Making Him Famous

This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. In the light of the world, we're lifting up Jesus and we're having a little meeting soup real quick here on Truth Talk because I'm sitting in front of a man who's passionate about making Jesus famous. In fact, he's a part of a movie that's coming out anytime now, right? And your name is Cornelius. I love that name. What a great Bible name. I appreciate it. I take no credit for the name. Mom did get it out of the Bible, making him famous September 15th in all the key cities in North Carolina. Wow. Making him famous.

What a great title of a movie. We just finished Wednesday in the World, so it's Wednesday in the Word. It's kind of loud in here.

We got Jamal, Richard, all the guys are here. You got a missionary to your left who not too long ago came back from Cyprus. What percentage of people are Christian in Cyprus? Northern Cyprus is actually 99.5% Muslim, so there's very, very few Christians there. There might be more believers in Graham, North Carolina than in Cyprus. What do you think?

It sounds like a whole lot more. Graham is certainly considered a Christian town by far. Well, John, you've been on our show before to talk about Cyprus and your mission there, and you just got back. Jesse, you just got back from where? And you're going back in just a couple days.

Tell everyone about that real quick. I've been in Mexico for the last year, and I'm going back in four days, and I'll be there for five more years. So we won't see you for five years. You'll see me every once in a while. Hey, so this is fascinating because you're making a movie making him famous, and these guys are trying to make him famous in Cyprus and in Mexico, and I just think it's just so encouraging. We'll get to you guys. I want you guys to share some snapshots of Cyprus and of Mexico, and the listeners, you've got to stay with us because we're moving fast here on Truth Talk.

I'm Stu Everson. Wednesday in the Word just finished. There's guys praying. Isn't this amazing, the fellowship? Your first time here, Cornelius. What did you think? First time, amazing. You can feel the Spirit of God, wonderful men.

It's nothing like a group of men together just serving and worshiping God. What's the whole story behind making him famous? Love the name of the movie. You share a little bit with our guys. Tell our listeners, what's the point of this movie?

What's the thrust of it? We live in a society today where everybody but Jesus Christ is famous. It's about a story about a man that was on the cusp of national stardom. His life falls apart, moves to a small town, and realized that God had other plans for him. He desired to be famous, but he realized at the end we're here to make Jesus famous. So the movie takes you into that life, and there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of tragedy, a lot of things like that. This shows us it connects with people.

Absolutely. Not to say that some of those things that we all desire isn't important. This guy had everything that most of us think we want, but at the heart of it he realized that living life is really about serving Jesus Christ and your fellow man. And Cornelius, tell us about your story with Christ. How did you come to know the Lord, and how does that kind of connect you in the tapestry of making a movie? Like now you're making movies. Who is Cornelius?

Cornelius, originally born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, grew up in the church, but I was thinking as a youth being one of the better basketball players coming out of New York City in the late 80s, I wanted to be rich and famous. So the story is not about me, but about many of us, so I can relate to the story because I desired to be rich and famous, but my life fell apart, and I realized through some events growing up that really life is about making Jesus Christ famous. Wow. And so now you're making a whole movie that's all about that, right?

Exactly. Again, not about me, but a lot of us. We spoke about in Bible study today, who is your idol?

You know, those things, not just your idol, but a lot of us in some respects wanted to be approved and famous and popular at some point in time. Wow. And John, you loved the game of basketball to the point where it took you playing some ball overseas as well, and then you ended up being a missionary with your family. What's going on in Cyprus? Well, we've been in Cyprus for almost 10 years now, and really our heart and our vision was always just to see a Bible teaching, Bible believing church planted there among the Muslim people in the Turkish north of the island. And it's just been a really encouraging last two years, honestly, for us seeing the Lord start to piece together just a neat community of believers from all over the Middle East, not just the Turkish people there in the north, and just done some really neat miracles the last couple of years in terms of providing us our church property of our own and just raising up some local leaders. And yeah, just really seeing the Lord bring fruit from a lot of dry years of labor in the past.

So we feel very thankful right now, too. So going from Cyprus to Mexico, why would a young guy in the prime of his life, Jesse, right out of college, you're thinking he's going to be chasing Wall Street or the next executive here and there and everywhere, and you go to Mexico with YWAM. What's up with that? Well, I was in a position where I was working a lot with the youth group over at my church after I went through some rough patches when it came to work, and God just spoke to me one day. I had known about YWAM previously from a couple of friends, and I know that, you know, the Grimes family pretty well with Avi, and he just spoke to me and I got hit hard very spiritually. I reached out to my church pastors and just to pray about it, you know, when something comes up, that's what you need to do.

