment and emotional state much faster and more effectively than any words could.
Recently here at LCC, we have used movie clips during our Sunday morning preaching time to help add to and aid in our lessons. Using the right clip can be very powerful and very effective. But, is it possible that the clip could be covertly causing subtle turmoil?
This week, I have been debating showing a clip from the movie Juno. Juno is a movie about a teen who gets pregnant out of wed-lock. The movie focuses on how she and those around her deal with the pregnancy. It is actually quite a powerful movie with a great message. It tackblles a difficult subject using humor to ease the awkwardness. A carefully chosen clip would be a great illustration of some of the same shame that Mary (mother of Jesus) would have dealt with during her own illegitmate preganacy, our topic for Sunday. Unfortunately, Juno is rated PG-13, and some of the material in the movie is not friendly for all audiences. It's one of those movies that is somewhere between appropriate for teens and adults. Of course, if we show a scene it would be completely clean and wholesome.
Just the other day, I was having a conversation with one of our leaders here at LCC about the value of using movies in our teaching. He expressed a need to be more careful about the kinds of movies that we show on a Sunday morning. The clips that we show might be clean, but the clip might bring up other messages and ideas that aren't in the clip for those that may have seen the movie. Of course this makes sense, but this is potentially more of a struggle than we may realize. Can we show any movie that we would agree with 100% of the messages in the movie? Is there such a movie out there? Sure there are a few movies like Facing the Giants and Fireproof, but that list is probably not very long. Take Star Wars for example, there are all sorts of "new agey" spiritual philosophies presented about good and evil, and some of those principles we would not completely agree with. So does that mean that we shouldn't show a clip from that movie.
I would like to think there is a balance, which means each movie requires some critical thought to approve or disapprove.
What are your thoughts? Does a showing a movie clips also carry the same messages and content of the rest of the movie? To what degree is this a concern?
Please comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts.