THE CROSSING WEEKLY

If you have not been to a Crossing Community Movie Night, you’re missing out on a fun and powerful time in fellowship with your Church family!  We recently connected with Sarah Daniels, who started the movie nights to have fun, engage in creativity, and experience God and how He creatively speaks to us.

Sarah has hosted five movie nights so far, including showings of The Neverending Story, Harriet, and just this past week, It’s a Wonderful Life.  In this Q&A, Sarah shares with us her heart behind these gatherings, what you can learn, and why you need to join us for the next one.

Can you tell us about Community Movie Night? How did you come up with the idea? 

Sarah:  I originally had the idea 20 years ago when I was a youth group leader.  It was a way to create a laid-back, relaxed atmosphere where people could bring friends outside of the church – friends who maybe wouldn’t be comfortable coming to church but if all we were going to do is watch a movie… why not?!

I wanted to start up the movie nights at the Crossing for a while.  Our first five have been great. We watch the movie and then afterward just talk about it like, “how did you see God in that movie? What did God show you? Did anything speak to you?”  God really does speak a lot through movies – I’m constantly getting stuff and I know I’m not the only one!  

What is the heart behind movie night and what can folks expect when they attend?

Sarah:  I’ve been having a lot of inspiration about creativity.  I read a really terrific devotional called The Story of With by Alan Arnold.  The main message in the book is about embracing your creativity.  He talks about how the world has done God-given creativity such a disservice because it’s put creativity in a box.  It’s like, “you’re only creative if you paint or if you dance.” Yes, those are creative things but those aren’t the only creative things. 

Being creative is finding what you’re super passionate about, what gets you really excited, and then showing it to the world in a way that it’s never been seen before.  That’s true whether you’re a hairdresser or a hockey player, or a single mom, or a car mechanic – it’s about partnering with God to move your passion forward. 

That’s part of why I started this.  I’ve had such a passion to see people embrace their creativity, whatever that may be, and this is mine.  Movies are a passion and I want people to see movies as a tool to help spread the Gospel.  And it doesn’t matter if Jesus is mentioned in the movie or not – God can speak where and however he wants to. 

When I first started, I wanted to show support for the people that were making Christian movies so that we could make more of them and better ones.  But now I also want to show movies that aren’t specifically Christian because I want to show people that you can find God in movies like that as well.  I’m trying to reach across a lot of different genres because different movies are going to speak to different people. 

What kind of conversations has movie night opened up? What are folks learning through the movies you have watched together?  

Sarah:  The discussion time we have afterward is just as important as watching the movie itself.  I’m dying to hear what people got out of the movie.  How did God speak?  What did He show you?  How did He inspire you?  And how does this relate to you in your own life?  Movies are stories.  Jesus used stories!  He used parables to get His point across and I think movies are a version of that. 

Before we watch the movie, I like to do a bit of research and share a few insights that people may not know, a bit of trivia about the movie itself.  For example, when we watched Here Comes the Boom – I don’t know if everybody knows this, Kevin James is a Christian and really infuses his faith into his role and the film as he was a co-creator.  I love it when actors can have that kind of input in the movie and I like to share stuff like that because I think people watch the movie in a different way as well.  It has all been really encouraging to people.

For those of us who haven’t yet been to a movie night, what would you like us to know?

Sarah:  Come with an open mind and be expectant!  Expect that God is going to speak to you.  If you come with that mindset, He absolutely will and it’s really exciting.  Keep your eyes out for the next Community Movie Night – we’d love to have you join us.