New Around the Mission
Movie Discussion Group Engages Canadian Skeptics
June 14, 2011
When it comes to movies, even funny ones like The Hangover or Bridesmaids, the Rev. Josh Wilton of The Table in Victoria, British Columbia, believes you can’t just watch and say, “That was fun.”
“Every piece of art, every movie, every narrative is projecting a worldview, and either you’re assimilating it or rejecting it—which is basically what we mean by ‘I liked it’ or ‘I didn’t like it,’” he says.
That belief informs a new weekly round-table discussion of secular movies at one of The Table’s eight home groups. The group of 10 watched their first movie, 2006’s Children of Men, on Tuesday, May 31, and held a spirited discussion about it the following week. Josh led the discussion with questions like, How did the movie challenge or agree with your worldview? Did the movie communicate anything true about the world?—teaching members how to read film and interact with Scripture in hopes of eventually delegating the leadership role. When the group has honed the new format, discussions will be an outreach to family and friends.
“Everyone watches movies so it’s the common language,” Josh says. “People understand movie references often across generations.”
Moreover, it’s a transition point for people to come in contact with Christians. Only 5% of Canadians go to church on Sunday—3% in Victoria—making Canada the least-churched place in North America, Josh says. Another interesting earmark is that most Canadians rarely engage in intense conversations.
“Everyone is so kind that there’s very little contact because people don’t want to offend each other,” Josh explains. “So our unofficial tagline is, ‘Offend with a smile,’ or basically, don’t be a wuss.”
To facilitate that openness, members will contribute two of their own questions to the discussion group each week, one they had while watching the film and another that occurred to them over the following week. The group has already picked a list of 100 movies to watch, with two criteria: Each movie must have a 70% or higher rating from the critics’ site Rotten Tomatoes (RottenTomatoes.com), and each group member has a right to veto.
“Most people felt it was important, useful and appropriate to learn from films produced by non-Christians,” Josh says. “But there are some boundaries. Like, you don’t need to sit through two hours of a horror film to understand there’s evil in the world. Everyone has their own triggers that take them to unhealthy places, so we try to avoid our own shadows.”
As he guides the group to start thinking naturally about how movies communicate truth, Josh is excited about sharing the hope of Christ.
“What we’re doing is looking at movies and giving people a framework for comparing and contrasting scripture with their worldviews,” he says. “It gives us as Christians a chance to articulate our faith.”
Learn more at the Table Church.
Posted By: Cynthia P. Brust
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