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6 • The Beacon April 24, 2025
Shelby Theaters presents‘ Church People,’ live Q & A
By Marianne Austin The Beacon
Shelby Theaters in Coshocton presented the movie“ Church People” again this year April 8-9 with a Q-and-A session afterward.
Coshocton County native Christopher Shawn Shaw is the director of the movie and Thor Ramsey the writer and star. Shaw was born in Coshocton, grew up in Plainfield, went to school in the Ridgewood School District and attended Otterbein College in Westerville.
“ I am here to screen a movie that I directed and helped produce called‘ Church People,’ which is a faith-based satire about the evangelical subculture of which we are a part,” Shaw said.“ Basically, evangelical is people who believe and share the Gospel of who Christ is.
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So we believe in the reliability of the scriptures. We believe Christ is the way, the truth and the life. The subculture is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.”
“ Church People” is a comedy about people that still believe the scriptures and believe the Gospel and want to learn what faith in Jesus is all about. The youth pastor wants to have a live crucifixion on stage at Easter using the young man his daughter has an interest in. Youth Pastor Guy Sides soon realizes he is in a mega church marketing machine doing gimmicky things to draw people like other mega churches do, like giving away prizes or a car, with good motives but it affects the message of the Gospel.
“ Shelby Theaters has agreed that we can screen it annually here leading up to Good Friday and come
Marianne Austin
Shelby Theaters in Coshocton presented the movie“ Church People” again this year April 8-9 with a Q-and-A session afterward with Thor Ramsey, left, the writer and star, and Coshocton County native Christopher Shawn Shaw, the director of the movie.
again next year,” Shaw said.“ If we show it here every year for 10 years, we will have a cult following from Coshocton.”
This is the second year for Shelby Theaters to
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BF-276760 show the“ Church People” movie. Questions from the audience included the following: How long to make a movie from start to finish? How much does it cost to make a movie? How do you fund a motion picture? Where did the idea come from?
“ The premise of‘ Church People’ is that it is a satire of the evangelical subculture of which we are a part— the people who still believe in the
scriptures, believe the Gospel and share the Gospel of who Christ is. We believe the churches who do not share the message of who Jesus is do not grow,” Ramsey said.
Shaw said he met Ramsey on Facebook in 2009, and in 2010 they worked on a short film together and he told him about this movie.
“ I blasted the movie idea all over social media, and it got the attention of actor Steven Baldwin, who eventually became a part of the project, and he landed Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, who had a small part in the movie watching a Minnesota Vikings game during a sermon, and he funded the whole thing for $ 1.7 million,” Shaw said. Once a movie is funded, anyone can get involved if they have the money. Once people are involved and they have executive power, sometimes things start to shift.
“ The movie was way funnier than this when we first sold it,” Shaw said.“ They said,‘ We love this; it’ s outside the box.’ Once money was involved, they were like,‘ Let’ s put it back in the box.’ It’ s a frustrating process. Steven Baldwin screened it to a group of mega church pastors, and the response was,‘ Are you making fun of us?’ So they kind of missed the point.“ Most of the things we show in the movie are things that pastors have done, and there are all kinds of outlandish things. Their intentions are good to attract people to church, but the methods affect the message. Movies can have a Gospel message, but it must flow. You can’ t just shove it in there.”
In 2016 they shot the movie, and it was released in 2021. You can find the movie on Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, Tubi, Roku, Vimeo, Voodoo and ChristianCinema. com.
Kim Lowe from Coshocton’ s Shelby Theater said,“ Christopher messaged us about the movie, and we thought it was a good idea. We showed it last year for two days. Over 100 people viewed it last year, and that is pretty good. We do well with faith-based movies.”
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