By Jonathan Storment, preaching minister at Highland Church of Christ

Last summer I attempted “method preaching.” I knew I was going to do a sermon series on minor characters in the Bible, using the metaphor of movie extras. So I decided to go to Hollywood and try and be an extra in a movie. You know, normal preacher stuff.

After many attempts, I became Hollywood’s newest working class restaurant patron. I got a walk-on part in the new Annie movie with Christian Bale.

Or so I thought.

I got to Disney Studios for my 6 a.m. call time to find that my part didn’t have anything to do with a new Annie movie. And Christian Bale wasn’t starring as Daddy Warbucks. My role as a working class patron was part of a new ABC series, Good Christian Belles.

It’s cool, though. I can roll with the punches.

I was sent to wait with the other extras It was un-classy to say the least. Everyone was tired, cranky and in a basement.

As we waited in the holding pen, the other extras started to warm up. Conversation started easily when I asked what else they worked on and what they were proud of.

The questions came when they wanted to hear my story. Apparently, most preachers don’t look for a job as an extra in their off time, especially not for a show that was banned by the American Family Values Association before shooting even started.

Not quite the Orphan Annie experience I was expecting.

And then more details came out. The working class restaurant patrons – including me – were visiting a Hooters.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

So, I start wondering whether this whole “method preaching” approach is worth it and wishing the musical orphans would show up. Luckily, a couple of my new friends remind me that this is extra work. I was going to be a blur in the background – like furniture.

Not true.

The assistant director came in and told us she needed five guys to sit at the table actress Leslie Bibb was going to serve. This meant they would have a prominent role drinking at a Hooters bar.

My whole ministry career flashed before my eyes.

I sank down in my seat, hoping she would pick five of the several other guys who raised their hands so we could move on. But one of my new acquaintances wanted to continue our conversation over non-alcoholic beer and fake chicken wings and volunteered me. Great.

We entered a set that is all smoke and mirrors. On the outside of the set, it’s a plywood box set. Inside, it felt like an authentic Texas-style restaurant. It was a Chili’s with scantily clad women walking around.

In front of us was a plate of artistically positioned, half-eaten chicken bones. The celery was real, but the rest of the food would put you in an I-might-need-to-go-to-the-hospital-for-food-poisoning kind of mood.

It goes like this. Leslie Bibb would walk over to our table, and about halfway through we would start chanting “Amanda” and one of us would pay her money for our food and ‘beverages’. Then it got worse.

The producers thought I would be perfect to hand Leslie/Amanda money, and say something profound like, “Thanks, and here you go.” She would interact with me saying, “Wow! Thank you!”

And I just kept thinking, “Dr. Dobson would be so angry with me.”

After a few hours of being on the set, I had come to grips with the reality of what was going on, I was sitting in the holding area between takes working through worst-case scenarios in my head. That’s when a woman, Allison, spoke up.

She heard that I was a preacher and was intrigued by the fact that I was doing this.

Allison was living in the Bible Belt when she married a Jewish man. She was vilified by the Christians who she had grown up with. They saw her marriage as a mixed marriage, and instead of engaging her they kept her at arm length, even telling her from a distance that her marriage was offensive to God.

Allison made the point that the show that we were filming was pretty close to home for her. She had been wounded by church, and church people.

She said, “I don’t know a lot about organized religion anymore, but I just want you to know I think it’s cool that you are here doing this.”

After that, I did too.

Christians should be involved in these industries. We must wade through the grey areas and try to make Jesus look as good as possible as they find new ways to be faithful.

But Christians tend to withdraw from places where they are unable to tell the dominant story lines. And that’s a shame. Because these places need sincere Jesus-followers, ones who aren’t judgmental and pretentious. They need people who understand that holiness as defined by Jesus isn’t withdrawing from the world, but by being different from it while very much being a part of it.

We won’t always be the ones to produce to content, we won’t always have creative control or even a say. We may be forced into uncomfortable situations, but we can still find ways to be faithful.

Because there’s not enough holiness in the world, but the Light has shined in the darkness – and the darkness will not overcome. That’s what Jesus’ followers believe, and the world could really use us trying to live that out.

This will probably be one of the more controversial shows ABC has in the upcoming season; it’s satirically portraying some Christians as people who are not smoking what they are selling.

But this show will unknowingly begin it’s opening scene with a preacher from a West Texas church sitting at a pretend bar eating pretend chicken wings and having subversive conversations that, hopefully, gave Jesus a better name.