Here are some links I found with Wilberforce resources:

• The Official Amazing Grace movie website
• How William Wilberforce changed the world Eric Metaxas, who is also the author of Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.
• Wikipedia entry on William Wilberforce
• BBC 7-part article on the life of William Wilberforce
• John Piper’s short biographical book on Wilberforce, plus some extra info at the Christian Book Lounge

If you have found other useful links for pastors and churches, email them to me, or put the link in a comment below (beware, sometimes multiple links in posts get caught by Akismet, my spam plugin/filter).

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It’s called the “Rocky Balboa Outreach Box” and “designed for faith, educational, and community leaders to help tell the story of Rocky Balboa – one of courage, faith, and perseverance.”

The movie even has its own Rocky Resources website loaded with excellent promotional material … focused on helping churches use the movie.

I don’t know much about the movie … other than Rocky’s coming back to fight a younger boxer (and my favorite Heroes star “Peter Petrilli” is his son in the movie) … but what I do know is that Hollywood is turning up the volume in its marketing to churches.

Want my honest opinion about it? It’s a great marketing idea from a marketing perspective alone. It’s a very smart move — marketing to the church crowd and trying to influence pastors.

I understand why they sent that fancy box to him … he, along with every other pastor, has a pre-existing cluster of people who can be easily communicated to. Marketers droll over that kind of opportunity to reach groups of people like that. And pastors are influencers and gatekeepers for those audiences.

One mention by my pastor and they reach about 1,300 people this Sunday.

I’d say that’s a pretty good marketing idea from their perspective.

They’re betting that the investment in that super cool red boxing glove included in the box (yeah, I want one!) and incredibly well-done collaborating print materials that illustrate how the movie can be used in small groups and in sermons will translate into a comment from the pulpit or use in our church (and yours!).

To illustrate the influence of a pastor … as we talked about this whole “marketing to churches” phenomenon, my pastor told me one time he mentioned from the pulpit in his last church that he was reading a book (not a bestseller by any means) … and in the next week or so, the local bookstore owner called him to say 15 people from his church had come into his store requesting the book.

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By the way … in the same day, my pastor also received a letter from Fox Faith Churches (yes, that’s an actual domain name) about an upcoming movie based on a Ted Dekker novel — Thr3e.

I’ve talked about church marketing and the movies before here and here after I saw the Nativity Story.

Interesting stuff … brace yourself pastor. More of this is coming your way!

How will you handle it? How can or will you leverage it? How will you decide what makes it to the pulpit and what gets thrown in the trash can?

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“While I appreciate their attempts at historical and biblical accuracy, are their motives true in wanting to convey the truth about the events of the Bible or is this just another “money grab” by the studios?”

I gave this reply in the comments:

David, I’ve seen The Nativity Story and was moved.

My question is this … if it’s faithful to biblical truth, why not?

That’s the key though … to me, it must be an accurate representation of our faith.

If we nitpick this, we’ll start having to reassess all kinds of things like, is it OK for secular construction companies to build our church buildings? What about the printing companies that print Bibles? Are they all believers? What’s their motives for wanting to print them?

I’m pushing this a bit because I appreciated the quality of the Nativity movie and felt is was a great retelling of the story.

And I think it’s risky business to try to discern motives and motivations. So I think you have to go case-by-case and assess the qualities of the actual product, not necessarily primarily on the producer.

Is it distortion, or truth? Faithful or heretical?

What do you think about it? Make a comment here or at Think Christian!

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And yes, Joseph asked: “Will I be able to teach Him anything?” (Which got giggles from the crowd.)
As with The Chronicles of Narnia, it was also another way to experience Christ … and His Gospel in a new, fresh way. The film’s got a lot of actors and actresses you’ll recognize … and we were told repeatedly that it’s a “rough cut.” But it was spectacular. Very well done.

I realized (or was reminded of) something else watching the movie … the evangelical Christian audience is a huge market for the entertainment business and all types of business, actually.

Big Business has craned its neck up, peered out into our evangelical herd nestled across the U.S. … and, while salivating, said, “Behold, the Christians!”

They’ve seen how church marketing can mean a lot more dollar signs to the bottom line.

They are getting good at it. And for this particular movie, I’m glad they lured me in.

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