Hello, hope you are well!
If you could get this message out as many people as you feel comfortable forwarding to, that would be greatly appreciated. It has to be done soon though.
Praise the lord that God has freed us and chosen us to bring forth his word and love through his son Jesus Christ.
In January I made a video for an authors book release. It was a competition between six filmmakers and their interpretation of a single page from the authors book.
When I was picked I saw this opportunity to continue in the path the Lord has set before me to become move involved with the world of filmmaking. Though this competition does have a prize, I see this as an opportunity to push faith based films in a creative way to inspire faith and encourage conversation about Jesus. The book is called Dug Down Deep by Josh Harris and the intention for my film was to do just that, cause you to search for the meaning and to not only not give you answer but leave you in question.
The winner is chosen by how many comments the video has. Please go to http://www.joshharris.com/2010/01/film_6_stephen_mcgee.php#comments
and leave a comment under my video if it moves you. Thank you.
The movie is about one Christian who sees that his church is focused more on going through the motions of religion. I chose a Ukrainian actor to play the lead and an Ukrainian man to be the voice. Read why in the blog post below.
Harris testifies in his book that until recently his life was built on sand even though he read and believed the word of god. A Sand based foundation was a theme throughout the film. I had the narrator whisper some key lines in the script to emphasize how God speaks to us; in whispers. Like Elijah and God’s still quiet voice at the mouth of the cave I wanted the audience to lean in and truly listen to what was being said. There are elements throughout this film that mirror what Harris wrote about Doctrine and Theology as well as instances in my life where God was revealed to me.
I love the shadow scene in the dark church. I chose this sequence to represent a few different things. Maybe I’ll write more about that later.
Harris also wrote “I kissed dating goodbye”. In one section in this, his most recent book, “dug down deep”, he talks about meeting the holy spirit in what he called ‘the bubble church’. The bubble church he thought was great but focused too much on performance based faith. I represented the bubble church as a ballerina with bubbles.
So often Christians name themselves specific parts of the body of christ, giving themselves opportunity not to serve in other ways than their “role”. As The pastor is preaching from blueprints representing many Christians today who have ministry goals based on what works in other parts of the world and in other churches the congregation goes through what looks like a workout routine.
The main character sees one group who are focused only on prayer, the next group on action and a third, the ballerina, on performance based faith. His search for truth brings him to the front of the church where he sees the ballerina. Beliving he needs also to take off his shoes to do the right dance to meet the holy spirit and become like her faith he takes off his shoes and sees that he had been walking on sand the entire time. The main character walls over and takes the sword out of the sand and walks it out of the church which stops everyone.
The main actor is a Ukrainian and so is the voice. Because of this film both got to see the love of chirst and were ministered to.
If you could send it to everyone you know and have them do the same if they are moved that would be great. Comment on the video to cast your vote.
May God reveal himself to you and create in you a clean heart built on the solid foundation of his son Jesus.
Thanks.
Stephen
Sorry for the typos, my computer died so I typed this on my phone.
STEPHEN MCGEE 