Review: Giving Membership - Help a charity and get movie rentals monthly.

GIVE AND RECEIVE

I regularly watch Christian movies I've purchased on Christian Cinema as I like the service (see my review: Christian Cinema Review). It's a great service and I love supporting Christian-based businesses.

Since joining Christian Cinema I've noticed they have a button called "Giving Membership" on the top of site, but I've never looked into this...until now.

Turns out there's a way to give to charity and get back some free movie rentals.

Sounds like a win-win, but is it?

Recently, Giving Company did an email about their "Giving Membership" to increase awareness.

This prompted me to finally look into the membership to see what it's all about.

And as it happens, I was looking for some good movies to watch.

SO JUST WHAT IS THIS GIVING MEMBERSHIP?

According to their website:

"As a Giving Member you receive the following benefits: free rentals on Christian Cinema, discounted books from iDisciple Publishing, and unlimited and exclusive content on iDisciple. Through our Giving Programs your subscription helps those in need around the globe."

Here are the benefits of membership:

1. Getting 5 movie rentals on Christian Cinema each month.
2. Ad-free experience on iDisciple.org.
3. Some discounts and free shipping on books from iDisciple.org.
4. Providing free, clean water to those in need around the globe.

The membership cost is $24.99 per year.

GIVE LIVING WATER

So let's start with the important part, the charity.

Looking through the page, it looks like Giving Company has partnered with World Vision.

After some research (I wish this was clearly on Giving Company's page), it looks like Giving Company is a "Clean Water Partner" with World Vision (World Vision: Clean Water Partners).

And according to the World Vision site, in 2019 they helped 3.3 million people get access to clean water.

It looks like the organization has a low management cost overhead, which is good.

If you're interested in the program, check out: World Vision: Clean Water.

SOME QUESTIONS

I had some questions about Giving Membership and unfortunately their site pathways are a mess.

For example, I was one the main page from Christian Cinema and clicked on "Contact Us." I was then taken to https://givingcompany.com/contact-us/. This page simply has text on it that says "Have a customer service need?"

That's it.

There's no contact link, no form, no email.

And if you click the "contact us" link on that page, it just sends you back to the same page again.

So that's odd. Hopefully they fix this soon because I'm sure it's driving potential members away.

Here are some questions that I had for them:

1. What % of the money of my membership goes to World Vision?
2. Are these monthly movie rentals for any movies I want or is there a monthly selection I have to chose from?
3. Given licensing and streaming fees, it seems like $2 per month might be too low. Are you losing money on this membership deal?
4. Does my membership automatically renew annually and if so, does my price stay the same or does it go up to the $60 per year "normal" price?
5. How do I cancel charges?

The lack of a way to contact them is also a problem because if you read the terms of service, there are no refunds.

If I wasn't writing this article for ChristianBytes.com, I would have just ended the journey here—no signing up, no contacting the company and no telling others about Giving Membership.

LET'S SIGN UP

From here I went here to create an account: Giving Membership Signup Page

As you can see from the screenshot, creating an account is a 3-step process:

Step 1: You will enter your email, first name and last name.

Step 2: You will enter your desired password and verify you're human.

Step 3: You will fill out payment information for the subscription. For me, it said: "Promotional Annual Giving Membership Subscription Price: $24.99"

Once you finish payment, you'll get the "Your Receipt" screen.

Upon clicking the OK button, I was taken to a page (see screen) that talked about my benefits, but unfortunately the page is setup to auto direct you to another webpage quickly. It's a bit jarring and thus not the best user experience.

I was redirected here: https://www.idisciple.org/feed

About 15 minutes after joining, I got the welcome email so if you do join, just be patient.

BACK TO CHRISTIAN CINEMA

Ok, one of the main "hooks" for this membership for me at this time was the Christian Cinema rentals.

So now that I'm a member I can finally answer one of my questions from above (#2 -> what movies can I watch?).

After signing into Christian Cinema with the new Giving Membership account credentials, I see the free rentals (YAY!).

And it looks like it's just codes to redeem, which is fantastic.

As you can see from the screenshot, I have 5 rentals for this month (August 2020) to use. This is pretty cool so far.

How about we try one?

RENTING A MOVIE

Ok, these codes are burning a hole in my pocket. I want to rent something!

I'm very curious if these codes work for anything (it just feels like they are losing money here).

My business sense is tingling. There has to be something restricting or "in partnership" happening here.

After digging around (again, this process could have been done better), I found some information from one of their webpages:

"Because some distributors have opted out of allowing the use of our free codes for their films, the use of your free codes does not apply to all films on our platform. As you are selecting your film for viewing, please be sure to check that you see “Rent Digital HD or SD – Free.” If you do not see this language, you may be charged for your rental." (https://5213834.hs-sites.com/about-your-idisciple-giving-membership-and-christian-cinema)

Ah, so there's the rub. It's only participating distributors.

Let's find out more.

While logged into ChristianCinema.com I clicked on the "Redeem" button, which shows the screenshot you've seen with the codes.

Then I clicked on the blue "Redeem Code" button to get the party started.

After doing this, I was shown a message that my code was redeemed and to continue browsing. Sweet!

So since some studios don't participate, let me pick 20 movies almost at random (I'll put in a couple that I'm interested in renting) and see what I can actually rent with free codes.

