WHAT THE CHURCH CAN LEARN FROM LOST

Jared Wilson on his blog The Gospel Driven Church makes these observations about what the church can learn from the television show Lost:

1) LOST was robust. It did not partition off "spiritual matters" and "scientific matters" and "romantic matters," etc. It wasn't a romance show. Or an adventure show. It wasn't just science fiction. It wasn't fantasy. It was -- I think -- more along the lines of "myth," but what it managed to do was weave a "philosophy of everything" into its storyline. I think Christians can learn from this that "Christianity," as David Powlison says, "is higher than anything is high, yet walks on the ground." The Incarnation of our Lord itself reminds us that Christian faith and practice has ramifications for and application to everything in the world, including the things it opposes. This helps us steer clear of easy and brittle "faith vs. art" or "faith vs. science" sorts of gnosticism. Christianity is a sturdy, earthy, robust way of life.

2) LOST was multiethnic. Has there ever been a show that was not only this diverse but diverse without relegating minority characters to background, "token" positions? I think part of LOST's appeal was its racial diversity and the strength of characterization within the diversity. This is compelling to lookers-on. So the church can learn from this not just the inclusion of multiple tongues, tribes, and races, but the integral inclusion of them.

3) LOST got narrative. What do people in most modern contexts need from the Church's communication? A story that is comprehensive and compelling. And of course there is no more comprehensive and compelling story than the Christian one, which has the added benefit of being a true one. We can learn from LOST to tell the biblical stories well, to tell them in compelling ways, to show how our stories are part of God's story, to show how Jesus is the hero in every story and the gospel the theme, and to help people see what God is doing in the world over and throughout history. History is going somewhere. (Of course that somewhere is not a purgatorial "now" where sincere believers in x, y, and z all connect. But we are headed for a finale.)

The Church doesn't need LOST. Like all TV shows, this one will drop off our radar in a few years, fondly remembered when retrospectives and nostalgia trips arise. But the creators of the show did some stuff tremendously right; as far as TV goes, they made some stinkin' good art here. I think we can learn something from it, if we care to.