Hollywood puts out a lot of movies that are junk.

Other films that come to your local theater are entertaining or exciting.

And some manage not only to be inspiring, but also convey deep, spiritual themes that can connect with faithful people.

The Rev. Paul Gray is most interested in the latter category of films, the rare ones that offer meaningful insights into life and, yes, even God. Gray has put together a two-month sermon series, which started Sept. 7, in which he takes a closer look at selected films to see what important messages they might have for religious people.

Called “Let’s Go to the Movies,” Gray’s sermons are given at the 11 a.m. Sunday services at Heartland Community Church, 619 Vt. The series will continue through October.

“I realized that more people go to movies than go to church,” says Gray, Heartland’s senior pastor.

“People are very interested in spiritual things today, and a lot of movies have deep spiritual themes. So I thought if we have the greatest creative minds in the world in Hollywood, and they’re spending tens of millions of dollars to produce a product, we ought to take advantage of it.”

The first movie Gray analyzed in his series was “The Matrix,” a mega-successful film starring Keanu Reeves as a messianic figure whose task is to free humanity from machines that imprison people by creating an illusory world. Gray finds “The Matrix” particularly rich in spiritual themes.

“It’s a parable of the original Judeo-Christian worldview of entrapment in a world gone wrong with no hope of survival short of something miraculous,” he says.

“My analysis is that when you become a Christian, you can see what life is really like — your eyes are open.”

Gray has organized a team of 10 people from Heartland who view and critique the movies that he plans to talk about from the pulpit. He scans the Internet for movie reviews, especially those that are from a Christian perspective, visiting Web sites like www.hollywoodjesus.com. He learns about various films from their own Web sites, too.

Gray also attended a three-day seminar called “Movies and Theology” held Sept. 3-5 at the Westport CoffeeHouse Theater in Kansas City, Mo. The seminar featured Craig Detweiler, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema and Television. Detweiler teaches a course called “Faith, Film and Culture” at the Los Angeles Film Studies Center and is a co-director of Reel Spirituality, a think-tank for filmmakers and clergy.

Gray has received an enthusiastic response to his sermon series so far, even from those who were skeptical at first.

“I don’t think Hollywood is doing us many favors these days. They’re not helping our culture that much. As a result, I don’t go to movies that often,” says Mike Hall, a professor of trombone in Kansas University’s department of music and dance and a member of Heartland.

“But the film Paul covered this past weekend, ‘The Matrix,’ has a really clear messianic slant to it. It has never occurred to me to use movies as a point of departure for sharing the Gospel, but boy, he showed conclusively that not only can that be done, but it’s really quite an excellent way to share the Gospel.”

Gray believes that while Hollywood is largely secular and profit oriented, some of its products offer “teachable moments” for Christians.

“Movies reflect culture, and there’s a lot of bad stuff in culture. But I celebrate the medium (of film). It’s an art medium just like music or theater that can show us wonderful things about life and about God,” he says.