PRAYER REQUESTS FOR HOLLYWOOD
(from Karen Covell, Founding Director, Hollywood Prayer Network – hollywoodprayernetwork.org)
Please pray for the people who impact films, TV shows, songs, video games, AI and internet content across the globe:
- Producers
- Writers
- Directors
- Directors of Photography
- Production Designers
- Sound Designers
- Camera and Sound crews
- Lighting/electric crews
- Actors
- Make-up & Hair
- Costumers
- Composers
- Musicians
- Agents & Managers
- Entertainment Attorneys
- Artists
- Animators
- Studio Executives
- Production Assistants
- Financiers
- Distributors
Please pray for the Issues that are prevalent in the Entertainment Industries:
- Isolation and loneliness
- Discouragement
- Fear
- Compromise
- No time to go to church or be involved in a Christian fellowship
- Lack of work or months of no work in between jobs
- Difficult marriages because of out-of-town productions
- Alcoholism
- Nepotism
- Coldness to Christians
- Severe competition
- Having to leave home for months at a time to go on location
- Asked to work on immoral content
- Asked to compromise while working with unethical employers
- Having to act in, write, direct or produce bad stories
- Working with people who lack integrity or morals
- It is extremely expensive to live in LA
- Trying to raise money for independent films, TV shows and other creative projects
Please pray for the Lord to:
- Bring salvation to the media and entertainment decision-makers, influencers and content creators
- Bring more Christians into the industry and especially in decision-making and content creating positions
- Build relationships between the church and the Christians in Hollywood so that the professionals will receive more prayer while they are on the front lines and so that Christians outside Hollywood won’t HATE Hollywood or be afraid of it, but pray for it, send young talented Christians here and support the work of believers in this mission field
- Build up the community of Christians in Hollywood so that they will not be alone, receive more prayer, fellowship, friendships and working associates, partners and employers
- Perform physical, spiritual, emotional miracles in Hollywood. We need healed hearts, healed relationships and softer hearts amongst both the believers and non-believers here. We need to have God’s presence more visible, tangible and life-changing here!
With love,
Karen
Introduction to Media and Entertainment
(Information compiled and prayer strategy written by Bjorn and Lilian Schmid)
In the United States, the media and entertainment (M&E) industry is a $703 billion market, comprised of businesses that produce and distribute motion pictures, television programs and commercials, streaming content, music and audio recordings, broadcast, radio, book publishing, video games and supplementary services and products.
The U.S. M&E market, which is 33% of the global M&E industry, is the largest M&E market in the world. The U.S. M&E industry is expected to reach $804 billion by 2021, according to the Entertainment & Media Outlook by Price Water house Coopers. The M&E industry can be partitioned into four main verticals: film, music, book publishing and video games.
In Australia, the Australian entertainment and media market forecast to grow to $43.7 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 2.1%. Advertising spending to reach $17.3 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 1.9%.
Consumer spending on entertainment and media products forecast to grow to $26.4 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 2.2%. Online video advertising to continue double digit growth over the next five years, underpinned by strong gains in video and mobile.
(Although this prayer article is written for an Australian context, you can do your own research and adapt it for your own country.)
What is the Role of Christians Involved in Media and Entertainment?
As Christians we believe that Jesus did not come as a moralist, but as the incarnate love of God. He did not come to replace one set of rules with another, but to promote a new way of living. Jesus came to teach us how to identify so entirely with Himself that we could demonstrate to others the saving life of God. Christianity, is a revelation that unveils the being of God as Father and his relation to human beings, who are his children. It is an invitation to share the love that can be experienced only by sharing in God’s own life in all areas of society including the spheres of Media and Entertainment.
The morality of Jesus protects the life of our relationship with Him. Together with sanctifying grace, the Holy Spirit also gives us infused moral virtues, especially the chief moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. These principal moral virtues have been called cardinal virtues because they are the foundation of all the other moral virtues. The cardinal virtues remove the obstacles to our union with God and drive to lead good Christian lives.
How can we represent these virtues in Media & Entertainment?
- Prudence makes us see what we should do and what we should avoid in order to save souls, as well as choose the best means to reach heaven.
