Being Called on a Mission

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This is the Truth Network. Music Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits. Now live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Oh, I am really looking forward to today's show. I have some really interesting folks with me, and we've got more God in Hollywood coming up at 1130, so stay with us.

We've got so much today. So first off, we've got Dr. Mark Johnson. Dr. Johnson has been with me a few times because he's written several books on covenant, and so he's got a new book that just released, actually the New Covenant, the heart of God's plan for your life and all of humanity. So hey, Dr. Mark, good to have you back. It's always a pleasure. It is, it is, and so you've got to be excited about your new book.

You know, I am. This is the kind of culmination of several years of writing, but really more than that, of like 40 years of walking with the Lord and really learning how to grow spiritually personally and also walking beside other people who want to learn to grow spiritually and watching what does and doesn't work for those people. And this is trying to capture everything that I've learned about how we grow, and all of that really flows out of the context of what our relationship with God actually is.

It turns out that's really the key to understanding so many things about our spiritual life. So it's really exciting for me to finish this project and get this out there in front of people because I think it's really going to help a whole lot of people. Yeah, as a car salesman for over 40 years, I've cut a few deals in my time.

Bet you did. And so you may know that the word cut a deal comes from the word covenant, and so my buddy, Dr. Johnson here, is going to fill you in on all that and more. Believe me, it's going to be so cool. But also I have with me Jay Wesley and his plan to make Disciples of Christ in Asia Pacific. So Jay, welcome to Kingdom Pursuits, and how cool, man, to go like you're going into some tough territory.

Absolutely, yeah. It's been a journey to be able to be on the road that I'm on, and it's definitely been a lesson to me just realizing how gracious God has been during this time and getting me overseas to Asia Pacific and just getting to hopefully make Disciples of Christ over there in Asia Pacific. So here you have a situation, from my point of view, of somebody that like, okay, God, this is—I feel this passion, right, to go to this part of the world. I've got a burden for these people, but now you've got to meet the need, right? So you're in the raising support deal of that, and right before the air you were sharing with me that you thought this might take two or three years.

God had other plans. Yeah, because, I mean, you hear all these different stories of people who, to be able to raise up even 75 percent of their support, not even 100 percent, it took them three years or five—some people took up to five years. And so I'm starting out this past February. I became a member of the mission that I'm with, and I was thinking, well, I mean, I'll do my best, but I wasn't expecting God to come through in the way that He did. So this has been a huge lesson to me in these past, what is it, six months or so, just realizing that God is still the gracious God that I know Him to be.

I just clearly was forgetting that during these past couple months. But it's been a huge lesson to me to just realize that God, He's still the same God that I knew Him to be. And I remember that was originally how I was going to get out of being on the radio.

There you go. It's true, because I'd heard a sermon once that said, if God calls you to do something, you know, He's going to swing the door wide open. In other words, He's going to give you the provision to do it. And so, you know, He called me to do the Christian car guy show in the middle of the night. I was a car dealer at the time, and I didn't like my own voice. I certainly didn't think I was capable of doing a radio show. And God said, I want you to get on the radio and talk about what breaks your heart every day. And I was like, God, have you heard my voice? I don't like doing commercials.

I can't imagine doing a radio show and all these things. So I invited Stu Epperson to lunch with the idea of throwing this idea at him and him saying no. And I would say, oh, well, my pastor is right.

If you don't have a call, you know, if God doesn't provide, then you weren't really called. And so I thought for sure. Instead, Stu said, oh, great idea. How about this Saturday? So you might know that my show always has these riddles. It's where you have to hear my jokes, Jay, whether you like it or not. So speaking of plan, all right, are you ready for this Sean? I'm ready. So my plan for tomorrow is to get some new glasses, right?

And after that, I guess I'll just see what happens. So you may have wondered, what's the difference between iron man and aluminum man? Well, iron man just stops the bad guys. You know what aluminum man does, Sean? No, he foils their plans. See, you know, the plans had to come in there somewhere. It's part of the whole shtick, you know. So I had a plan, like many people to go to college to study food science, specializing in carbonated beverages. See, my dad always wanted me to become a physicist. Come on, you like that one, did you?

