Friday, March 14, 2008

LOST Reaching the Lost


We've started using the TV series LOST in our Saturday night English Club to share the Gospel with English speakers in our community. So far, it is turning out way better than we had thought it would. We show an episode of LOST which turns out to be about 45 minutes and then spend another 45 minutes discussing it. We play the episode in English with English subtitles to help everyone through some of the more difficult dialog and then we work some life application and biblical questions in. The girls seem to love it (That's right. No guys have shown up yet, but we do have two guys who have said they would go this Saturday).

English Club at the Rosava
Some of the girls from English Club

We tossed around different ideas of what we could use. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) was our first thought since season one of 24 has a biblical truths study guide to go with it called, "Jack Bauer's Having a Bad Day: An Unauthorized Investigation of Faith in 24, Season One". We decided against 24 because of the amount of violence and fast pace that would make it hard for Ukrainian speakers to follow closely. We decided against Gilmore Girls because of how fast they talk and all the obscure American culture references, although Gilmore Girls is on TV here translated into Ukrainian. Walker Texas Ranger was even briefly considered but we decided Chuck Norris wasn't worthy enough to replace Jack Bauer. Sorry Chuck. Oprah is a familiar sight on Ukrainian television so we even gave her a thought, just kidding (Ukrainians have had enough of Oprah's New Age, self-improvement, do-it-without-Jesus, psycho-babble without us subjecting them to more).



In the end, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) won out. We were also pleased to find that LOST has a study guide for Christian discussion called "What Can Be Found In LOST?: Insights on GOD & the Meaning of Life from the Popular TV Series". LOST is popular on Ukrainian television under the title "Загублені".

Each meeting we have seems to go better and better. What started out kind of shaky and a bit awkward has become a lot of fun for us. About half of those who come are believers so we are blessed with fellowship each time. Please keep us in prayer as we seek to reach out to those who don't yet know Christ.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi Greg and Edna! Great hearing from you all, via my blog...it would be cool to add you as a link to my blog and vise versa; got any idea how to do that. Jeremy foster said that you said hi; he's a cool guy. So sounds like you all are in Ukraine for the long hall; right on! What part of Ukraine you guys at directionally. Shoot me an email when ya get a chance...would be good to have your email address and stay connected.

sincerely,

-garrett girvan
gserve111@gmail.com
ggirvan.blogspot.com

Greg and Edna Silva said...

Garrett!! Hey! So good to hear from you! We are so blessed and encouraged to read about your time at CCBCE. I remember telling you last October that you should just GO when you asked about the Hungary Campus. :) How cool!

We'll be sending along an email shortly regarding how to navigate blogger.

Edna