- Justice makes us render to each one his due.
- Fortitude gives us strength to do God’s will in the midst of trials and difficulties.
- Temperance helps control evil desires and use rightly the things that please our senses.
“The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.” (CCC, 1834)
Read this article on Moral Conscience (PDF file).
Media
“The media has a responsibility to tell the country what is happening in a way that connects Australians. If you see that people are not listening to the truth, find another way to tell the story.” (Jeff McMullen, foreign correspondent and strongly pro-Aboriginal journalist.)
Media has been defined as the collective ecology of the world’s media including newspapers, journals, television, radio, books, novels, advertising, press releases, publicity and the blogosphere; any and all media both broadcast and published. The essential purpose of the Media is to provide a means of communicating information and opinions to a large audience, ostensibly with an intent to assist the public to make informed choices, but too often the Media ‘colours’ the information towards a particular set of views.
The widespread use of ‘smart’ devices and Internet connectivity has seen the rise of ‘Social’ Media as opposed to the entrenched ‘Mass’ or ‘Mainstream’ Media. The essential difference is that Mainstream Media puts the audience in a passive position whereas Social Media puts the audience at the centre, i.e. in a potentially active role. The appeal of Social Media is that people feel that their opinions can be voices and heard by others. Most business enterprises have recognised this and as well as more traditional advertising in Mainstream Media, conduct marketing campaigns in Social Media using ‘Customer Advocates’ to push their produces and services.
Mainstream Media is suspicious and even hostile towards Social Media. Already many Media companions have lost revenue to shrinking advertising budgets and many news providers have been forced to move their products on-line to reduce costs and compete with free offerings from independent sources who are already on-line. The other shift is the transformation of news programming into entertainment, or elevating entertainment news to the same level as events in the ‘real’ world.
The integrity of Mainstream Media has also been brought into question publicly in recent times, undermining their credibility further. Perhaps the one of the most dramatic examples of this was the Hillary vs Trump election campaign in the USA in 2016; the Mainstream Media all predicted a Hillary win and considerable amounts of money were spent on traditional media to advertise for the Democrats campaign, yet Trump won using far less money and extensive use of Social Media.
Entertainment
Entertainment can be defined as an agreeable occupation for the mind, something affording pleasure, diversion or amusement. Traditional entertainment is usually passive or receptive only, as in watching performances of plays, films and music, and activities such as reading and watching television.
Recent technology has enabled a wide range of interactive entertainment (i.e. active not passive engagement) ranging from simple video or computer games to immersive experiences in virtual worlds and meeting rooms. The difference is ‘you WATCH the hero’ as opposed to ‘you ARE the hero’. This shift is driving social changes where many people live much of their lives playing these interactive games either by themselves or on-line with others in unreal environments as opposed to interaction with people in the real world.
Australia is a large producer and consumer of Entertainment. Because of it’s unique history and remoteness from most other countries, it has a distinct culture which is reflected in the content of Entertainment it produces. This uniqueness is further ‘spiced’ by multicultural elements from the many people who have settled in Australia from all over the world. Thus, the entertainment products from Australia’s strong Entertainment industry are well received and even sought after across the globe.
There are several government bodies in Australia who regulate the Australian arts and entertainment industry. Some such organisations are; Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Communications and the Arts, and State Government Arts bodies.
30 Day Prayer Strategy for Media and Entertainment
The following are suggested prayer points for each day in November:
Day 1 – Opening Prayer for Media and Entertainment
God of all time and all places, of all people and nations,
God who spoke to all humanity in the life of Jesus,
we pray today for those who speak and communicate by the media.
We give thanks for all who report, evaluate, interview, challenge and investigate on our behalf;
for correspondents, photographers, technicians and engineers.
Especially this year we remember those who travel into areas of conflict and danger on our behalf,
and those who, in bringing us news have been killed by bomb or bullet.
We give thanks for their bravery and professionalism.
We pray that the information which they relay to us will increase our understanding,
that understanding will increase our compassion,
and that compassion will move us to action
so that the God of all time and all peoples
may be seen and known in every human situation
and will speak humanity into ever closer community.
