I admit that I’m addicted to ABC’s “Lost.” I also admit that for a while I’ve been disappointed with the show. Too many reruns and too little of the mystery that made me fall in love with the show.
Folks, I’m disappointed no more. In May, ABC and the creators of the show launched The Lost Experience game, an international multimedia scavenger hunt designed to connect “Lost” fans all around the globe as they follow the questionable research practices of the fictional Hanso Foundation. Clues about the show and game are released via websites, emails and even telephone voice mails and provide a separate but no less mysterious storyline for people like me who love puzzles.
It’s fascinating to see the lengths to which the shows producers and ABC have gone in order to create this elaborate ruse, and it’s easy to get lost in the game. Check out www.thehansofoundation.org to see what I mean. Trust me, it’s addicting and much too complicated to explain in this short space but (trust me again) you don’t need to watch the show to play. You can visit a myriad of websites, and keep up-to-date on clues shared by fans all over the world.
Take, for example, www.TheLostExperienceClues.blogspot.com, which tallied up 170,000 visitors in its first week. Folk are trading passwords and codes and secret messages, theorizing on the identity of Persephone or the whereabouts of Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk. But the site’s administrators have second motivation for hosting the blog: to connect all of the “Lost” fans with Jesus Christ. The companion site, www.StoriesOfTheLost.blogspot.com offers personal stories that parallel the “Lost” characters in order to offer viewers a spiritual perspective on being truly lost and searching for truth.
Both sites are the work of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, TX and are outreach evangelism tools designe
d to gently introduce visitors to the message of Christ’s redemption.
Todd Wagner, Senior Pastor, Watermark Community Church says in a press release, “We believe that many of the themes found on ‘Lost’ resonate with people from all walks of life, so we decided to create a website that would utilize the Lost Experience as a means of engaging with our culture about themes of faith, redemption, and hope. Connecting with people via non-traditional means gives us an opportunity to share our faith in a way that is non-threatening or evasive.”
Fans of the show have no doubt noticed a lot of spiritual content that pits good against evil, and viewers have debated about whether or not the island is some sort of purgatory where the survivors are atoning for their past sins. Outreach tools like www.TheLostExperienceClues.blogspot.com are great ways to explore those themes from a biblical perspective and use a pop culture phenomenon to truly reach the lost.