Come on, Carmen, you can smile. So you knew at the end of those shenanigans, I would actually have a Bible riddle, which I do. I do have a Bible riddle and it is, whose plan in the Bible got him all hung up?

Whose plan in the Bible got him all hung up? If you know the answer to that, Sean, tell them what they'll win. All right, so whoever is able to win that will, we got a nice selection, Robbie, if I'm not mistaken, of our normal prizes from the Christian Card Guy Kingdom Pursuits Prize Vault. So call in, give us your answers, and we'll give you a nice selection of prizes to pick from.

Oh, we do, we have books, we have t-shirts, we have whatever you may want. All you got to do is tell us whose plan in the Bible got him all hung up. 866, come on, you got to know this one, I'm surprised the lines aren't letting up. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH, and we'll get you fixed up there. So getting back to my friend Jay, I'm curious, how in the world did you get this, I mean, did God show up for you in the middle of the night and said, hey, Jay, I'm thinking you need to just think Pacific. So I have a very interesting story. So I grew up in a family that has no full-time ministry people in it at all.

Like, I will be the first full-time ministry person in my entire extended family, anything like that. I did, you know, my parents are Christian and things like that, and so I grew up in a church environment, grew up going to church, but I was like your typical church kid. I just went for Awana and just went for the games, I didn't really care about a lot of these programs. They had basketball, didn't they?

Well, of course, they had basketball as well, and I was tall, I was a tall kid, so that helped as well. But I mean, growing up, my dad worked for the railroad, you know, I was not thinking anything. All the live long day? All the live long day, yeah. Norfolk Southern, I mean, that's what they do over there.

But, and night too. But yeah, so when I was thinking about getting into vocations and getting into my teens, 15, 16, whatever, I'm just thinking like, okay, well, my dad works for the railroad, I'll probably work for the railroad. Or being a mechanic, I thought about being a diesel mechanic, so I was looking at schools for that, and I was like, man, these schools are super expensive.

So I was like, I'll probably just have to do something a little bit different. But basically, my story is about how I realized that missionaries are just regular people. When I was growing up in the church, people would, missionaries would come through, and they would give their sermon or their message, and I would think, man, these guys are just like on a super pedestal. You know, I could never be one of these people. They're just, they're super spiritual, and I'm not, you know, I believe in God, but I don't really, you know, and so it was when a guy named Dale Fogg, he came to speak at my home church, he spoke at a missions conference, he only spoke for probably like 25 minutes, and that was it. And just seeing his life and just realizing that, you know what, this guy, he didn't put himself on to be anything crazy.

He changed my whole book out towards missions in general. And it just said that, you know what, I can actually do this. You know, this isn't something that's unachievable.

You can just, a regular person can go overseas and be accomplished. Hey, we gotta go to a break, so stop right there, we'll be right back. We got, oh, the lines are lit up.

We have four answers. I can hardly wait. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom, and we're so blessed today to have with us Dr. Mark Johnson with his new book of the series of three that he's done on covenant, The New Covenant, The Heart of God's Plan for Your Life and All Humanity, as well as Jay Wesley with his plan to make disciples of Christ in Asia Pacific. But right now we got all these riddlers.

I mean, how fun is that? We have that called in to answer our Bible riddle today. And so starting off, we have Sharon is in Chesterfield, Virginia. Sharon, you're on the Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning!

Good morning! I'm excited to hear your answer on who's playing in the Bible. Got him all hung up? Haman. He was one? That was a good one.

That's good, yeah. He sure did in the book of Esther. Just absolutely outstanding. So what do you think about Haman, Sharon? I thank God, put him right where he belongs. At the end of a rope, all right. That's hard to plan, I guess, huh?

Yeah, that's a tough thing for him. Well, Sharon, I appreciate you calling in to win, and that's just absolutely outstanding. I hope that other callers will not give up because there's other answers.

Plus, I want to talk to you, so stay tuned. But thank you so much for calling in today, Sharon. God bless you. All right, thank you.

Thank you. So we've got Matthew is in Raleigh. Matthew, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning!

