Greetings from the Faith & Film Team,

The Faith & Film student group began, in concept, around 3 years ago. The Discipleship and Spiritual Formation Office at SEBTS, hoping to equip men to engage the culture, began a monthly meeting in which they would invite a small group to watch a popular movie and discuss the worldview presented in the movie. As time progressed, Graham Michael, the founder for Faith & Film, turned his attention to writing. He created the current Faith & Film blog and began to write short articles in which he would critically analyze modern movies. As this project grew, Graham began to invite other people to contribute to the blog, growing more interest amongst the student body. Eventually, Graham and one of his contributors, Brandon Terry, decided to turn these efforts into an official student group, officially founding the current expression of Faith & Film.

Over the last year, the Faith & Film group has been working to get its feet planted, in order to fulfill the vision for Faith and Film. The group is guided by the following vision statement:

“The purpose of Faith & Film is to train believers to understand, critique, and engage the worldviews of movies, and use that ability to better communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those who are lost.”

The thought process behind this mission is simple. Faith & Film members understand that movies do not present neutral entertainment to audiences. Instead, movies are the creative expression of human beings with worldviews, and therefore reflect these worldviews to some degree. Further, the worldview issues presented in many movies such as morality, love, and identity are crucial discussion to have with unbelievers when building bridges to the Gospel. In response to this belief, Faith & Film focuses on training SEBTS students to actively watch movies in order to understand the worldviews presented and to use this skill to have honest conversations with unbelievers about worldviews and the Gospel. In other words, our group exists to be a way for SEBTS to engage culture and fulfill the Great Commission through the medium of film.

In keeping with that vision, Faith & Film has a couple of regular activities for its member. The first, and most common, activity is our movie nights. In order to have practice in actively engaging movies, the Faith & Film group hosts monthly movie nights. During this evening, the group watches a movie in community, and afterwards we will take time to discuss the worldview and Gospel bridges in the movie. As this is the most active training, these events are the cornerstone of the Faith & Film identity.

Alongside this cornerstone activity, however, the Faith & Film maintains a more public presence on their website. The Faith & Film blog is an outreach tool through which the group publishes articles on significant movies which discuss similar themes that the movie nights discuss. The main goal for this blog is to dig deep into one particular question that the movie asks about life. By doing so, the Faith & Film group hopes to create a public presence that is opening up dialogues with unbelievers about important life issues which the Gospel touches on. In the end, our desire is that these two events will serve as ways to equip and prepare the church to fulfill the Great Commission through the medium of film.

As we seek to work together to fulfill our mission, Faith & Film is always looking to add more members to our team. If you are reading this post and are interested in contributing to this mission, here are a couple of ways you can get involved:

1) Attend a movie night. All Faith & Film movie nights are open to the entire SEBTS student body and family. The times of these events will be posted on the schools event page and on our Facebook page.
2) Apply for membership. Anyone who has attended two or more movie nights, is eligible to inquire about membership in the group. Membership in the group allows for more impact on the vision and direction of the group and possible access to the group budget.
3) Finally, contribute to the blog. All members are given the privilege of contributing to the blog and having their work published on our website. By doing any of these steps, SEBTS students have opportunity to contribute to the mission of impacting the culture and fulfilling the Great Commission.

Thank you for taking time to learn more about the Faith & Film student group. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Faith & Film at fandf@sebts.edu.