Yesterday I went to a pre-screening of the new movie “Rocky Balboa”. This was a special showing for Church leaders and we were even given a “Faith-based Leader’s Resource Guide” for ways to use the film in a church or small group setting. Afterwards we all went to a nice hotel in downtown Dallas to meet and hear from Sylvester Stallone. My friends and I were on the front row, so we got to shake his hand when he came in (he went down the front row shaking each person’s hand).
The movie was great. I’m not going to ruin it for you, except to say “Go see it. It’s a great movie.” I did find the connection to the movie being “faith-based” and promoted by churches to be a bit of a stretch. Though the movie is powerful and inspirational, it’s a far cry from movies like “Narnia”, “The Passion of the Christ”, “Facing the Giants” and “The Nativity Story”, which are all very evangelistic. Please don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think every movie has to be in-your-face evangelistic. I’m a movie buff and just enjoy getting caught up in a great movie – Christian or not. I just wouldn’t put the movie in a category of a “Christian movie” to promote at your church and build a message series or small group study around. I hope that makes sense.
Sly (when you’ve shook his hand, you can call him that) was very friendly and down-to-earth. He answered several questions from the audience and was a joy to be around. He seemed very humble and sincere and I’ve got to say – for a man who is 60 years old – he looked great. He was ROCK-SOLID. That dude is ripped – no lie! REMINDER: I am married with 3 kids. I’m just saying the guy stays in shape.
NOTE: Pictures courtesy of Rob Thomas, President of Igniter Media and WorshipHouse, seated to my left here. Speaking of Igniter Media, they have a new Christmas video that just went LIVE yesterday. It’s a funny video called “A Christmas moment“. If you saw their best selling video, “A Thanksgiving Moment“, you know it’s worth checking out. Also, be sure to get their new snow flake FREE download.
BONUS:
I found out about some more FREE Christmas resources from Kent of Church Relevance. He pointed his readers to PastorsPlace.com, which is offering four different Christmas design themes for your church to use for FREE. It isn’t just a bulletin shell or PowerPoint slide. They also come with banner, poster, CD jacket, and CD label artwork. The price is right!