Good morning! So who were you thinking, Matthew? Absalom. Yes, that wonderful locks of hair that he had got him. Yeah, he too, end up hung up, didn't he? Yep. Yep. So what are your thoughts about Absalom there, Matthew?

Well, I mean, obviously he was really, really greedy for this round. Funny enough, I just finished reading that in Samuel. So I mean, literally, he had just finished reading that maybe a couple of days ago. So the question was like, I think I got that. Oh, you do.

You have it. That's a great answer, and it's so tragic, right? Can you imagine what it would be like to have your own son do all that Absalom did, and then get a report that he was dead?

You know, it's unbelievable. But anyway, thank you, Matthew. God bless. I appreciate you calling in.

Great answer. Thanks for having us. Bye-bye.

All right. So we got Diane is in Reedsville. Diane, you're up. We lost Diane.

She must have had one of those too. And then we got Matthew's in Apex. So we got Matthew, and they must have been thinking either Absalom or Haman, however that went. But getting back to my friend Mark and this whole idea of a plan for our life that God had through the covenant.

So share with us, Mark, kind of why you're excited about somebody reading this book. Well, for one thing, coming to Christ, we're told a lot of different things. But it is unclear, really, what it is we're supposed to be doing. You know, we hear a lot of things about it's all of God and all of grace. And we can easily get the opinion that as a Christian, all we're obligated to do in any way is just to show up in church for an hour or two a week, give polite attention, listen a little bit, maybe do a little bit of what we hear, maybe contribute a little bit or be a little nicer to people.

And then come back and do the same thing next week. You know, the Christian culture has kind of a way of doing things that people just tend to fall into line with. But when you look back at the historic nature of a covenant relationship, first people have always had a little trouble understanding this. Somebody asked Jesus of that marriage 2,000 years ago. And the question was about the imperative of easy divorce. Man, marriage is such a mess.

We've got to have access to easy divorce, right, Jesus? And Jesus looked, this is in Matthew 19, you know, Jesus looked at the questioner and said, you know, in the beginning, you went back to the very inception of the relationship. And then he talked about the one flesh nature of a covenant. And what he was really saying was, if you understand what this relationship is, you understand what it's for, you understand how to build this relationship, and you go build it according to the plan for building the relationship that God's given us, you wouldn't want a divorce. It's the last thing you'd want.

Yeah, because you'd love being married. And, you know, within a covenant relationship is a plan, because when you look at marriage, or you look at our relationship with God, if we just look at the list of things God says to do, the first day we were Christian, or 50 years in, boy, some of that stuff we don't want to do, some of that stuff we can't do. Some of it we have no idea why in the world we would even think of doing. You know, God's ways are not our ways. But we tend to, if we react negatively to what God says, we tend to kind of go with our own reaction. We tend to not do the things God says to do. Well, if you look at obedience just as a checklist of things we're supposed to do and not do, just because God says so.

You know, that looks one way to feels one way, and frankly, people really struggle with obeying in that context, and they really should, because that's not the plan. Covenant is about creating a new being. It's not just a list of things we're supposed to do.

Following God is not just following a list, okay? We become a new creature. When we enter a covenant relationship, who we are literally changes.

And we go in the book into a lot of what those changes are, but the bottom line is also our life now becomes conjoined. We actually exchange identities with another being, in this case God in the covenant. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us. We come to be in Christ. So now, instead of having my life to go live, actually having our life, there's a conjoined life with God. I'm literally within Him, and He's within me. Therefore, there's no more mine and yours.

It's just ours. So, I'm just curious, because you're an expert on the subject, and I got this question. So clearly, it was pretty obvious in the old covenant where the cut came in, and it was... Yeah, right, yep. Ask Abraham. Right, right, right. Where did the cut... God said, I'm going to now bless you by letting you be certain.

Yeah. So where did the cut come in in the new covenant? Well, the imagery is fascinating, because every being had to pass through that covenant sign. You know, the man's semen had to pass through that covenant ring in order to make the next generation.