Amen
(Rev. Kenneth Howcroft & Mrs Gill Dascombe – President and Vice President of the Methodist Conference)
Day 2 – Pray for Truth and Morality to be Presented
Proverbs 12:9-22 – Ephesians 4:29 – Philippians 4:8 – Matthew 12:36-37
Day 3 – Pray for Honesty and Integrity in Media and Entertainment
“By this I know that you delight in me:
my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.
But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
and set me in your presence forever.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting!
Amen and Amen.”
(Psalm 41:11-13 ESV)
“So you will walk in the way of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
For the upright will inhabit the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it,”
(Proverbs 2:20-21 ESV)
Day 4 – Pray for Humility in Media and Entertainment
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,” (Philippians 2:3 NIV)
Day 5 – Pray that God Removes All Deceit and Lies from Media and Entertainment
“Let their lying lips be silenced,
for with pride and contempt
they speak arrogantly against the righteous.”
(Psalm 31:18 NIV)
Day 6 – Pray for People doing Ungodly Things in Media and Entertainment
“You may conceal your infirmity, even from your dearest friend, but you will not conceal it from your worst enemy.” (Charles Spurgeon)
“to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 1:15 NIV)
Day 7 – Pray for Release and Renunciation of Corruption, Crime, and Cults within this Sphere
“Therefore the LORD God of Israel declares, ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever’; but now the LORD declares, ‘Far be it from Me—for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed.’” (1 Samuel 2:30 NASB)
Day 8 – Pray against Disobedience
“But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” (1 Samuel 13:14 NASB)
Day 9 – Pray against Pornography
Lord, technology has helped the world in many ways,
but it has also proven to be a snare into sin through the lure of pornography.
We ask a hedge of protection against this temptation that has the power to damage families
and scar the spirit of both the one who views pornography
and those who love those caught up in this trap.
Help keep our minds on You in such a powerful way that pornography holds no allure.
Give us the wisdom to remove temptations that we cannot resist,
and to always keep You first in our hearts and minds.
Amen
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV)
Day 10 – Pray against the Spirit of Adultery in Media and Entertainment
“But it shall come about, if you will not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” (Deuteronomy 28:15 NASB)
Day 11 – Pray against Pride in the Sphere of Media and Entertainment
A Christian is responsible to know what God’s word says; His word is what sanctifies us.
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17 NKJV)
A Christian who dwells on God’s word will have a hunger and thirst for it and they will be grieved by these ungodly things and will no longer desire them.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6a NKJV)
Day 12 – The Lord is the Author of All Media
“For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.”
(Isaiah 41:13 NIV)
Day 13 – Pray for Purity in Media and Entertainment
In this world where inappropriate images and behaviour are all around us,
it can be more difficult than ever to remain pure.
But for Your children, God,
for those who choose You,
there is no other choice but to live a life of purity.
Help us all to keep the commitments that we have made to You.
Help us to stay pure for that one special person that will one day be our husband or wife.
Give us the strength to remain pure
and let us always remember that the reward for purity will be well worth it.
Amen
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV)
Day 14 – Pray against Ungodly Indoctrination in Media and Entertainment
There is much evil indoctrination and movies on TV and cinemas. God wants us to dwell on only good things;
“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Philippians 4:8 NKJV)
Day 15 – Pray against ‘Medium’ and ‘Occult’ TV Shows and Films
“They did not destroy the peoples
as the Lord had commanded them,
but they mingled with the nations
and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to false gods.
They shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was desecrated by their blood.
They defiled themselves by what they did;
by their deeds they prostituted themselves.
Therefore the Lord was angry with his people
and abhorred his inheritance.
He gave them into the hands of the nations,
and their foes ruled over them.”
(Psalm 106:34-41 NIV)
Day 16 – Pray against Nudity and Immodesty in Mainstream and Social Media and Entertainment
Lord Have Mercy On Your People,
Christ Have Mercy on Your People.
They have sinned,
in thoughts, words and deeds.
“For the sake of your name, Lord,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.”
(Psalm 25:11 NIV)
Pray that those shaping media coverage will report both the good news and the Good News.
“How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!””
