Avengers Assemble

Great movie. Rated 12 in the UK for ‘moderate fantasy violence’. I think there may be one swear word in a fight scene near the end of the movie but that’s it really. Some great one-liners, often very funny.

Your Calling

Chapter 5 (00:19:43 – 00:22:07). Clip ends with Captain America responding to question and saying, “You should have left it in the ocean” as he walks out of shot and camera fades to black.

In this clip, Captain America is being ‘called’ to his mission. You could use other clips for this but it’s the best ‘single’ clip of any of the heroes being called to the mission – to save the world.

Point – could go to Jeremiah 1 or Isaiah 6 and talk about calling. Or about Jesus and his mission to save the world from sin.

Only one God and he doesn’t dress like that

Chapter 9 (00:41:05 – 00:42:56). Clip starts inside the spaceship. The clip ends when Captain America delivers his line and jumps out of the plane.

OK it’s one of the famous ‘Christian’ quotes of the movie and probably a throw-away comment. But you can use it anyway! Clip starts with the team on their way to bringing the bad ‘Logi’ to the ‘SHIELD’ HQ. 

Point – One God. The classic line about God from Captain America is at 42:47-42:50.

Point 2 – Captain America says to Stark (Iron Man), ‘we need a plan’. Stark replies, ‘I have a plan: attack’. You could use this to say that we need to stand strong for the Gospel and that the Gospel is ‘forcefully advancing’ (Matthew 11.2). Note – the word for ‘violence’ when used against the gospel means violence. The word (in the KJV) used as ‘violence’ for the Gospel advancing doesn’t mean violence as we know it today, it means a bit more like ‘fired up’, ‘passionate’ or ‘striving’.

God Sees

Chapter 10 (00:51:50 – 00:53:41). The Iron Man walks into the room and starts talking about iridium. 

The point of the clip is that the Iron Man sees a member of staff playing games on his computer. Clip ends with Dr Banner and Iron Man leaving the room… The staff guys goes back to playing his game.

Point – God sees our hearts and knows what we do. Nothing is hidden from him. Stay faithful to God with eyes on the prize, don’t get distracted or think God doesn’t notice! 

Disunity

Chapter 11 (01:04:30 – 01:06:40). Clip starts with shot of Nick Fury then the team discussing the ‘tesseract’. It ends with a shot on Loki’s blue ‘stick’ and the Avengers team upside down in the camera shot.

Point – disunity means we don’t get anywhere. It’s OK to disagree but to cause problems and let any anger, bitterness or pride in our lives or in our church always has bad consequences. Deal with your pride, anger, sin, unforgiveness. Ask God to help you. In the clip, the team miss an incoming attack. Don’t miss the work of the enemy. Stand strong.

Unity from Adversity

Chapters 15 and 16 (01:45:32 – 01:47:47)

Moderate violence of the enemy being whooped in this clip which starts with Iron Man being chased by the enemy space’fish’ship thing! Clip ends as the camera circles around the Avengers and then there’s an overhead shot.

Point – The team come together and work as a real team, with Cap America the ‘director’ so to speak. “How do we do this?” comes the question. “As a team” is Cap America’s reply. Then Banner turns up to help too.

The Bible tells us that when two or three come together in agreement, God will do what they ask. This is a deep agreement like an orchestra playing together in time and in tune – each playing their part. In the clip, the Avengers stand in a circle as one, back to back but each with their different weapon.

We also know that the world will know we belong to Jesus because of our unity. This isn’t uniformity (all being the same); it isn’t religion (forcing things through man-made rules). Instead, it’s all of us obeying God, working together and not fighting – to build the kingdom of God in our own unique way that God calls us to. The Avengers all have unique skills. So do we. We need to dedicate them to a cause bigger than ourselves – God’s Kingdom.