There's a lot of beautiful imagery in all this. So everybody was within that covenant. Now, in this situation, historically, people have believed that we're not going to be able to end it. Historically, people have believed that within your blood is your life. When Jesus was on the cross, and He was bleeding and then dying, the teaching currently, for the most part, is that that was just a sacrificial act to pay for our sins.

But there's another dimension to that that is so crucial to understand. Jesus was also pouring out His life toward us. He said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in me. So unless He not only pours it out, but we receive it into ourselves. Now, Jesus died physically on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago, but He also is timeless.

He's everywhere, so the exact mechanics of how this happens are a little beyond my pay grade. But as He offers that 2,000 years ago, and as we believe in Him to the point of giving Him our whole life with nothing held back, it's like two people at a marriage altar giving their lives to each other. You know, we don't just pray a prayer and accept an offer and, you know, kind of choose to walk with God. We're literally giving Him our life. The first thing He then does is put us to death. The old person dies, and a new being is raised up. Okay, we're literally a new creature, a new creation, a new identity in Christ.

Right, and actually, to an extent, out of the side of Christ. Well, I hate that—wow, I mean, you can tell this book is going to be absolutely fantastic. But just based on our time restraints, I got to move over to Jay for a minute and pick us up at the story. So you met this wonderful—and he was a regular guy, right?

And so how did that lead to your call? Yeah, so like I was saying, I was on a totally different path, not at all moving towards ministry, definitely not full-time ministry. And just after he—I mean, it was just like the way he presented himself, you know, a lot of missionaries, when they present themselves—and this is what I've tried to emulate the same thing that he does, because the way that he would present himself was just like, you know, I'm just a regular guy, you know, there's nothing special about me.

There's nothing about overseas missions that you can't do. And that's the biggest thing that I got out of that. And I was 16 years old, super impressionable, right? And so after sitting there in that Sunday school room, I was like, well, maybe I could go overseas and do missions. And from that point, that was like the catalyst, that was the initial spark that started me on that journey, at least thinking about it. And then I went to Jamaica on several different missions trips, and then I went to Uganda, and then I went to several other missions trips after that as well. And then it was just like, it went from, well, maybe I could do it, to like, yeah, I think I could do this, to there's nothing else I could see myself doing with my life. And so it was just like this natural progression after—but it was that initial hurdle of realizing that this isn't just like super spiritual people that go out and do overseas missions.

Like this is, you know, people that are regular, just like me, I'm just a regular guy. So have you actually been to this part of the world where you're talking about going in in the Pacific? Asia Pacific? So I was super thankful to be able to go to Hong Kong in 2017-2018.

So I got to teach little kindergarten kids about this size right here, like a couple feet tall, and they would just send them through over and over and over again. I would just teach them very basic English, but you know, they would love it because they actually don't want you to be able to speak Cantonese, where they, that's what the language they speak in Hong Kong. And so it was great for me because I didn't speak Cantonese, I spoke English, that's what they wanted. So I was super thankful to be able to see that side of the world because Hong Kong, I don't know if you know, but it's a very, it's a perfect blend of like Western and Eastern. So they have, it's very Eastern, but it's very Western as well.

So super thankful to be able to go. Wow, I think we're out of time. I do. Because you can tell there's a whole lot here with Jay and there's a whole lot more with Dr. Johnson's book. You can find that at Kingdom Pursuits. It's called The New Covenant, The Heart of God's Plan for Your Life and All of Humanity. And of course, Jay is out there making disciples and we can be praying for him that God will finish up his support.

He's at 80% and almost finished. And there's going to be a podcast maybe coming out of the Truth Network. What are we going to hear about that?

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Oh, welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And once again this week, we're featuring God in Hollywood. How fun is that with Paul Long and Brad Silverman with Kappa Studios and the Christian Film Finishing Fund. And for those of you who have chosen fans out there like me, how fun if you watch the end of the chosen the next time. Watch the end of the...

They're going to be... Kappa Studios is up there, right guys? Yeah, we're in there, baby. It's beautiful. Absolutely wonderful stuff.

