This weekend the Rachel Scott story is unpacked in the emotionally riveting and spiritually challenging I’m Not Ashamed movie.
I first got a preview of this powerful movie after visiting Columbine High School with 500 teenagers attending our Lead THE Cause event in Denver, Colorado last summer. That hot July afternoon we walked the hallways of Columbine High School, the scene of one of the worst school shootings in history. There and at the Columbine Memorial we prayed for the youth of America. We prayed for a spiritual awakening. We prayed for a movement of God to sweep in and through the next generation. Then we got on school buses, drove to Colorado Christian University and watched the I’m Not Ashamed movie together.
It’s hard to put into words how deeply moving this entire day was. And the movie capped it off in a way that I, and 500 teenagers from across the United States, will never forget.
This is far more than a movie about a horrific school shooting (which deeply affected me because I knew a lot of the kids at Columbine High School and my wife because she was and is a public school teacher in the same school district.) It’s a moving account about one teenager struggling to live her life for Christ in a temptation-filled world.
Rachel Scott was not the perfect little church girl. Although she came back strong for the Lord in the end it’s her very real struggle that makes this movie accessible to teenagers. They will relate to her visceral battle to fully live a life for God in a youth culture that is steeped in sin.
I think it’s a movie that every Christian teenager should see. It will challenge them to fight the good fight and be unashamed of the Gospel with their peers.
That’s why I’m buying tickets for my 15 year old son and six of his Christian friends. I want them to experience this movie together so they can be challenged to live unashamed lives for Christ together.
But going to the movie on my dime comes with a caveat. Afterward they have to grab a Coke or coffee or something and sit down to answer these 5 questions:
1. How did Rachel’s struggle to serve Christ in a temptation-filled world impact you personally?
2. Why is it often a challenge to be unashamed of the Gospel, especially with the teenagers we know?
3. In what ways did this movie challenge you to be more bold with your faith?
4. How can we band together to reach more teenagers for Christ and be more unashamed of the Gospel?
5. What one thing are you going to do in the next 48 hours to show that you are unahamed of Jesus?
Finally, I’m asking my son and his friends to pray together that God will enable them to live unashamed lives for God in real and practical ways.
Why not send a group of teenagers you know to see the “I’m Not Ashamed” movie and have them go through the same post-movie exercise? If parents and youth leaders across the nation did this it could spark a movement of Gospel conversations erupting from the lips and lives of Christian teenagers who are willing, like Rachel Scott, to live unashamed lives!
I’m sending a group of teenagers to see this movie. I challenge you to do the same! You won’t regret it and neither will they!
