Treausure Blind, written and directed by Brian Shoop and released under Cloud Ten Pictures

I made a movie and now I’m trying to understand why.

After battling through the melee of fund-raising and filming and marketing and margins and critics and crowded retail shelves, I’ve reached an oasis that brings peace and clarity again. A thought into which I can retreat and find safety – though it is not without danger. Just this: movie making is an act of worship. It is an offering, a sacrifice, made to the god of the filmmaker’s soul. This conclusion brings clarity because it defines one discipline to master rather than the clamoring myriad of details that constitute the filmmaking process. It also means that making movies is much more than a hobby, or a career, or even art. For the Christian moviemaker, the craft has inescapable eternal dimensions – and consequences.

This thought occurred to me as I was examining worship in Scripture. The foundation begins early in Genesis; God creates man in His own image. And, in His image, each of us was created to worship. It’s what we do. Just as a camera was designed from the drawing board to take pictures, we were designed and built to worship the Creator. I would go so far as to say that man cannot NOT worship. The problem is, mankind fell, sin entered a perfect Creation, and man began to worship… well, anything and everything but God, and ultimately…himself. In fact, that was Satan’s temptation wasn’t it, “You will be as God”? Isaiah says it this way, “All we like sheep have gone astray and have turned every one to his own way.”

In our culture, we hear people refer to their “moral compass” as the basis for decisions. I am the final authority in my world. And that sentiment has always existed in the church. In the earliest recorded worship service, the bulletin included no singing, no responsive readings, no preacher and no sermon. Just the offering. Abel brought a lamb; Cain brought fruits and vegetables. God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. Cain’s response highlights the reason: Abel worshiped God, Cain worshiped Cain. All of history has been an account of how many different ways man can twist and pervert a good thing until it’s a “god” for him (an idol) and he worships it.

Take food. Food is a good thing, a blessing from God. It’s necessary to life. But, food can become my god, my idol. I can worship food. Art is also a good thing, a blessing from the hand of God. But art can become the god of the artist. There is no end of examples. And the really frustrating bottom line is, as a fallen human being, my natural tendency, my default state, is to worship the creation rather than the Creator. It happens quietly, unnoticed, and constantly. But at least there are ways to recognize when it’s happened.

Worship means literally to assign “weight” or importance to someone or something. So, the object of my worship is the person or thing to which I attach the most importance. It’s my favorite thing to think about when I have a choice, the first thing in the morning, last thing at night, you get the idea. Two main responses define my worship activities: I want to be identified with the object of my worship, and I sacrifice for it. I’m a “fan” of my worship object. If it’s athletics, I want to dress and walk and act like an athlete or at least a fan.

If it’s being a moviemaker, I emulate that image. I want to be recognized that way, identified with the object of my worship. Then, I sacrifice for my worship object. I take time away from other activities or people because I have to give it to my worship object. I might invest money, sacrifice relationships, even good important things for the sake of the one thing I worship. I am built that way. I can’t help it. But what I can decide is whom I will worship. Paul said to the Christians at Corinth, “…do all to the glory of God.” And John said to his spiritual children, “…keep yourselves from idols.”

The regular adjustment I have to make as a Christian moviemaker – or a Christian anything – was summarized by Christ himself: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” First, I deny myself the place of god in my life. Then I follow, or imitate Christ, who always submitted to the Father’s will. I immerse myself in the Truth, the Bible. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “…true worshipers will worship me in spirit and in truth.” Finally I choose, by an act of my will, to make Jesus the most important thing in my life and to do whatever I do – even make movies – to the glory of God. Even if I’m not making a “Christian movie”, I should make my movie for the glory (or weight, or preeminence) of God.

Movie making is an act of worship because as a man created by God, worship is what I do. What makes a Christian moviemaker unique is that he can select Jesus as the object of his worship, the one with whom he is identified, the one to whom his offering is made. After all, as a Christian I know that only Jesus is worthy of my worship.

May God find moviemakers who worship Him in spirit and in truth through these offerings: our movies.

- Blog written by Brian Shoop, Writer/Director of Treasure Blind