You need to go out to reach out to people and have them pray with you. And so I looked it up on online, and the first thing that came up was Mexico. And now out of 196 countries in the world, we have a campus and 160 of those countries. So it's all over the place, but Mexico was the first place that came up for me, this specific campus. And so I went into it, and I loved it. I loved the idea of it, and I had planned to go to Asheville instead, but God did many mysterious things in that time where it redirected me over to Mexico and Durango. And, you know, it was just the fear of God and listening to his voice that really direct me over there.

What's happened there real quick? Give us an update, and you're going back in just a few days, and how can we pray for you? Okay, so what's happening right now is with the two campuses that we have that are connected over in Maslin and Durango, we have the vision to train and equip over 5,000 students per year. We're not at that point right now, but that's something that we want to be able to attain in the near future. And I'm on a pioneering campus right now where, as of right now, we're gaining probably 6 to 10 students every other quarter that we have.

And so we have a lot to work on, but we're approaching our fourth DTS. And it's about knowing God and making him known, where we equip the younger generation, even those that aren't even in that generation anymore. Well, making him known, or how about we say making him famous?

Cornelius, imagine if you and I were playing ball in college and a young man like Jesse, a little older than us at the time, now we're older than him, right? Imagine he comes up and says, or John even, says, hey, I want to build Christ into you. Isn't that cool that he would be dispatched by the Lord to pour into students who are future world changers?

Absolutely. I mean, what better way to do it and make Jesus famous through athletics? What do you say to John and Jesse, these two young men who are missionaries, Cyprus, Mexico, you're making this movie, the movie's coming out big September 15th, making him famous. What's your challenge to them and everyone out there listening, Cornelius, on making him famous in our lives, in our day-to-day life? We're all grinding at the job. We're dropping kids off here and there and everywhere. We're working, delivering pizzas and people listening to this program, maybe they're stuck.

What would you challenge these young men and everyone out there about that? I think we're all in it together. Every believer, that's really, if you think about it, that's what we're here to do is make Jesus famous or what have you. And that's really just pointing people to the gospel and making him and not ourselves famous. So he's doing it through missionary. Both of these guys are doing it through missionary. I'm just doing it through film. You're doing it through the Truth Network. You know, everybody, we're on the same page. So just challenges, just point everybody to Christ. I want to give a quick, a lot of folks listening that want to support this movie, they want to support good, solid Christian movies that are well made too.

And I like what you said. The first thing you said to me is, hey, this isn't just some hokey little kind of spinoff. This is a real, real acting, real life, real effects. How can you learn more about the movie? Pastors that want to bring this movie or get their people to go to a movie and consume, you know, good, positive things. How can people find out more? Website, Facebook, what's the best way to plug it? Makinghimfamousmovie.com, Corneliusmullerproductions.com.

You can go on Facebook and Instagram, Corneliusmuller. And again, it is, you know, we have some of the southeast best talent. A lot of our actors are believers. They work on major motion pictures in Hollywood. However, because it's a faith-based movie, they tend to lend their talents to us as well.

So it lines up with all the major films you have seen, Christian films in the theaters. I love it. So makinghimfamousmovie.com. Yes, sir.

Makinghimfamousmovie.com. I love it. Easy enough. John, how can people pray for you real quick as we get out of here?

You know, you're home on furlough, getting the engine, you know, revved up, getting refueled. How can we pray for you and your missionary work to Cyprus? I think in terms of our family, on a personal note, you could really pray for my wife as she homeschools our boys.

It's pretty isolating for her. And, you know, our kids are in high school, going into high school now. And so our longevity there really depends on them having a healthy school situation. So pray for provision of that. And then at the same time for the church, I think that, you know, one thing we are seeing God raise up leaders, but we want to see more men leading in the church. And so just pray that God would begin calling and equipping and raising them up.

I love that. And is there a website we can send people to or a connection point or they can just reach out to me and give the information? OK. That's best. Jesse, what's your website for Mexico, YWAM? You're trying to raise support for people that support you so you can pour into the future leaders of the world and world changers in Mexico.

What's your best way to reach you or to support your ministry? Yeah, so I have an official website now. It's Jesse's Missions of Mexico.

It's really simple. Just don't put the I in, Jesse. You should be good to go on that one. Very good. JESSE's Missions in Mexico. That's right.

Yeah. Folks, let's make him famous. Hey, guys, can we get a little make him famous on three shot for the end of truth talk today? Can we do it all on three? If I say one, two, three, we say make him famous. Kind of a little bit loud here in this Dario restaurant after Wednesday in the word.

Guys are clearing out. Guys are still praying on three. Here we go. Make him famous on three. One, two, three. Make him famous. This is the Truth Network.