The Progress Report

Synopsis: Who We Are

Christian Walk Alive (CWA) is the non-profit organization that produces A Work In Progress. CWA’s mission is to create and produce Christian media that edifies believers and spreads the Gospel. Television, radio and films have become so degraded with sex, violence, lies and blasphemy there is very little a Christian can listen to or watch without being negatively influenced. Our desire is to fill the void with wholesome and enjoyable entertainment.

CWA News & Updates

We recently had our first fun fundraiser. In April we had a scavenger hunt in Columbia, MD that was a lot of fun and a great success.

The newsletter format is new! What do you think of the new way we’re sending it out?

There’s not much else new happening. We’ve mostly been focusing on making season 7 of Progress to be the best season ever.

Upcoming Episodes

Here are a few upcoming episodes for season 6:

Current 610: Run The Race

August 611: Redeem the Time

September 612: Hold on to What is Good

October 613: Wisdom and Understanding

Teaser info: Will and Terri finally make a decision about their relationship.

Media News & Updates

Phil Vischer’s new company Jellyfish labs is working on an all online kids channel called Jelly Telly. Check it out http://www.jellytelly.com/

In case you have been living under a rock you should know that Batman: The Dark Knight has broken box office records. The film has had some serious troubles around it though. Heath Ledger who played the Joker died several months earlier of an accidental overdose of drugs. Some say this was because he had such a hard time sleeping after playing the character he did. Currently the actor who plays Batman, Christian Bale has been arrested in London on charges he assaulted his mother and sister.

Articles: Media & Stories of Interest

Where are All the Christian Hit Movies?

by Larry Amon

What Christian hit movies? What I mean is this: there have been several breakout low budget Christian movies but no seeming follow-up. Facing the Giants did surprisingly well for a low budget Christian movie. The animated Ten Commandments movie did okay and starred Christian Slater. Several years back the original Veggietales movie Jonah even did pretty well. There have also been other Christian movies that were put in the movie theater big screens and some that went straight to video.

As a result, Hollywood started a big push to make and/or market family and faith friendly films. Fox even has a whole division setup just for that purpose, its called “FoxFaith.” But still, there are not really any big Christian production companies making consistently great Christian films. Why not I wonder? It’s not the lack of audience, nor lack of Christians wanting to make Christian movies. I might be wrong but I think it’s a lack of vision in the Christian community.

While Disney has released two Chronicles of Narnia films, I would hardy call those Christian movies. Disney’s main purpose was to make money and not to send a message about Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with making films that make money, but Disney clearly had no problem putting money over message when making these films. Disney is not a Christian company so this is no surprise. Both films had the potential to really send a good Christian message, but I think that message was very much watered down by the directors. The director of the first film, Andrew Adamson, said this “ To me it’s about making a movie which lives up to my memory of my book rather than specifically the book itself.” The second film Prince Caspian was even a further deviation from the book. Aslan is supposed to be Jesus to Narnia. And in the books you can tell Aslan is more than a talking Lion. He has a presence that is much more. I believe this is clearly lost in the movie.

Veggietales has also put out a second film recently called The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. There was not really anything wrong with the movie or its concept but it lacked two things. First, the company that now owns Veggietales is not a Christian company. Second the movie was not meant as a movie with a specific Biblical message. Phil Vischer originally wrote the story and he is a Christian, but it still lacked a message that I think audiences need.

There are Christian production companies making movies and there are Christians in Hollywood who are part of shaping some movies that come out in theaters. But there is no real consistency in the production of Christian movies the way that Big Idea (the company that makes Veggietales) consistently made successful Christian hit home videos. As I have said, I think this is due to a lack of vision. I think the Christian community with all of its talent needs someone to bring the idea together to make a good Christian production company that holds onto a vision to produce great entertainment with the uncompromising message of the Gospel. Christians and non Christians would come and see movies that are well written and well made. But these movies need to cover the whole gambit of topics and not just kids’ movies or just love stories. We need comedies, dramas, romance and yes, even science fiction. This would of course take serious financial backing but God can provide and the Church should be a part of it to reap the blessings.

Just a note. This kind of project is the kind of project CWA would like to take on but is far too small in size and resources at the moment. However we would be interested in assisting any organization with this goal in way we could.

Spotlight Biography

We have decided to give a little biography each newsletter of a different person involved in CWA.

Since this is the first one, I’ll go first.

Name: Larry Amon
Age: 35
How I am involved in CWA/Progress: I am the president, executive director and I occasionally fill in a voice here and there.
What I love about Progress the most? Hanging out and fellowshiping with the voice actors during recording.
Favorite Progress moment: In the very first episode there is a line where Pastor Frank is supposed to say to James “I’m glad you’re back James” but he tripped over his words and said “I’m glad you’re black James.” It was one of those you had to be there moments. We were laughing about it for at least ten minutes.
Favorite flavor ice cream: Vanilla.

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