This commentary is by Bill Allison, executive director of Cadre Ministries. Bill's passion is to bring glory to God by assisting local churches in becoming the best volunteer training "cadres" in the world.  For free online training for volunteers and those who work with volunteers, check out www.cadreministries.com.

If the theater is our current culture's arena in which the big questions of life get asked, then The Passion movie could be one of the greatest outreach tools you and your church have at this time!

While many are weighing in on the pros and cons of the movie, who should see it and who should not, and the movie's emotional impact, I want to simply ask you this question:

Will you and those in your church seize the evangelistic potential of this window of opportunity or will you simply join fellow believers and be satisfied with the mere entertainment value of a well produced movie about Jesus?

Thom Rainer, author of Surprising Insights from the Unchurched, says “Ninety-six percent of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if they are invited.” Please stop and think about that for a moment! Rainer estimates that there are 160 million people in the United States who are unchurched — and he defines unchurched as attending church two or less times in a year. If his 96 percent figure is correct, the implications are staggering: Over 153 million people in America would start attending church if they were invited!

This begs the question:

If people are apt to come to church when they are invited, how much more would they be open to catching a movie when invited by a friend?

Perhaps you could have the best of both worlds here. Why not go see the movie with your Christian friends first. After the movie, you can process the emotional impact and strategize about how to best use the movie as a tool to discuss the Gospel with your friends who don't have a relationship with Jesus. Then dare to ask someone—just one person in your sphere of life who hasn't trusted Jesus Christ as his/her Savior—to go to the movies with you! If money is an issue—pay! It would be a strategic eternal investment during a strategic window of time for our culture.

After all, isn't the ultimate message of The Passion about God's passion to have a relationship with people who don't yet have that relationship with him?