wfn.org | [UMNS-ALL-NEWS] UMNS# 658-California church plays role in 'My Name Is

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

California church plays role in 'My Name Is Earl' TV series

Nov. 28, 2005

NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Feature
By Kim Fry*

A tacky trailer park has been constructed in the parking lot of
Sepulveda United Methodist Church in North Hills, Calif. Four colorful
vintage mobile homes are lined up and fenced off, their yards decorated
with pink flamingoes and old furniture and appliances.

It looks like people might actually live there, but this trailer park is
one of the sets for the NBC television show, "My Name Is Earl." And what
a fitting place to shoot scenes for this show, the premise of which is,
"karma: do good things and good things happen to you; do bad things and
they'll come back to haunt you."

The Old Sepulveda Church, as it is called, has been providing spiritual
guidance in this area of the San Fernando Valley for 80 years.

The church parking lot was first used for catering and parking by the
show's cast and crew during shooting in the North Hills area.

"The church staff was so hospitable that we decided to use their
building in one of our episodes," says location manager Ivan Schwarz.

"This has been a very fortuitous opportunity for our church," says the
Rev. Chuck Mabry, pastor. The church has received several thousand
dollars for the use of its property. The income will be used to make
capital improvements. A security fence is planned, and tree-trimming and
other maintenance to the church building have already been done.

Redemption and forgiveness are the threads that run through each episode
of "My Name Is Earl," a comedy that airs Thursday evenings.

Earl, played by Jason Lee, is a former criminal, a hard-drinking lowlife
who, immediately after winning the lottery, gets hit by a car and loses
the ticket. Lying in the hospital after the accident, Earl has an
epiphany while watching "Last Call with Carson Daly," in which Daly
credits his success to doing good things for people. Earl discovers
karma.

The law of karma, central to many eastern religions, suggests that a
person's actions, both physical and mental, impact his or her life (and
future lives). While Christian teaching parallels this idea through the
Golden Rule and other scriptural references to doing good - "For
whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7) -
Christians do not focus as much on thoughts or intentions as on actual
deeds.

Seeking to attract good karma, Earl makes a list of all the bad things
he has ever done to people and sets out to make things right. By the end
of each episode, he crosses off at least one item on his list, and
sometimes two or three. But then he sometimes adds things to the list,
so the list - like Earl - is a constant work in progress.

"We are very conscious about making sure Earl grows as a person by the
end of each show," says writer and producer Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. "It
may not be by leaps and bounds, but just a little bit each time."

Earl lives in a seedy motel with his loyal but dim-witted brother Randy
(Ethan Suplee). Randy's girlfriend, Catalina (Nadine Velazquez), works
as a housekeeper at the motel, and Earl's ex-wife, Joy (Jaime Pressly),
spends all of her time trying to steal the lottery money that Earl has
hidden after finding the lost ticket in the first episode.

On the show, Joy lives in the trailer park, the set for which was built
in the back parking lot on the church property. The scenes of the motel
where Earl lives are shot near the church on Sepulveda Boulevard, and a
local high school was also featured in one show.

Sanchez-Witzel wrote the episode that featured Sepulveda United
Methodist Church. In "Broke Joy's Fancy Figurine," Earl tries to replace
a figurine he destroyed with a bottle rocket. The church was turned into
a Home for Wayward Girls for one scene.

The camera panned from the cross at the top of the steeple down to the
courtyard of the church, where a number of little girls were lined up
for inspection by Joy, who plotted to adopt one of them in order to
enter a mother-daughter pageant.

"It's exciting to transform a place that people are used to seeing every
day into something different," Sanchez-Witzel says.

Pastor Mabry has been watching the action both on his television and in
the church's backyard.

"The primary motivation for Earl's actions is commendable," Mabry says.
"Repairing and rebuilding relationships from the past is a theme that
has value for how persons can live their lives."

The Sepulveda church, built in 1925, has 180 members and also hosts the
California-Pacific Conference's only Hindi-Urdu ministry, a 75-member
congregation led by the Rev. Lamuel Jacob.

Much of the church's ministry is outreach to the North Hills community.
The church houses a preschool program and the North Valley Caring
Services, a multifaceted, nonprofit center that provides health and
human services to the neighborhood.

"Several hundred families use our facilities every day, and the income
from the 'Earl' show will allow us to provide better security and
upgraded facilities for everyone," Mabry says.

Within a few weeks of its Sept. 20 debut, the show - produced by Amigos
de Garcia and Twentieth Century Fox Television - was deemed a hit both
in the ratings and by television critics. NBC's original 13-episode
order was increased to a full season of 22 episodes.

Created by executive producer Greg Garcia, "My Name Is Earl" teaches
lessons with good humor and without preaching. In one episode, Earl
realizes that if he wants to be a good person, he can't hang around with
people who are bad influences. In another show, he learns not to hurt
one person while trying to help another.

The Rev. Andy Mattick, associate pastor of Los Altos United Methodist
Church in Long Beach, Calif., uses movie clips and scenes from
television shows in his sermons.

"I'm waiting for the episode where karma doesn't quite work out for
Earl," he says. "How will Earl handle it? When that show airs, I'll
preach on it."

Sanchez-Witzel says at least one such episode is coming in which Earl
does some soul searching about why his boss seems to be able to do bad
things and still be successful.

That should provide Mattick with material for several sermons.

"We could all make a long list of things we've done wrong in our lives,"
Sanchez-Witzel says. "We hope everyone in the world will open their eyes
to see that redemption is possible."

*Fry is the communications coordinator for the United Methodist Church's
California-Pacific Annual Conference.

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

----------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this group, go to UMCom.org, log in to your account,
click on the My Resources link and select the Leave option on the list(s)
from which you wish to unsubscribe. If you have problems or questions, please
write to websupport@umcom.org.

Powered by United Methodist Communications http://www.UMCom.org