Hollywood

Time just slips right on by, doesn't it? I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by mentioning something I've thought about a lot in the past week: Hollywood.

I don't live in Hollywood, and I gather many of you don't either (that is, if anyone is actually reading this thing). But I think Christians need to have Hollywood on the brain. I spoke at a conference in Virginia this weekend called Awaken the Dawn - a cry for this generation to wake up and grab hold. I spoke about Hollywood and why Christians need to think about this subject. I had an interesting assortment of people in my workshop, some pastors, some parents and lots of young people. That said something to me. First of all, just mentioning Hollywood in a workshop title piques an interest. But also, Christians need to be thinking about Hollywood because young people most certainly are.

I won't go on for an hour like I did last weekend, after all, I had a door to close there and you can click off anytime you want to, but I want to mention my main point: Pray!

When people found out about my workshop I had a lot of people that responded - "I just don't have anything to do with Hollywood. It's evil." To which I would respond, "Well, that's a mistake." How effective is our Christianity, or for that matter, our walk with God, if we simply hide ourselves away in our churches and never face our culture? We pray for our nation's leaders and millions of people are signed up to pray for our President, and that's as it should be. But why aren't we praying for Hollywood? When I asked my class who regularly prayed for Hollywood, or had even thought to pray at all, no one raised their hands. Hollywood has a huge influence on our culture and on young people today. And there are Christians living and working in Hollywood who need our support so that they can be an influence there. At http://hollywoodprayernetwork.org you can sign up to interecede on behalf of Christians in Hollywood and find out why Hollywood is a mission field.

So next time you see something on TV that you think is awful...pray!

Next time you walk out of a movie because it's raunchy...pray!

Next time you hear about a young artist wanting to be trained to work in Hollywood...pray!

I just think that we'll never win Hollywood unless we love the people of Hollywood. It's not some big machine that churns and coughs out beauty and filth all at the same time. It's a lot of people all in one place who love film and television. And we can pray for them to love Christ as well. And we can do that no matter where we live.