Hollywood blows…

Now
I feel like I need to explain this title to all my California friends. It’s not that I hate Hollywood, it’s just
that I think Hollywood blows (ambiguity intended, take it for what it is). With that out of the way, I’ll try and make a
point now.   Think about what we are told
makes a good, interesting story. In real
life, the rich get richer in the quest to get a bunch of cool stuff; in the
stories, the underdog, or lower class has the ability to fight back and win the
hearts of everyone; and somewhere in between these two states lay the majority
of us that get to watch.

Seeing
as how I love movies, it’s easier for me to get caught in a plot line rather
than experience what is waiting for me outside my door (case and point today’s
TBS morning movie “Cool Runnings” which gets me every time). Over the past couple of weeks, I have had
several conversations with people that told me how excited they were for the
experiences that I will be having over the next year. Some have even said they would love to live
vicariously through my blogs and stories, which knowing my personality, whether
something exciting happens or not, I’m sure I’ll have a story. I’m excited to share the experiences that are
sure to come, but before I do, I want to expose the tool that Satan uses to
paralyze us and our ministry.

Before
I go deeper into this point, I want to use an example of what I’m talking
about. I work with students for a
living, and since it’s kind of a cultural norm in the South, many of them have
grown up in church. They come every
Sunday and Wednesday, they know all the Bible study answers, and they know all
about VBS and felt boards. So from time
to time, I like to bring in guest speakers to share their testimonies just to
mix it up a little. While this was a great idea to show God’s grace, I began to realize that the students were more
caught up in the stories of drugs, sex, and alcohol, than they were with God’s
redemptive process. It’s easy to do that
when real life stories seem like a movie, and we make God’s story seem like the
same, boring infomercial that plays over and over (dang you ShamWow, I can’t
get you out of my head).

Think
about it. How come it’s exciting when
God saves a murderer, but when He saves a junior high kid that lies to his
parents, it’s just a normal day. I’m
sure you’ve heard the testimonies, or even told one that starts, “Well, my
story is not that exciting. I grew up in
church…” How come when we step into
church or a “Jesus situation” all of a sudden our stories don’t seem that
exciting? And for those of us that do
have “exciting” testimonies, how come that is the only story we tend to
tell? The easy answer is to say that
nothing really exciting happens in the comfort of America and the church. The real answer is that Satan is paralyzing
us and our stories by convincing us they’re not exciting.