MURDERER, ADULTERER, HERO

By Sarah Cunningham: David, the younger, scrawnier member of the David vs. Goliath faceoff, usually snags the "hero" title. While Goliath, the lumbering, overgrown madman earns the label of "evil villain."  The village even carried David around on their shoulders after the fight. It was a clear cut case of good-guy vs. bad-guy, right?

Maybe not.

For those familiar with the rest of the story, David goes on to earn his own "bad guy" title. He seduces a married woman and has her husband killed off along the way.

Whoops. Murderer and adulterer aren't titles you usually slap onto your hero.

But like every other human to walk this planet, David was a mix of good and bad. He had his shining moments. But he also had some colossal failures.  In the end, the hero needed grace every bit as much as the villain. But that's not always the version you read in the illustrated children's storybook, is it?

Sometimes, familiar Biblical stories get over-simplified and the heroes get boiled down into one-dimensional characters who come off looking like saintly superheroes. But in reality, every man -- even those who followed God into victory -- had their downsides and low points. They were human.

Remembering they were human doesn't ruin the story. It helps us catch a vision for how God uses flawed and dysfunctional people to accomplish some of the noblest feats of history.  It reminds us that, in God's eyes, we're NEVER beyond grace, despite our flaws.  We're never beyond forgiveness.  We're never beyond second chance.

God has planted a hero in all of us, and he's willing to stick with us till we get it right.

It's in this context that Historytellers, the organization behind STORY and Dream Year, is launching a campaign called One Thousand Premieres, that will bring the Biblical story of David and Goliath to the big screen in a full length feature film.  Founder Ben Arment, Director Santino Stoner and myself think it's time to strike down the unrealistic, inhuman David, and redeem David's value as source of inspiration, wisdom and faith for real life people like us.

If you agree, and you'd like to band together with us and help fund the production of a Biblically-based epic movie, consider purchasing a license to show the film to your community.  If enough of us step up in faith, together we can raise the money to gift the Biblical account of this story to our world.

And to help do that, for every person who books a mid or large-size showing between now and January 31st, we will also GIVE AWAY a free showing to a village or community in the developing world.

You can get your church or another group to sponsor a showing or you can show it in your living room. All the details are HERE.