The Monday Morning Debrief: Transformers & other movies

This past weekend, Transformers 3 opened up to some very impressive numbers with an astonishing $97.4 million at the box office in the U.S. alone!  Overall, the movie is expected to gross $162 million from Tuesday to Sunday (thanks AP for those figures).   Add that to Cars 2 which was released last week, doing very well in the box office, there are some pretty popular movies out now.

So what does this have to do with ministry?

Summer Blockbuster movies are a great ministry opportunity. Whether it is a small group or a big group, summer time movies are great ways to interact with students and talk about some big issues.  What???  Talk about issues?  That’s right, see anyone can go see a movie and lots of students do over the summer.  So why not capitalize on this and take some students to a movie.  Then, after it is over, hang out afterwards for ice-cream or appetiizers and debrief the movie and see how it conflicts or is in sync with what Christ has to offer.

Now, I’m not saying go out and use any & every summer movie as a ministry opportunity.  We all know that there are some unacceptable movies out there that would not be suitable.  But, take Cars 2 as an example.  It’s cool and students (both middle and high school students) still enjoy these Disney/Pixar movies.  Not only that but there is a very big environmental message in that movie.  What a great opportunity for you to take a few students (or even your whole group) to go see the movie and then debrief it afterwards.  There is plenty that you could dig up from the Bible as to what God intended our earth to be and how we can appreciate God’s creation more.

So right now, TAKE A MINUTE and look over the summer movie schedule (Yahoo! has a great one). Whether it is a current one or one being released later in the summer, pick out a movie that you can take either a few students or a bunch to and then process it with them.  It is a great opportunity to reach out to new and current students alike.  I hope it goes well!

If you have done this in the past, post a comment on how it went so that we can all be encouraged or learn something new from something you learned doing it.