[ RELIGION ]
RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Pono Shim, operator of Concierge Services at the Ward Stadium 16 theaters, made the local success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" his mission after he saw a preview in December. He hopes putting a mixture of church groups together at screenings will unite them in the long run.
Blessed Premiere
Churches plan special gatherings
to discuss events in "The Passion"
Thousands of prospective island viewers already expect "The Passion of the Christ" to be a religious experience.
More than 8,000 advance tickets have been sold for the Mel Gibson production that opens Wednesday at 13 Consolidated and Signature theaters in the state and about 2,000 locales nationwide.
Reservations are being made in batches of 100, 200 and 300 as church congregations plan to attend together and share the experience. Five advance screenings on Monday and Tuesday at two Ward Stadium 16 theaters are filled, primarily with pastors and church leaders. Several shows in future weeks are already booked exclusively for churchgoing crowds.
Some churches plan to offer prayers in the theater and post-movie dialogue sessions to help viewers put in context the intense and violent imagery of the finale of Jesus' life on earth. The film focuses on Christ's last 12 hours, when his life of teaching about God's love and forgiveness was put to an end in betrayal, arrest, whipping and crucifixion. It ends with only a few seconds' glimpse of the risen Christ, his divinity proven by resurrection from the dead, the central belief of Christianity.
>> New Hope Christian Fellowship senior pastor Wayne Cordeiro is taking 50 senior pastors from foreign countries, here for a pastoral education program, to a Monday show, and 100 ministry leaders and staffers to a Tuesday matinee. Afterward, they will retire to Ala Moana Park for communion and prayers.
>> The Rev. Karla Lundgren of St. John Lutheran Church in Kailua will take the high school youth group next Saturday.
"We'll gather right afterwards for discussion. I had planned for the junior high students but reconsidered because of the violence portrayed," she said. The congregation, she said, plans to attend together later, and "I may address it in sermon form in the future."
>> "It will be literally seeing the Scriptures amplified," said the Rev. Paul Kamanu of Grace Redemption Ministries in Kaneohe, who has chartered buses to take 180 members on the spiritual field trip. "We are going to prepare people in advance, and we will do something afterward as a church."
He said people need to be ready for the brutal imagery of Christ being scourged and nailed to the cross.
"I think shock treatment is good; I think it will make an impact. I have blasted Hollywood for not giving full substance to the Scriptures."
Followers of his "Prayer Force" television show can expect to hear about "The Passion" in the future, Kamanu said.
>> Parishioners of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Kailua will attend on their own schedule and share observations at a future study group, said Rector Cass Bailey, who will focus on the portrayal in sermons March 7 and 14.
"We will have an open discussion during our education time where I hope to address the more controversial issues such as 'Did the Jews kill Christ?'"
Bailey said the impact of an art form on belief is not a new phenomenon.
"The church from the beginning has been leader in the arts, using art to express the gospel. Only recently has it recovered the tradition by the use of contemporary music in our worship. At the same time, we respond to the old forms, such as the Taize-style of chant," He said: "Hollywood gets the rap of being quite secular, but in recent years it has opened itself to being a vehicle for a message, for instance in television shows such as 'Touched by an Angel.'"
>> The Rev. Dan Chun is taking 200 people from First Presbyterian Church to a Tuesday show and will link it to a four-part sermon series planned as a lead-up to Easter Sunday. He will also show film clips at the Hawaiian Islands Ministries annual conference next week to encourage the Hawaii Convention Center crowd of 4,000 to see the movie. Chun is one of about 200 local church folks who know exactly what to expect because they viewed a rough cut of the film here last December. Chun arranged for that preview, and his collaboration with Gibson's Icon Productions marketing staff has played a role in getting local theater chains to recognize the potential viewership for the independently made film.
He has advised other pastors to plan some follow-up to the movie as a decompression to the vivid imagery.
"The preview showed us that you are so moved or stunned that you need time to put it in perspective," said Chun.
That's what he did after the December preview in a down-to-earth interview with Icon marketing director Paul Lauer, peppered with anecdotes about stars and incidents during the filming.
Chun credits Pono Shim, operator of Concierge Services at Ward, for helping stimulate the groundswell of interest. Shim, who usually helps 2,000 clients avoid lines and assure seats, sent e-mails to pastors islandwide and works to put together full houses by combining church groups of various sizes. Shim, a Christian, decided to make the film's local success his mission after he saw the December preview.
"For me it is not an issue of marketing, but what the film could do for people," said Shim. "The theater gave me the opportunity to book groups. I understand the dynamic. God placed me in the middle."
Shim has also suggested that church groups do some debriefing of viewers. He said Chun helped him put the emotional impact of the movie in perspective with a prayer after the preview showing.
"He said we mistreated Christ and we mistreat each other and God still loves us. I have read the gospels for years but I never ingested it this way," Shim said. "I believe Gibson dealt with it with intense sensitivity. Communion will never be the same for me after seeing it."
Shim said he hopes that putting a mixture of church groups together for a movie will have the long-term effect of bringing them together "not as a congregation, but as the congregation. What is different about Hawaii is that all clergy will come together with one heart. It could make a model to the rest of the country."
And the phenomenon continues:
>> New Hope Christian Fellowship-Leeward Campus has bought out three showings next week at Signature Pearl Highlands -- more than 1,000 seats.
"We're hoping to go in early and do praise and worship beforehand, and at the end have a quick teaching, sort of a service, by the Rev. Mike Lwin," said extension director Carrie Miyahira.
>> "I think this is the monumental film of all times, one of most exact dramatizations," said the Rev. Bill Stonebraker, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Honolulu, which will fill two 480-seat shows at Ward Centre next week.
He said its effect is like traveling to the Holy Land.
"When people go on a Holy Land tour, the Bible becomes so real.
"We read about, but don't always understand, the pain and suffering. It's a powerful image of how much God loves us," Stonebraker said, and he doesn't think the audience will be limited to Christians.
"Maybe someone who wouldn't go to church or listen to a friend tell him about Jesus Christ will feel more comfortable in a theater where they can be alone," he said. "Maybe the words a preacher would preach would not penetrate.
"If they are curious to see what Jesus Christ went through ... I think Gibson has brought alive to us what actually took place. It will affect people in a dramatic way."
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