So Brad, what do you got for us this week? Well, Robbie, it is great to be here. And yeah, so we have... I thought in Hollywood, Robbie, we call them origin stories. It's like when you go back to the beginning, right? Like Batman, how did he become Batman? We know he's like the Joker later in life, but what caused him to become that, right? So we call those origin stories. I thought today might be fun to just kind of take an origin story. How did God in Hollywood even start? And I thought an interesting way to do that would kind of get to the heart of this guy on the line with us, Paul here, who's just... He's one of my dearest, dearest, dearest friends on the planet, a brother that I never had.

And just kind of get his heart, kick his brain a little bit on this. So if I may, so Paul, you're the president of Kappa Studios. Obviously we work together now, but let's just have a conversation here.

You're the president of Kappa Studios. And as Robbie rightly calls it, you're in beautiful downtown Burbank. Now talk for a minute about Burbank. What is Burbank as it relates to the film and television industry? Well, it's pretty much the center of the entertainment industry.

I mean, everybody's here. Hollywood used to be that in its physical location, but this is still really Hollywood in all senses of the word. Hollywood has become full of pretty dangerous situations and homeless encampments. And it's just gotten pretty bad down there.

I think people have pretty much migrated over to Burbank. And of course, the major studios are here as well. So yeah, so we've just gotten in that way.

Yeah. So where you are at Kappa, once Disney bought Fox, you got the worldwide headquarters and Robbie, I don't know if you know this, but the worldwide headquarters of Disney, Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers are all within like an eight minute radius of where you are, Paul. And all the affiliates, ESPN, ABC, NBC, all the worldwide headquarters of really what powers the entire worldwide film and television industry is all within a few minutes of where Kappa Studios is. And let me ask you this, Paul. So when you opened Kappa Studios like over 25 years ago, were you, I already know the answer to this, but were you speaking to honor God when you opened Kappa Studios? Well, no.

Yeah, no. The way I came up, I came up in an entertainment family. My dad was the director and he loved the entertainment business and he just thought it was fantastic. So we were taught to work hard, be people of accomplishment. And because he was in the entertainment business, I kind of fell into that too. And when I got in, my goal and my approach were to make money, to do things that I wanted to do.

And I was living for myself, not for God in any way, shape or form in those days. Yeah. And as you often say, in a self-deprecating humor, you'll say, what moron would then take a successful company, a very successful company over a decade? Who would be this dumb? Who would be this dumb?

Who would be this dumb? So five years ago, in the infamous press release of 2016, you announced to the world, here you are at the epicenter of worldwide film and television. And you say, here we are at the corner of Hollywood Way in Magnolia, you know, within eyesight of the Warner Brothers Tower and everything we mentioned. And you say, we exist to glorify God. Yeah, it's a super thing. It's a super kind of crazy thing to think about.

You know, you look at us like, wait a minute. But the Lord did that. He provoked me in that regard. And He just, He gave me just, there was just no peace. I wasn't able to continue walking that path. And what God really showed me is that I needed to do something different. And we needed to pivot the company. And I always thought I was making the payroll.

I thought I was operating everything doing it. And really what I've come to see in the fullness of time is we never did anything. God did everything.

Even on my worst days, He was gracious. And, you know, when you do something like, you know, pivoting the company like we did, I call it like jumping off the roof. When you jump off the roof, there's no taking it back. And so we did. And, you know, it wasn't easy.

It wasn't fun. But, you know, it was very satisfying, because the Lord totally started to just give me peace. And if you know what I'm talking about, even in the listener audience, if you have peace, you can just sort of walk through things, you know, and the Lord only can give you that peace. So when you seek Him and you obey Him, He gives you peace. He also reveals what it is we should be doing. He starts to show you and starts to bring people. So one of the things that Brad and I pray often, even to this day, is Lord, bring us the people. Who are the people that you want us to work for?

Who are the people we should talk to and see? And He does not disappoint. He brings them left, right, and center. Every week, there are people coming here, many of which we've never met before, many of which have been referred by others.

Hey, call this one, call that one. And so next thing you know, we're going. So a whole faith and family film, post-business and production business have been built.

And I'll just say one last thing about this. Basically, what we did, we started over in business. We just had to start over. And, you know, Ryan O'Reilly's story, and it's a powerful one. And he started over, too. But he started over for God.

