Patrick Donovan
Saint Mary’s Press, 2009, 124 pp., $24.95, SMP.org
Students’ attention spans during a youth pastor’s talk is often limited. Take those same students, plop them down in front of a big screen TV at home, and they are riveted by what they see and hear. Teens are more multimedia-driven now than at any other time in history.
With this in mind, author Patrick Donovan has given a wonderful gift to youth leaders everywhere to help harness this powerful tool of cinema. From Lion King to Indiana Jones, Donovan suggests clips for many different topics and scriptural passages. Each clip is five to eight minutes long and is followed by discussion questions that will get your youth talking.
The layout is well-organized and easy to use. The main difference from similar Christian resources is the rating system (A-I, A-II, A-III) devised by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, plus the discussion questions geared for Catholic use. Though written for a Catholic audience, Using the Remote to Channel Jesus will be an asset to any youth leader’s library.