(Isaiah 52:7 NIV)
Day 17 – Denounce Information that is Reported Through the Lens of Evil in Media
“And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”” (Romans 10:15 NIV)
Day 18 – Call for the Voices of Righteousness and Truth that Have Not Been Heard
Just as Ezekiel called forth life from a dead environment, we must call out those whom God has appointed to declare His character upon a mountain that has been ruled by the forces of evil. Remember, whoever controls the language controls the culture.
“Deliver us from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of our salvation;
Then our tongues will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open our lips,
That our mouths may declare Your praise.
For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise we would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.”
(Psalm 51:14-16 NASB, amended with ‘us/our’ instead of ‘me/my’)
Day 19 – Pray that God is Honoured in the Sphere of Media and Entertainment
“Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31 NASB)
Day 20 – Pray that the Sphere of Media and Entertainment Encourages Godly Lifestyles, Behaviours and Values
“For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:20 NASB)
Day 21 – Pray for Believers who are Called to this Sphere
Pray through Psalm 20.
Day 22 – Pray that Believers will be Blessed and Protected
Read Psalm 91 for the blessing and protection of believers in this sphere by God and His angels.
Day 23 – Pray that Believers will overcome Darkness with the Light
Pray through John Chapter 1 for believers in Media and Entertainment places across Australia (or your country).
Day 24 – Pray that Godly, Talented People are Drawn to Media and Entertainment
Read Matthew chapter 5 and pray for talented people, who have godly lifestyles, behaviour and values to be drawn to the Sphere of Media and Entertainment.
Day 25 – God reigns in the sphere of Media and Entertainment!
Read Psalm 47.
Day 26 – Pray for Financial Investment in Christian Media Platforms
Three keys to effective, Biblical fundraising are to seek the glory of God (not just money), pray earnestly (to prioritize maintaining our relationship with him instead of the money) and leave the results to God. Pray for unburdened financial investments and favour across the world into Christian TV, Radio, and other mainstream and social media platforms.
“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 NKJV)
Day 27 – Pray for Christian Actors and Performers
Prayer for an Audition:
Lord, You are in control of the whole world.
You make the sun shine and the wind blow.
Lord, please take control of this audition.
Calm my nerves. Give me Your peace. Please fill me with Your strength.
Help me perform to the best of my ability.
You gave me these gifts please allow me the opportunity to use them.
Please give wisdom to the people making decisions today.
Help them see me as Your creation—not a number.
Make them chose the actors You want in the roles, Lord.
I pray that if for some reason it is not Your will, that I get what I want,
that You will open my eyes to what it is You do want me to do this semester.
I know everyone here is Your creation, and You have plans for them too.
Lord, you know what I want—but Your will be done.
I give You control over this audition.
Amen
Day 28 – Pray for God to Send His Holy Spirit into the Sphere of Media and Entertainment
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
And you shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray.
O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit,
did instruct the hearts of the faithful,
grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise
and ever to rejoice in His consolation.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
“The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:
“He is good;
his love endures forever.”
Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud,”
(2 Chronicles 5:13 NIV)
Day 29 – Give Praise to God for the Sphere of Media and Entertainment
“From them will come songs of thanksgiving
and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers,
and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor,
and they will not be disdained.”
(Jeremiah 30:19 NIV)
Day 30 – Final Greeting
“I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge” (1 Corinthians 1:4-5 NIV)
Amen!
Bibliography
Kevin Westcott, 2017 Media and Entertainment industry trends, Deloitte US Deloitte United States (2017), https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/media-and-entertainment-industry-outlook-trends.html
Media and Entertainment Industry Overview, Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory, Deal Capital Partners, LLC, https://investmentbank.com/media-and-entertainment-industry-overview/
Entertainment and Media Outlook, PwC Australia,
https://www.pwc.com.au/search.html?pwcGeo=au&pwcLang=en&searchfield=Entertainment+and+Media+Outlook
(Note: original page no longer exists.)
“Moral Life in Christ” by Fr. John Flader
Media interests snapshot, Australian Communications and Media Authority, http://acma.gov.au/theACMA/media-interests-snapshot
Prayers for Purity, Pray with me – prayers for special help, http://www.prayers-for-special-help.com/prayers-for-purity.html