I'll also link directly to the movies in case you want to check them out.

1. I Still Believe (2020) (NO) - Wait, what? See below.
2. SleeperAgent (YES)
3. Beyond The Mask (YES)
4. The Encounter (YES) - Saw it, good movie.
5. Priceless (YES)
6. Heaven's War (YES)
7. Before the Wrath (YES) - Saw it, good movie.
8. The Peanut Butter Falcon (YES)
9. God's Not Dead 2 (YES) - Saw it, good movie. Watch em all.
10. Unplanned (YES) - Saw it, good movie.
11. The Pilgrim's Progress (YES)
12. God's Compass (YES)
13. I Can Only Imagine (YES) - Saw it, good movie.
14. The Gospel of John (YES) - Saw it 100s of times, good movie.
15. Kingdom Men Rising (NO)
16. Wildflower (YES)
17. Blue Like Jazz (YES)
18. Genesis: Paradise Lost (YES)
19. The Reliant (2019) (YES)
20. She has a Name (YES)

As you can see from this list many films are available for the free rental redemption.

I'll be honest, I was expecting maybe 3-4 movies on this list to be usable with the free rental code.

And just from a value-for-my-money sense, there's enough movies on this list to make the $24.99 worth it—not to mention that some percent of that money goes to a good cause.

Once I decided on a movie The Reliant (2019), I just clicked the green "Rent Digital HD - Free" button and off I went to watch my movie.

I also discovered that you can watch your rental multiple times in the 48-hour period, so that's great.

As a bonus aside, I decided to check out Sonic the Hedgehog with Jim Carrey.

I was just super sure it wouldn't be eligible for the free rental code, but sure enough, it was. This is a good moment to point out that Christian Cinema has non-Christian movies. They attempt to only put movies on the service that meet certain family standards, much like Pure Flix does.

And now for a confusing point from my first item on the above list:

The one move I really wanted to see was I Still Believe (2020) and according to this screenshot from Christian Cinema I should be allowed to rent it for free:

Unless I'm missing something, this seems to imply that the movie's distributor is participating.

I suspect Christian Cinema / Giving Company isn't purposely misleading here, but it's just a communication mistake (happens all the time). I'm going to contact them about this and hopefully it's fixed by the time you read this.

Maybe the distributor will be participating soon and this image just got out ahead of time or maybe distributor just stopped participating and Christian Cinema just needs to update the image.

A little let down as I wanted to use my codes on it, but I'll live.

MOBILE MOVIE RENTING CHANGES

There's an important distinction between Christian Cinema's app and their website that's important to know.

Unlike their website, their app doesn't clearly tell you that the rental will be free.

Instead you're either given a price or a text that says "2 Days Left."

This is incredibly confusing because the wording implies that you've already done something.

Just to clear it up, you need to select the "2 Days Left" option to actually redeem your code and rent the movie.

On my Apple TV, I selected "2 Days Left" and the movie failed to play (got an error message). I went back to the movie's page and it still said "2 Days Left."

Did my rental request go through? Will I be charged again?

It appears I only was "charged" one time, but this experience could be improved upon.

Here's an image containing two mobile screenshots that show the difference between a free rental and a not-free rental:

And if you're using the app, you can go to "My Movies" to see any rentals you have going.

If you're on an iOS device, you can also download your rentals, which is a nice feature.

CHRISTIAN MUSIC

As part of your membership, you also get ad-free Christian music & programming at iDisciple.

While I mostly use Spotify for my Christian music listening, I wanted to make sure I touched on this key component of Giving Membership for those of you who don't already pay for a music service (or just want to support Christian services, like me).

To use the service is pretty simple. Just head over to iDisciple.org, log in and select "iDisciple Radio."

They have sermons and music. You'll see a page like this:

After making a section, an audio player will open up in a new browser tab like this:

It looks like there's only 2 playlists, but they also have a long list of one-off items to watch (audio songs with cover art).

I've been listening to the first playlist, Weekly Worship Radio, while writing and it's been pretty good.

The songs are good as is the audio quality.

Here's a screenshot of what the one-off video items look like.

If you're used to using YouTube as a music player, this should feel normal to you.

It will be interesting to watch to see if iDisciple's music offering grows.

Could there be an all-you-can-enjoy, all-the-best-stuff Christian music service some day? One can only hope.

THAT'S A WRAP

There are some questions left to answer, but I'll reach out to Giving Company for some answers and will update this review when that happens.

Aside from that, I'm very pleased with the Giving Membership.

I mean it's really hard to argue against 60 movie rentals, ad-free Christian music and helping out a charity provide water for people in need for under $30 per year.

My issues all reside with communication / process of getting & understanding this membership, which is a problem with many websites & services.

So if you were looking for something to watch, I recommend you head over to Giving Membership Signup Page and get your account going.

And if you're not sure what to watch, check out my list above for some ideas.

I recommend watching Before the Wrath, which is an excellent explanation of the coming of Jesus Christ and what phrases, such as "like a thief in the night," actually mean.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It makes moral and financial sense. With your Giving Membership you help bring clean water to people who need it, you get tons of movie rentals per year at Christian Cinema and you get ad-free Christian music on iDisciple. It's a win-win.

Christian Cinema Review

Before you buy or rent another movie, check out CB's complete review of Christian Cinema, an online Christian-based movie service for web & devices.