Wake Up, David
The Best Movie of the Year Reminded Me How to be a Pastor
The scene that hit me the hardest in Wake Up Dead Man is probably not unique to me. You could argue that it’s the emotional peak of the movie.
I’m going to tread lightly and avoid any major story-beat spoilers for the movie (which you should absolutely 100% drop everything you’re doing and go watch right now if you haven’t seen it), so this will probably be relatively safe for you to read if you haven’t seen the movie.
I won’t spoil the ending or anything, that’s my point.
BUT this scene does happen about halfway through the movie, so if you want to watch it, maybe watch first before reading this.
Seriously, you should absolutely watch the film. It’s not only the best murder mystery I’ve seen in years, and it’s not only hilarious, but it has a ton to say about faith, the Church, and the political realities in which we find ourselves in 2025 America.
Again, I’ll avoid major spoilers here, but you’re best off watching the movie before reading on. Leave this tab open, go watch the film, then come back here and debrief a scene with me…
Around halfway into the film, the young priest and the detective are continuing to follow lead after lead, trying to solve the murder. One of these leads involves calling a company (that's all I'll say…avoiding any spoilers here).
A girl from the company talks with the priest, who presses her for a specific bit of information. The detective and the priest need the information quickly. Urgently. So the priest tries to push past any small talk or distractions.
No BS. Just information.
And then there’s a long pause.
The girl says (I’m quoting from memory, so my retelling of the scene will be a little wrong), “Can you pray for me?”
The detective is annoyed. The priest is taken aback.
Through tears, the girl tells a story about some major family drama, entirely unrelated to anything that’s happened in the film thus far.
The priest quickly becomes torn between his desire and duty to solve the case, and his compassion for the girl’s pain.
He retreats into another room to listen and pray with the girl, much to the chagrin of the detective.
I wrote in my book1 about a Monday morning years ago at 9:30 AM, when I saw a guy camping behind our church building.
This happens often. Not only at our church, but at most churches in Portland. Homelessness is a crisis in our city, it rains for three quarters of the year, and churches have banisters that can let a person stay dry while sleeping.
I, and every other pastor I know, is terrible at figuring out how to be compassionate to our houseless neighbors while also keeping things safe for everybody in the neighborhood.
That balance is so hard to find.
We try. We screw it up.
It’s basically impossible not to.
Also we’re people, and sometimes after weeks and weeks in a row of headaches (stopping fights/assaults, cleaning up abandoned camp after abandoned camp, and being called every name in the book from everyone - houseless folks, neighbors, and houseless advocates - everyone), we snap.
This particular Monday morning, I snapped.
I had a staff meeting to lead at 10 AM, and at 9:30, I ran outside and started screaming at the dude. “You can’t be out here. We’ve been over this many times. Get your stuff and get out of here.”
He responded, “Whatever, it’s fine anyway. I’m about to go kill myself.”2
After a few seconds of shock, I sat down on the ground, texted the staff to cancel our meeting, and the guy and I started talking.
Really, I stopped being a jerk and started listening.
It was a long, quiet conversation.
Detailed.
Painful.
Much like the story the girl shared with the priest in the film.
The situation at 9:30 on Monday morning was one of the more extreme cases, but this kind of situation happens a lot.
I’ll be entirely focused on the stuff I’m trying to get done, but within seconds of speaking to someone, I’ll be reminded that people have a lot of hurts underneath the surface.
The person will hesitantly bring them up to me.
And almost immediately, everything I was 100% focused on becomes entirely unimportant.
This isn’t just true of people at my church. It comes up a lot. Christians, atheists, agnostics, it doesn’t really matter.
At odd, often inopportune times, they'll say something through shaky breaths or tears like “can you pray for me?” or “can I talk to you about something?”
People have hurts, pains, and needs under the surface. And so very often, I get caught up in my own stuff and forget about that.
I talked with a friend a while ago who said to me, “There’s a lot of people who are leaving their faith, and they’re going to need pastors too.”
I’ve thought about that a lot since they said it to me.
When a person’s a regular churchgoer, they have someone to call to help them through the tough parts of life.
But what happens when a person isn’t a regular churchgoer?
Who do they call?
Sure, friends, therapists - there are people.
But sharing the deeper needs; the spiritual needs - that can be a hard thing for some folks to trust to a friend or a therapist.
In 2026, I want to practice being the type of person who’s available for people’s problems.
I want to practice being less caught up in some of the things I need to get done.
I hope by the end of the year, I’ll be a little bit less stunned and shaken into caring for people’s needs than I was that day behind the church with the houseless dude,
or than I've been with former churchgoers at a coffee shop,
or than the priest was with the girl in Wake Up Dead Man.
Thanks so much for reading my stuff throughout 2025. I’ve posted new things on here every Friday for around 3.5 years, and am so grateful to any and all of you who read these things each week. There are so, so, so, SO many times where I think about ending this Substack. It often feels like nobody’s on the other side of this, reading any of these words.
But occasionally, one of you texts me about how something I said impacted you (for better or worse), and I’m reminded that there’s something good happening in this weird little corner of the internet.
It’s humbling that, despite there being billions of words spilled onto the internet regularly, you took the time to read some of mine.
So thanks. I appreciate you.
Especially those of you who have supported my writing financially. I mean, wow. Unexpected and truly humbling. Thank you.
Which is almost five years old! Good grief!
He didn’t. Long story short, we talked a very long time, he and I called the suicide hotline together, they connected him with another resource. The whole process lasted a long time. But things ended up okay.
Life often jolts us into presence. I hate it. And it’s important. I appreciate your weekly words so much.
I thought the priest and the young woman was about the best part of the show. I was somewhat shocked the writers had it in there, and I was grateful to be reminded about getting out of our heads and "being there" for people.