Stand to Reason’s videographer, Greg Cash, shares his unique perspective on media and intentional Christian living in this clip from a special edition of Jon Noyes’s To the Point series.
Transcript
Jon Noyes: How can we leverage media better as Christians? Christians in general are not known for making blockbuster movies. We’re not known for making the best music that’s winning Grammys.
Paul wrote, whether we eat or drink, no matter what we do, we do unto the glory of God. The reason why Paul says “eat or drink” is because they are the two most fundamental activities to human life. Everybody needs to eat. Everybody needs to drink. If we do those unto the glory of God, how much more should we be doing everything else that we do unto the glory of God?
Now we’re talking about media. We live in a day and age where, number one, we’re bombarded with media, but also, we’ve been given this opportunity to leverage something that’s extremely powerful. In the past, we always had verbal stories. We tell stories back and forth. Then the printing press. Then radio. Then TV. Then color TV. Movies. All this stuff. So, now we’re able to leverage media, engaging almost every sense, and you go to these theaters now, and the seats rock, and the air blows on you, and all your senses are engaged. So how, as Christians, can we be intentional and leverage this stuff? Why aren’t we making Iron Man?
Greg Cash: It’s interesting that you bring up Paul. Could you imagine Paul—who was all about planting churches and spreading the gospel—if he could have imagined that we could do a film like what we’re doing right here. If the apostle Paul could be in this scenario, where he could say, people in South Africa could be watching this right now. He would be mind blown.
Jon Noyes: I just did a Meet the Teacher. If you do have so many classes at STR University, you get to meet the teacher. I had people on there from New Zealand and South Africa!
Greg Cash: Paul would be drooling. And you brought up the printing press and all these other kinds of progression steps, but think about how late in human history that was. We’re in this place, right now, that is unique in all of human history. We’ve been given such a gift. God could have given the internet to any generation he wanted to. He decided to do it for this generation. True global reach. He could have done anything he wanted, but he did it here. So, then, now we have a responsibility. We got Paul saying, yes, do fundamental activities for God’s glory, but then he continues by saying, “Or anything that you, do unto the glory of god.” But what does it mean to “do unto the glory of God”? In my mind, it is, make God look glorious in it.
Jon Noyes: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
Greg Cash: That’s it. If I’m going to leverage media, then I need to do it with eternal perspective in mind. You and me, we’re going to blink, and we’re going to be standing before the King. So, I need to be doing every bit of work that I do for the glory of Christ.
D.L. Moody had a famous line that said our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn’t really matter. That is my life and career in video. Now, I can’t really speak to the feature film side, but look at Charlton Heston from just a few decades ago. This guy’s making huge blockbusters. He set so many records in film, not just Christian films, and then we kind of had this hiatus. We had the Jesus film, and we had some other things, and then you have, let’s say, Mel Gibson come along and do The Passion of the Christ. That really changed a lot of things. You have The Chosen coming out now. So, I think people are trying to say we can do better. We can leverage this.
I used to tell my film students all the time, I could teach you how to make a commercial, but if you make a commercial about a car, who cares? I’m not saying honest work isn’t good. I’m not saying it’s bad or you shouldn’t work in the secular world. I’m saying, if your heart is to make a thing for yourself, what good is that? God values quality work. I think that you could work at Walmart to the glory of Christ. But I want to have that intentional, eternal mindset that says, “I don’t want to succeed in stuff that doesn’t matter. I want to stand for my King, who says, ‘that’s what I had for you to do. Good job. Well done.’”
Jon Noyes: That’s pretty powerful, and it’s actually kind of convicting.
Greg Cash: It’s that intentionality. It’s always intentionality. We talk about this from a parental perspective, where we’re looking at all this stuff now through our kids’ eyes, and you see a different angle, absolutely. I want to live in that. I don’t want to just think about that for them. I want that for me, Greg Cash. What do I do to be serious if I’m in this race that Paul talked about? I’m running a race. I want to be poured out for stuff that matters.