Competition - What's your favourite 'spiritual' movie moment?Scot Bower - 21 Jan 2011
I love the way Jesus told stories, he truly is the ultimate story-teller. His parables were always relevant, they would always make the audience think and inevitably there would be a spiritual lesson. Whenever the disciples weren't 'getting it' Jesus would pause and start again "It's like this…" launching into a story form: pearls, treasure, seeds, vagrant sons and mugged travellers all revealed the kingdom of God.
If Jesus had decided to delay his incarnation for a couple of millennia my hunch is that we'd occasionally see the disciples ushered in to the back row of a cinema or crowded in Lazarus' front room. Jesus would again be saying "It's like this…" then he'd take control of the remote (Jesus can do that even in the cinema!).
Movies speak stories into our culture like little else and often there is a spiritual dimension that rides a little below the surface script. I can't count the number of times I've been sat watching a film and felt a jab in the stomach (not always from my wife or kids) that shows me something of the Kingdom of Heaven. Heck I've had it watching Cars (awesome kids Disney movie) as often as I've had it watching Lord of The Rings and I know Matrix is kind of dated but at the time… Wow! Punch after punch of truth was creatively delivered to my midriff. And I know already I'm going to get it (SPOILER ALERT) later this year when the final Harry Potter film is released and his self sacrifice reminds me again of the cross and my Saviour.
Our friends at Damaris know this better than anyone, they devote
themselves to creating resources that 
encourage the viewer to look
deeply at the plot and help them uncover the spiritual, pointing out the
lessons that show us again the Kingdom story. Right now they've have a
whole bunch of resources including downloadable videos and a discussion
guide to go with the recent English movie The Kings Speech.
To encourage us further to watch the film and make use of their free resources Damaris have kindly given 24-7 Prayer five tickets to The Kings Speech and 3 copies of Lionel Logue's diary, (Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush in the film, is the speech therapist employed to help cure Prince Albert's vocal impediment).
So here's the deal.
The movie tickets are only available to UK entries, sorry about that. The copies of the book can be sent internationally, therefore the prizes are:1st and 2nd prize for UK entries will get a pair of tickets to see The Kings Speech. 3rd prize is a single ticket.
For international entries the top 3 will each receive a copy of the diary.And the competition?
Tell us your favourite spiritual movie moment. Simple. When have you felt like a Kingdom lesson has been downloaded to your brain through the screen? Leave your answer as a comment below and on Wednesday morning (26th Jan 2011), at 10am GMT, the 24-7 international team will select the winners.
And once you've finished your entry don't forget to head over to Damaris to get hold of their free discussion guides and 'tools for talks'.