So I saw this headline on Time.com:

Box Office: Surprise! Dolphins and Jesus Beat Cancer and Dead Kids

I like news like this.

First because in the end, if you place your faith in Christ, He always beats cancer one way or another.

Second, because Hollywood MIGHT be waking up. I emphasize “might.” It depends on whether or not Hollywood realizes what people WANT to see, not what they THINK is art.

Christian movies offer a better story.

Movies with Christian/Biblical themes are abounding. From this generation’s forerunners, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Passion of the Christ, to more recent editions from Kendrick brothers (Courageous, and their three other box office releases), we are witnessing a more faith friendly big screen pop culture.

Even preachers like T.D. Jakes are stepping up to produce movies like “Jumping the Broom.” My family and I loved “The Grace Card” and “The Ultimate Gift.” And of course the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was written by a great friend of Narnia’s C.S. Lewis. The same Lewis who previously had been an atheist and went on to become the last century’s greatest apologists for our faith. I am eager to see Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” reappear on the big screen next year.

Should it surprise us that movies with a Christian/Biblicial theme or undertone resonate with people? Skeptics will say its because we’ve been brainwashed into “fantasy stories” during our upbringing instead of learning to think for ourselves. But I would object.

There dwells within the human heart a longing for a better end. We know what we see around us NEEDS to be fixed. Where does that come from? It comes from God who put “eternity in our hearts.” We want for a better reality because we were made for a better reality.

Look, if I wanted to watch a drama unfold that starts with hopelessness and ends in despair, I can just watch Congress on C-SPAN. I don’t need a reminder of the natural order of things. I want hope. I want redemption. I want a future that’s in the hands of ONE more powerful than I.

And there in lies the advantage of Christian movie producers. We have a BETTER story. We may not always do it justice in how we live and I would be the first to agree some of the acting in a Christian movies is found wanting. But we don’t need better acting, we need better story. And we have it, in Christ, in the End.

God rescues, God saves, God rules and reigns – and we with Him.

My sincere prayer is that church leaders will remember this. Our job is to tell God’s story not tell them how to live. Because the story changes us from within, the law only burdens us from without. God’s story encompasses redemption in the highest way possible.

Are we telling God’s story or ours? I only ask along with Paul that we may “present this message as clearly as we should.” (Col. 4:4).