Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Review: Hillsong United “We’re All In This Together”
By Sean Wendell Worship powerhouse Hillsong United recently hosted a live event on 440 US movie screens to debut their documentary,The i Heart Revolution: We’re All In This Together. The event was hosted live from Australia on November 4, 2009, and featured performances of several worship songs, along with interviews about the project preceeding the film's showing.
The live event lasted about half an hour and featured two live-via-sattelite performances and two pre-recorded live performances. There were also live interviews with the band members where they talked about how the injustices they’ve seen around the world has affected them. The documentary was two hours long and was compiled from 3 years of filming. There were over 2000 individual tapes with over 150,000 minutes of footage used in the compilation of the project.
Hillsong United's frontman Joel Houston said, “It’s a story made up of many stories, told by many voices, no individual voice any more or less important than any other, yet every voice working together to ultimately tell one story - a story that involves everyone; that captures our collective and idiosyncratic purpose in one, part documentary, part apologetic, part call to action.”
The film takes you around the world with Hillsong United as they traveled through 42 nations and 93 cities on tour, and exposed injustices such as hunger, poverty, child labor, homelessness and child sex trafficking. The film also tells stories of people seeing need and acting, such as that of William and Catherine Booth who saw people who were hungry and homeless in 1865, felt called to reach out to these people and ultimately founded the Salvation Army. One man in the film said he kept waiting for a calling from God, and realized that if you wait for your calling you might miss out on actually doing something.
Following the event, Emily, a 16-year-old from Central New York who attended with Youth Pastor Chris Szulwach, shared her response with friends on Facebook, writing "That was the most amazing movie ever. And I personally think every teen should see it!" Emily also connected with the event's text update service.
The I Heart Revolution: We’re All In This Together documentary is the second part of the three part “The I Heart Revolution” project which as a whole seeks to inspire a movement of people helping people. Beginning with a CD and DVD called “With Hearts as One” which revealed Hillsong United’s passion for Christ through their worship, and continuing with the third piece, a website http://www.i-heart.org which launched with the release of the film.
The purpose of the site is to educate people about the many injustices in our world, and inspire them to do something about them. It also gives them a place to be connected to others and share experiences, essentially continuing the story from the documentary. You can sign up and build a profile where you can connect with other members to share your stories, get ideas and support. In the "DO" section of the website you will find causes that you can support and ideas that you can act on.
I enjoyed The I Heart Revolution: We’re All In This Together documentary. The message was strong and touched everyone in the theatre with me. One person was so moved she lead us in prayer immediately after the final credits. While powerful, the film was not without its flaws. Some of the video editing was too rapid fire which made it hard to watch at times. There was also material that was included that was never fully explored. Regardless, I feel truly blessed that I was able to be a part of the live event and join in the I Heart Revolution experience.
*credit to: http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/review-hillsong-united-were-all-in-this-together/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)