The new movie Fireproof, from the makers of Facing the Giants and starring Kirk Cameron, is demonstrating once again the strong demand for media with a Christian perspective.
The first movie Facing the Giants made by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick and the congregation at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, cost $100,000 to make (largely do to the unpaid volunteer actors and production crews from the church) and grossed over $10 million in theaters. With a bigger budget of $500,000 for Fireproof, plus well-know actor playing the lead, Fireproof is doing even better and is already surprising the Hollywood elite. One early number from Fandango.com indicates that the movie is getting 41% of their tickets sales!
What is most interesting to me is that, normally in business, when there is a strong demand for a product or service, the market rushes in to meet that demand. But that has not been the case with Christian media. The Passion of the Christ showed the Hollywood establishment that the 90 million Christians in the U.S. should not be ignored. And since then? Hollywood has still mostly ignored us, and gone on making the same films filled with immorality at worst, and at best, a secular world-view completely outside the world-view of most Christians. The good news is that this is an incredible opportunity for Christians, such as the 3,000 members at Sherwood Baptist Church have discovered, to create Christian media and find great success in the marketplace.
There are many other examples of this. My wife just finished the novel The Shack, currently on the NY Times best-seller list. It was written by a Christian and the story is from a Christian world-view. The authors could not find a publisher who wanted it, so they self-published the first 20,000 copies or so (not sure the exact number) until a publisher finally took interest. In music, American Idol has showed that America’s tastes in “stars” are more often the church-worship-leader-type than anyone in the music industry imagined. And on-line…well, a year from now I hope that Christian.com will be the success story everyone is talking about!
So the opporutunity is tremendous. Ever wanted to make a movie? Go for it! What about writing? Christians are buying books they can relate to. And if you have skills in web development and social media, at Christian.com we are looking for a select few to help build the best Christian websites and social media in the world!
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get after it!!!
I am as excited today as I was 12 years ago about the incredible potential of the Internet for evangelism, ministry, and discipleship. In 1996, I felt more than excitement…I believe now that it was a calling from God to be a pioneer in Internet ministry. I am so thankful for all that God has done in my life since that time, shaping and preparing me in many ways, and continuing to give me insight into how to use the web and digital media for God’s glory and to touch millions of lives around the world.