FAYETTEVILLE, Ga.--The $305 million impact of "The Passion of The Christ" at the box office is obvious but the impact of "The Passion" in American churches is what excites ministers, according to Baptist Press.
Pastor John Avant said average attendance at New Hope Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Ga., just south of Atlanta, has risen by 12 percent in recent weeks, an increase he attributes to the interest stimulated by the film.
"A movie has the world focused on the cross," Avant said. "We're up 300 people over last year and a whole lot of that is people coming, seeking to know more [about Christ]."
Other reports indicate the film has fueled an increase in Bibles.
The owner of a Christian bookstore in eastern Pennsylvania said he sees several new customers each day who say they saw the movie and want a Bible.
Joe Hackman, the owner of Hackman's Bible Bookstore in Whitehall, Pa., said he can tell when they don't come from a church background, such as the customer who asked, "What's a New Testament?"
After learning a multiplex cinema in his area didn't plan to screen the movie, a bookstore owner in New Boston, Ohio, persuaded 65 area churches to help sell tickets. The churches also helped pay for two half-page advertisements in the Portsmouth Times.
Jeff Dunn, who runs Praises bookstore, said the effort resulted in the sale of 6,400 tickets in two weeks.
Dunn also arranged for local pastors to present an evangelistic message after each showing. Eight professions of faith in Christ were recorded the first week.
"In my lifetime, this is the greatest evangelistic opportunity I've had to affect my community," said Dunn, who formerly pastored an independent Baptist church.
Alvin Reid, an evangelism professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said a seminary graduate who pastors Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, e-mailed him to say that 59 people had accepted Christ after the premiere.
In addition, many students on Southeastern's North Carolina campus have distributed flyers about the film door-to-door. They also have taken friends to see it, with some of them later praying to accept Christ.
The most significant place in America for evangelism in late February and early March, Reid noted, was a movie theater, not a church building.
"I think there's a tremendous message in [the movie's success] for the church," Reid said. "It demonstrates to me we think so much about our local church on Sunday. But we ought to start thinking about evangelism outside the church building a little more."
Ken Hemphill, national strategist for the Southern Baptist Convention's Empowering Kingdom Growth emphasis, whose job includes frequent traveling, finds it easy to strike up conversations about the movie with strangers.
"I think it could be a real trigger for an awakening in our own hearts and lives and a great evangelistic harvest," he said.
