"Hey, let's get out of here and go see a movie. I gotta get some ideas for Sunday's sermon."

I attended a meeting with a few preacher friends. The meeting was almost over when one friend uttered those infamous words. My body echoed a sentiment for returning to the hotel for rest. Yet my colleagues voted for the movie. Off we went to see Kevin Bacon and Meryl Streep in The River Wild.

We purchased our $6 ticket to view the movie. We watched the action-packed film late into the night. Near the end of the movie my friend whispered, "There's some good stuff in this movie for a sermon."

I got absolutely nothing out of that movie. The movie seemed to me your typical motion picture with good battling evil. The only difference was the setting, a wild river with rapids raging, crashing, aiming to devour its floating host.

I now tease my friend, "What movie are you preaching this Sunday?"

As one taught to dissect the Bible, I trained on a steady diet of conjugated Greek verbs, sentence diagrams, and homiletical outlines. Organize a message, then proclaim the Good News from the housetop, was my theme. It still is, but I move in and out with a passage. I travel from the then to the now, from history to present, from where the saints of old were to where the saints of today are. One way to identify with the now is to use movies in preaching.

I hesitated at first, but reality told me we live in the video age. Most of the people in our churches are familiar with the top ten video rentals more than they are the first ten chapters of Genesis. Should the proclaimer of God's Word simply ignore this fact or accept it to communicate spiritual truths?

I believe it's necessary to use the familiar to teach the unfamiliar. It is acceptable to use movies and video (the familiar) to preach the truth of the Gospel (the unfamiliar). But how is this done?

It is done with both creativity and discretion. Creativity because you begin with your text and weave illustrative material into the movement of the sermon. Always make sure the illustration fits the point you try to make. Do not force a good movie illustration on the text simply because the movie has a striking scene or quote.

Using movies in preaching also requires discretion. Before I use a movie illustration I ask myself three questions: What moral does the movie portray? Is the movie too violent or too prurient? What is the movie's rating? Answering these questions tells me whether or not to use the movie illustration in preaching. Generally, the younger the audience, the less risk in using a movie illustration. Approach an older audience with caution. Always, when in doubt about the movie's content, don't use it.

How can you use movies in preaching? The best way to answer this question is to give some examples.

Apollo 13. This popular movie tells the true story of four astronauts: commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Ken Mattingly and Jack Swigert. NASA scratched Ken Mattingly from the original team because of his exposure to the measles.