VOTE
Lord Save Us From Your Followers! That’s the name of the movie on the marquis in downtown Portland, Oregon and the backdrop for the ThinkFWD episode with host Spencer Burke and independent filmmaker Dan Merchant. Dan’s making of the film, which was released on DVD in March, was a five-year journey. The film has been in many different venues, from church screenings to college campuses to film festivals. “People who go to church find it meaningful. People who don’t go to church find it meaningful,” says Dan. So he decided to take it into a secular theater to see if more people would connect with it.
The reaction across the boards is that people are resonating with the film’s messages. Why? “Everybody responds to compassion, loving-kindness and grace,” says Dan. “The film is not about bashing the church. I’m plagiarizing Jesus, raising some questions. God is where all truth springs from, but truth without grace is like a bulldozer. Truth WITH grace takes on a different shape, and it’s not about “us” and “them, but about “we”—it’s relational.”
Dan believes the film gives people permission to stop taking sides, and to try again to hear and live out what Jesus says. And when people say, “But when do we stand up for the truth!” Dan’s reply is that this is the truth—loving others.
Spencer asks Dan if it’s the medium or the message that is resonating with the film’s audience? Does the fact that it’s a film help to engage the viewers? Dan suggests that the film works like a mirror, and that people connect with parts of the film that are true to their experience. He says everyone has a different favorite part of the film and that’s because each person has their own perspective and need, and the film helps to articulate it for them.
Personal Reflections:
- How can I express where I am struggling with the church without being or being perceived as “church-bashing?”
- How can I move beyond tearing down and build what is beautiful and true?
Group or Staff Questions:
- How can we hold the tension between picking sides and showing what we can say “yes” to?
- How can we grow by listening, humbly and without an agenda?
Resources
FEEDS
Highest Rated
- Pete Rollins – Resurrection as Insurrection (+233 rating, 91 votes)
- Brian McLaren – Navigating Through A New Kind of Christianity (+160 rating, 60 votes)
- Phyllis Tickle – Beyond Denominations, the Hyphenated Church (+153 rating, 57 votes)
- Andrew Marin Pt 2- Elevating the Conversation Between the Church and the Gay Community (+130 rating, 39 votes)
- Philip Clayton – Emergence Taking on a Life of its Own (+109 rating, 43 votes)
- More teens conservatives becoming 'fake' Christians
- For the Love of Your Pastor
- Men and Women: Sex, Sexuality, and Missional Friendships
- The Red Letters Project
- Inception – A Review
- As Is, Unearthing Commonplace Glory
- WOUNDS OF WISDOM
- THE "SECRET" TEACHING OF JESUS?
- CHRISTIAN IMMIGRANTS
- The Illusion of the "Emerging Church"
May 18th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
The podcasts do not seem to be in the RSS feed. I can not get the RSS feed to work in iTunes, and the page found when searching in iTunes for theooze.tv in iTunes does not have any episodes. Looking forward to a fix.
Thanks,
Lon Marshall
May 23rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Sharing your pain Lon!
I can’t get them either…. please oozetv come back to me. I love you so!
May 25th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I have already purchased, watched and thoroughly been affected in a very positive way by this film. And this is coming from someone who is a self-labeled moderate progressive, realizing that the film really focuses quite a bit from a more conservative evanglical perspective, yet beyond. Well worth the view, and it is absolutely important that one view this DVD from start to finish. So don’t give up on it early on to the middle, because the whole thing really comes together very well in the end. I recommend this film basically for anyone breathing, whether committed to a religious tradition or not.