Just when you thought no one was looking...

The church I serve is in located between two movie studios in New York City, and Milton Street is often used as a film location. This has both positive and negative aspects. On days when there's a film crew around it means that parking is almost nonexistant. It also means you may or may not be able to walk down the street for fear of walking through a scene.

On the plus side is a steady stream of location scouts who visit looking to use the church for the film of the week. I've developed a good song and dance about the church building, its various uses and the procedure for cleaning up. Typically, the location scout leaves his or her phone number and calls the next day if he or she need the space.

In it's own way, I find the church's small particiapation in movie making to be a subtle ministry. We have a tramendus opportunity to welcome people. One Sunday early last November, it snowed considerably. As I shoveled the snow out front, a young guy came up and almost begged us to let him use the church later that day. He was an NYU grad student finishing off his film thesis. It was severely low budget, and he planned to feed the crew outside. That was before the snow. With the snow, he wasn't sure what they were going to do. I wasn't sure if I could say 'yes' or 'no.' I had just arrived as the pastor, and didn't want to do anything that might be considered 'out on a limb.' But, I knew that we should open the doors, and so I said yes.

It turned out to be a wonderful experience. Twenty college kids packed the church, and we all had lunch together with them playing the piano and singing. From that point on, we all knew that opening our doors to film crews wasn't about the bit of money they tend to donate to the church - it was about doing ministry.

Today, though, I had a great surprise. One of the location scouts knocked on our door. When I saw him, he let me know that he wasn't visiting about using the space for his latest film. Instead, he and his girlfriend are getting married and they decided to have a minister officiate. The spiritual aspect is important to them. He said that he hadn't had much interaction with churches, but that he had a great experience at our church and he wondered if I would be willing to officiate.

Wow! What a wonderful opportunity! Here is a guy who had a positive interaction with church and wanted to have a church wedding. I know that a lot of ministers would get on their soapbox that he wasn't a member of the church, but I am excited that our little movie ministry helped draw him toward church instead of repell him from it. We've been sucessful!

The hardest part, though, is that I'm not ordained yet. Given all that has happened over the past year, my ordination exams have been tabled. So I'm not sure that I'll be ordained in time to officiate at his wedding. It's far enough in the future that it's a possibility that I might be able to officiate, but still - it's not a done deal. While other ministers may take their ordination for granted, I know that I never will.

In the meantime, though, I plan to go to bed with a smile thinking about the location scout who came back to the church scene. You never know when ministry is happening.