The Christian Box Office
You’re probably a lot like me and enjoy a good movie every once in a while. By no means am I a movie buff, but I watch my share of movies. I don’t know about you but it seems like there are a lot of Christian films that are doing pretty well lately. Since 2004 the box office has seen movies such as The Passion, God’s not Dead, Heaven is for Real (even though the kid came out and said he lied about going to heaven it was still a good Christian film), Son of God, C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Soul Surfer, Courageous, Fire Proof, Facing the Giants, Do You Believe, Grace Unplugged, and Persecuted just to name a few. If you haven’t seen any of these movies I would highly encourage you to.Recently there was a film that was shown in only a select number of theatres for 3 days during the middle of the week. The name of the movie was “The drop box.” The week after it had been released I heard on the radio that even though it was only open for 3 days it was the 6th highest grossing movie that weekend. If that wasn’t surprising enough, it was only showing in about 1,000 theaters nationwide! All of the other films in the top 10 were in a minimum of 2,000 theatres nationwide.It’s apparent by the increase in Christian films and how well they have been doing that the people in America are hungry for these types of movies. And we as Christians need to continue to support these films and let Hollywood know what we really want.Even when I’m watching non-Christian movies I am constantly picking up on parallels to the Christian faith. Recently I was watching “The Maze Runner” when one of the characters had a line that felt like it was taken straight from the bible. Without giving too many spoilers I wanted to set up the quote by saying that the premise of the movie is that kids are being placed inside this giant Maze. They can’t remember anything about their life before the maze except for their name. The main character, Thomas, has a dream and realizes he use to work for the people that sent these kids into the maze, and then this quote came in;“Thomas: I’m one of them. The people that put you here, I worked for them…..but it doesn't matter. Newt: He’s right, it doesn't matter. Any of it. The people we were before the maze, they don’t even exist anymore. These creators took care of that. What does matter is who we are now and what we do right now.”Did you pick up on it? What Newt said reminded me of 2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! These kids couldn't remember anything from their past. Just like us; when we become Christians, our pasts are wiped away and they don’t matter anymore. Because the Creature took care of that for us (Thank you Jesus). What does matter is who we are now. The only change I would make to Newt’s quote would be the last part. I wouldn't say “what we do right now.” But instead, I would replace do with love. “What does matter is who we are now and who we love right now.” Christian living isn’t all about doing good deeds. It’s about loving our Father in Heaven first and foremost and then our neighbors as ourselves.Of course there are also the hit TV show, "The Bible" and the sequel to that, "AD" that is currently airing. Plus "The American Bible Challenge", "Touched by an Angel" and many more...If you don’t have any plans this weekend drop by the movie theater or stay home and throw on one of the many Christian movies out today. And make sure to get the extra large tub of popcorn for me!