As The Passion of the Christ continues to strike a chord with filmgoers, churches across Sydney have taken opportunities to capitalise on the sudden interest in Jesus.
The parish of Minchinbury is a typical example of grassroots outreach that is working in people’s lives. When the churches of St John’s and St Mary’s combined to use interest surrounding The Passion of the Christ to provoke thought about Christianity among non-Christians, they began a long-term strategy to bring people into a relationship with God.
“We had to sell 150 tickets to book a cinema,” said St John’s senior minister, the Rev Mark Tough. “I sold eight in the first week and I thought, ‘what have I got myself into?’ As interest peaked we ended up selling 180 [tickets].”
People from both parishes invited friends along to the screening, after which Minchinbury ministry assistant, Steve House gave a gospel talk explaining why Jesus had to suffer on the Cross.
Approximately 30 to 40 per cent of those present were non-Christians, and Mr Tough is thankful that the event fell early in the year, because it worked well with the ministry cycle.
“In term one we have a pre-evangelism focus. It’s easier to bring non-Christians to a movie than it is to church. Term two has a big evangelistic focus, where we promote the Easter service and the holiday kids club. We will also run Simply Christianity in June,” he said. In term three the aim is to get people into discipleship, and then into recruiting and training in term four.
Flyers outlining the church’s events were handed out with the special Passion edition gospels of Mark. The major event advertised was a follow-up dinner at St Mary’s.
“We provided a place for people to bring their non-Christian friends who had seen the movie and were interested in discussing it further,” said St Mary’s catechist, Anthony Gerber.
“We had about 30 people turn up to the dinner where we discussed of questions raised by the film. We also asked people to talk about how the movie affected them,” he said.
Mr Gerber says while the number of newcomers was small, the night was a success in reaching non-Christians.
“We had four people who don’t come to church come along to the dinner. It might not sound like a lot, but to our church it’s a good basis for doing further events in the future. They were listening and engaging with the talks. It was obviously striking a chord with them,” he said.
The night also appeared to serve as a catalyst to regular church members, with one lady who was not involved in a Bible study group deciding to join one. “It was great to see personal Christian growth coming through on the night,” Mr Gerber said.