Tuesday, May 30, 2023 Adventures of A Young Christian, Part 9

Next up was the opportunity to be involved in a group that was sponsoring the showing of an evangelistic film called “Heaven’s Heroes” in Rochester. Local churches were being asked to participate in all aspects of bringing this film to town: fundraising, prayer, logistics, advertising and general PR, etc. “Me! Pick me!” I said in my newfound zeal to say “yes” to everything. I had hoped to be slotted into the organization as a minion taking orders. Instead I found out that I was to be in charge of advertising and PR. Oh boy. I had to take hold of that adage again and remind myself that “God is more interested in availability than He is in ability.” I had never been involved in promoting anything before and I’m not a tremendously outgoing person either. My idea of sales is to say “You probably don’t want that thing that I’m trying to sell you. I’m sorry I asked.” So, ability level zero. But I was very available!

We started out many months in advance of the one-day showing of the movie. A group of us met with the local contact from Mustard Seed Productions and the plan was to meet regularly with updates on our progress. Somehow I accrued a couple minions for my committee and we met separately to put together a strategy of PR. It was a big job and we spent some time making lists of things to do, people and churches to contact, media resources, etc. So far, so good.

Then we all went to a sneak preview showing of the movie. I don’t know how else to say this: it was awful. The production value was embarrassingly bad, the plot was overly simplistic, the script was phony sounding, and the acting was worse (excepting perhaps the main actress who was a professional and had appeared in a series on TV). The best you could say was that the intended goal of reaching people for Christ was a sincere one. I was filled with a heavy ambivalence about the whole thing after watching it. On the one hand, people kept saying, “If even one person comes to the Lord it’s worth it all!” Yes, I could see that. I was a relatively new Christian and hesitated to stick my neck out with opinions about the quality of the product. But it was going to make my role in promoting the film a difficult one. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore. I felt I should keep my negativity to myself. I couldn’t just quit after I’d committed to it anyway. Right? I needed to let my “yes be yes and my no be no.” No way out of this one. Sigh.

Then I went to the Urbana Missions conference and connected up with a fellow named Kris whom I’d known in college. He had approached me shortly before the conference with an interest in dating me, so ooh la la! I was happy to meet up with him there and eventually told the whole story to him about my involvement with “Heaven’s Heroes.” He was a much more mature Christian than I was and I was pretty sure he would sympathize with my plight but urge me to stay faithful to my commitment. After I finished talking about it, he said, “I think you should quit the project.” WHAT???? A little ray of hope sprang up in my heart. He went on to explain that I had committed to it before seeing the movie and in view of my personal distaste for the movie, I wasn’t doing the team any favors by sticking with it out of a misplaced sense of duty. His own conviction was that Christians need to have a culture of excellence in everything they do and we should not be characterized by shoddy workmanship.

It all made sense and lightened my heart considerably, but I was still faced with the problem of how to exit graciously. He agreed that I shouldn’t just walk off, but counseled me to pray that God would provide a replacement for my role, which would be a confirmation of my decision to leave. I prayed about it and then after I got back, I asked one of the guys on my committee if he’d consider stepping up to the job. He agreed to it enthusiastically without the slightest hesitation. Truth be told, his personality and skills were far better suited to the task than mine were. I had decided that rather than tell people that I hated the movie, I would just let everyone know that I was unable to finish out my part on the project due to some other commitments in my life (which wasn’t an untruth, it just wasn’t the whole truth).

I went to one last group meeting and explained that I’d be leaving, apologized for backing out of the project, and introduced the new head of PR. The man in charge of things could tell I felt bad and mouthed the words “We still love you” which made me feel better (and yet worse because I hadn’t told them everything). I was grateful for God’s provision of a substitute for me, grateful to be freed from what had become a real burden, and truly grateful for the lovely group of people committed to bringing the gospel to Rochester, albeit through a flawed medium.

I was long gone out of Rochester by the time the film came to town, having gotten engaged and moved to the city where we’d be living after we got married. I don’t really know what impact “Heaven’s Heroes,” had on the community, but I hoped and prayed that the Lord used it in spite of its weaknesses to draw others to Himself. And although I wasn’t done volunteering for things, I had learned a good lesson about being more careful and discerning about what I said “yes” to.

I’ll probably delete this bit of shoddy workmanship in the morning!

If you want to start at the beginning of this series, here you go:
Adventures Part 1

Next adventure:
Adventures Part 10