And that's what happened to us, guys. Yeah, that's awesome. So, I mean, it's incredible.

So when you made the pivot, I appreciate you sharing all that. So, you know, in this talk about the starting over, like you just mentioned. So did you actually, people are shocked to hear this, here you are, you've got this beautiful facility in Burbank. You know, it's not a cheap facility.

It's an expense you've got to pay mortgage. You've got bills to pay and payroll to make. Did you actually turn down work in those early years, five years ago? Yeah, I had to, guys. They'd gotten where I just was so convicted about the stuff I was putting my hand to.

I just couldn't do it anymore. And when you look at the chronology I pulled back the other day, and Brad and I were talking about this, I can sum it up in three things now. I finally can see the Word of God kind of showed me how this looks.

Here's what it looks like. First, I had to turn back to God. That's the story of Capa. That's what happened there. Then we started the needful things.

That's how CFF came, and then telling others about God, that is distribution. So we'll talk about that more later, but there's these three sort of touch points that really happened, and the first was, yeah, I need to turn back to God and start serving Him instead of myself. That's incredible, yeah. And so five years, I was a client, I was a client of yours as a filmmaker. I brought my work to you. You do post-production at Capa Studio.

You do editing, sound design, color grading, visual effects, trailers, promos, you know, all the needed things in the film and television industry. I was a client of yours for many years, and for three years as just a client, as a friend, you and I would pray together. And then five years ago, I come on board, and I'll never forget, Paul, when I came on board, you started something that to this day we still do, which is pretty much every day, we start every day praying together and going through the word together, right?

And for those out there, Paul and I, we don't have any formal, you know, what we did though. We've actually, together in your office, we've gone through verse by verse the entire book of Romans. We've gone through the entire book of John. We've gone through the entire book of 1 Peter, right?

Just verse by verse. I mean, he's doing this every day, guys. You can get a lot done, right? And then you and I will pray together.

Sometimes we'll spend an hour together. This is like valuable work time, Monday through Friday, that you and I are spending, you know, upwards of an hour sometimes just in the word and praying together every single day. But here's my question, or a statement and question. You said to me early on, you said, Brad, if we don't get this right, nothing else matters.

So, Paul, talk a minute. Why was that so important to you as the owner of this company? Obviously you want to, we got to be productive, right? We got to, we got to work. When we come back, I want to hear why it was so important to you that you would want to start every day with word or prayer.

All right. We'll look forward to that. And we'll be right back with more Kingdom Pursuit. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuit slash God in Hollywood today. And so when we left our hero, Paul, Brad, so I'll let you pick it up from there.

Yeah, we got to be careful about this because, you know, I get in my pants one leg at a time. Okay. Yes, exactly.

Robby. Yeah. So Paul, we're busy, right? We're busy guys. We're, we're, we got a ton of stuff to do.

You've got a million things going on. Why on earth would you carve out upwards, you know, half hour, an hour, sometimes you can really get squeezed in 10 minutes, right? We're so busy sometimes, but in general, you've never you've never been stingy on spending time. Sometimes it's you and I in the word together and in prayer together, why was that always such an important thing to carve so much time of the day? Yeah. You know, it's interesting you bring that up because really we, we do do that. That is true, but here's, here's where it's at.

It's like going to another planet. We, we left the business as usual world. We just did. And when we did that, I recognized that we needed to humble ourselves, that I needed to seek the Lord more, not less.

And as I've been spending, you know, time at home reading the word, Brad and I read and study at home, and then we come together and talk about what we're learning as well. So there are those days that are always capsule, but the headline of it is we realized we just can't do this without God. I had to turn to God instead of myself.

I spent all my time thinking I could do it. And I, and I, and by the way, I was doing it in a certain kind of way, but the cost was just too high. And it's not sustainable joy. There's no sustainable joy without God. And so in turning the company over and giving it back to them, when I'm on the way to work in the morning, I say, Lord, I'm giving you the business back.

