Loneliness Is a Real Problem

THE BACK SEAT FILM

This film project started almost as soon as I arrived as Associate Pastor of the Wichita Mennonite Brethren Church back in Summer 1974. The 3 major groups of Mennonites were about to celebrate their 100 year Anniversary of arrival in North America. So, they were commissioning various projects:
---Special conventions
----Some commemorative books
---Special musical numbers
----Ladies making quilts, etc. etc.

Our church was one of the host churches in Wichita, so one of our key young laymen got the task of helping cast and direct a missionary play, which also mentioned the arrival of the Mennonites by boat (from Russia--the Crimea) to the shores of the US. They all did a great job!

A new convert to our church was the ABC-TV news cameraman and President of the National Press Photographers' Association. He and I found lots in common from the beginning. The Sr. Pastor, Rev.Dale Warkentin (who later went off to serve as a missionary to Indonesia) asked if we could come up with a way to help add something special to the Centennial Celebration, that might be sort of a gift from our church.

Larry Hatteberg of ABC-TV, Wichita (now their evening news anchor) and I brainstormed along with the pastor and identified "Loneliness" as a key need in the society that we were facing. The church needed to speak to that issue and give a biblical response.

We drew up a tentative script, auditioned for local actors to help us out and got the major Kansas City Film Studio (that edited the big TV film series "Roots") to edit our film. The local ABC affiliate donated all the camera equipment, lighting, editing rooms, etc.We made a semi-documentary film, where we interviewed lots of people on tape, then used some actors visually where we couldn't put the live story-tellers on film.We hired a university professor who had done some acting and local commercials to be our thread for connecting all the people.

Many Christians gave a wonderful perspective on how God helps them thru lonely times such as death of a spouse, being single, getting old, going off to college, etc. There was enough diversity in the film that secular groups used the film in nursing schools, high schools &community groups besides lots of churches all over the country. Catholic media folk gave it a special award before it was even released. Netherlands National Television asked that we send copies over to them for airing in their country.

Our project involved free weekends for us, and received co-operation from other Mennonite media agencies, plus a little funding help. We did not finish until 1977, but ABC was thrilled to premier the movie The Back Seat (30 minutes), which got an excellent newspaper review right at air time.We took our Spanish translation copy (done while we were missionaries in Spain) and the English version over to the 1984 Mennonite World Conference in Strasborg, France for congregations that came from all the different continents.

A helpful addition for our Spain debut was when a wonderful gifted Spanish psychologist, Dr. Pablo Martinez, developed a series of seminars and audio tapes that he used in conjunction with our Loneliness Film in inter-church group meetings in the major population centers. Film was available in both 16mm reel-to-reel as well as video cassette version. One of the neat things was that, because of all the donated labor and equipment, we spent less than $7000 for the English version and maybe $3500 for the Spanish translation.

God Is Close, and He is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother,
Torrey Brinkley
Mead, CO