Now sometimes by dinnertime, I'm hugging it pretty tight. But in the morning we get up and we, we go down there and say, okay, Lord, we're giving you the business, everything we're doing back. And it's a joy. And it's just, I just have really seen the power of God. And that's been the beautiful part of it is, you know, look, trouble comes to a man and surely his sparks fly upward. That's just where it's at.

However, God gives you everything you need to walk that path each day, if you put him first. That's why I do it. I love it.

Yeah, I love it. And, and what's interesting is, here we are in this, in this epicenter of Hollywood, and you know, you and I are just, you know, we're in it every day. We're praying together, we're in the Word together, and we've had so many people come visit us, Robbie, so many people have come, you know, to our facility in Burbank, and like some outsiders come in, they're like, wow, Hollywood's great. You know, at the studios in Hollywood, they just pray together every day. And they're in the Word together every day. You know, and obviously the guy, the guy was joking, and then I, you know, I joke back and I'm like, oh yeah, that's everything.

Go to Disney, they pray together all the time. That's what that's all we do. Warner Brothers?

Yeah, that's what they're doing. You know, and this is, what's interesting, Paul, is you and I never saw this as a story. You and I never did this for attention.

You and I never said, oh, let's do this. You know, we were just, we just felt like we needed to be faithful to Christ, and this is where he led us. And since then, we've had a number of filmmakers. One guy said, boy, Kappa Studios is like an oasis for Christian filmmakers in Hollywood, and it's a safe place. Another guy said, I'll never forget this, he said, he came to me, he said, Brad, you know what I love? You know what I love? Working, bringing my shows to Kappa, and I'm like, well, do tell.

What do you like about it? And he said, I love that I can do my Christ honoring show with the door open. Oh, wow. And I knew exactly, yeah, I knew exactly what he meant. And, and he basically saying, when he was at other studios, when he's doing stuff that honors Christ, or even stuff that may be politically conservative in Hollywood, that's a danger zone, right?

And he was always having to look over his back. Someone was always trying to get in his face, someone was always trying to undermine what he was doing, but when he's at Kappa, he feels safe. He feels like we're on his side, right? And inevitably, we're on Christ's side, and that can extend to, obviously, to content creators, to film and television makers, who want to honor Christ as well. So I guess my question, Paul, is, did you plan for that? Did you want Kappa to be this, sort of, this oasis, this beautiful facility in Burbank? Did you ever foresee it being this destination spot for Christian filmmakers, where they would see it as a safe place, where their shows are uplifted, not undermined? Yeah, we, no, I don't think we ever thought anything like that.

We, we, you know, I certainly never thought that way. All, all it was really about is this, turn to God and start serving Him. Then what are the needful things?

What are the things we could and should be doing? And, and we just started to meet those needs, and do what we did. And, and, and that, and recognize that God was going to have to bring the people, because in our industry, a lot of people that were giving me a lot of business over the years, they just left. They left us. They didn't, they didn't call us.

They, they left, they voted with their feet. Yeah. So that, that was the crux of the issue. So, yeah, so now it's just really saying, okay, well Lord, it's, you know, and I, I used to have a Bible study down in South Central. I used to tell those guys, sometimes when all you got left is God, that's when you figure out that's all you ever needed anyhow. And so, I think that you got to come to that place. I think some people have to fall a mile to get there. Others have to fall off the curve, and they say, God, I need you.

So, it, it, you know, I don't know, everyone's different. But yeah, we just, we just started going in that direction, and, and the Lord has been gracious, and He's moved us in spite of ourselves. Well, when we get back, I want to talk about the, the show that kind of propelled everything, called The Chosen, and what that means to you, and what that means to Catholic. Unfortunately, wow, time flies again, and The Chosen didn't propel you.

But, you know, guess what? Next week, we're going to be back with God in Hollywood, with Brad and Paul, and let me just say that, man, these guys love the Word, and that was part of big, what they're trying to do is really help us all to see how much we need Jesus, and in doing that, we need the Word. And so, we'll be looking forward to have these guys back next week. Right now, you've got Encouraging Prayer coming up with Dr. James Banks, and followed by The Masculine Journey in Winston-Salem. Stay tuned. This is the Truth Network.