Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mochler Young, and my guest today is Brennan McPherson. Now, Brennan has the coolest job because he is a first time movie producer. And he was kind enough to send me a screener for the new animated movie that comes out next week, Light of the World.
Also, do you like how I just dropped that flex that I got to see this movie before the rest of you?
I felt like a true celebrity getting a screener into my email.
Not only that, but I got to watch it with my daughters. So at the end of my interview with Brennan, you'll hear a mini little bonus segment with my daughters on some of their thoughts on the movie as well.
Okay, Brennan, welcome to the Becoming Church podcast.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Now, you are a movie producer, is that right?
[00:01:05] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Okay. And so I'm gonna need you to tell us a little more about that because we've added all kinds of people on this podcast, but never a movie producer. So what does that look like? How long have you been in the movie industry?
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Not very long. So this Light of the World is an animated feature film on the life of Jesus and it's the first film that I've produced.
And what does a producer do? A producer is essentially the one who's responsible for making sure the film actually gets made on budget, on time and that it's not awful.
So you kind of have oversight over every area of the film production from pre production, the development of the script, hiring on the key talent, negotiating contracts, building out the team budgets, you know, final creative oversight, pushing for creative changes all the way through the processes, post production, marketing, distribution.
So Cradle of the Grave, you're kind of, wow, watching over the whole process and, and trying to solve problems for people along the way to make sure that things don't fall apart. And in movies, every movie wants to fall apart every single week. And so it's kind of a miracle. Any movie gets made. It's an enormous amount of effort to. You're basically spinning up a company with hundreds of people you've never worked with before, and then making one product one time, that better be good. And then you never talk with each other again. So it's an insane business model.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: That is crazy. So were you in the movie industry before, just not as a producer?
[00:02:41] Speaker A: No. No. And so the bizarre thing about us as well is we're a nonprofit ministry. So I am also the President of the nonprofit ministry. And we got into making this film as an extension of our ministry outreach. And when we started, we had four people. And so it was like, well, better figure out how to build a team and make this happen.
So it was really more. So it was the ministry that was driving it and we had to figure out how to make it work.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: So when you, before you were a movie producer in your ministry, is the ministry also called Light of the World?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: No, it's called the Salvation Poem Project.
And the point of the ministry, the. The mission of ministry is to craft stories to share Jesus Christ with the world. So we're essentially a nonprofit media company that makes high level gospel presentations in the form of actual works of art. So we're not like ham fisting scripture into things. We're making real movies, real games, real discipleship materials, real songs, real works of art that stand on their own merits as something beautiful that just so happen to carry the meaning of the gospel and who Jesus is.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: That's awesome. So now that you've had your hand in producing, are you like, yes, I got the bug, I'm gonna do this again, or is it more of a checklist? Like, okay, that was fun, but let's go back to other things.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: I think people who do movies on purpose multiple times are sick people. And I guess I'm a sick person now, so. Yeah.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: You'Re good. You're good. Knock that one out.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're definitely going to do a lot more movies. And there is.
It's just such a pressure cooker, you know, I mean, we. There was about nine months where I worked 80 to 100 hours for nine months straight. So it's not easy. There's much easier ways to make a steady paycheck.
The mission that drives us.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Well, listen, we were sent a screener and I watched it with my daughters. And I'm gonna tell you, it was worth it. Like, the film is so good. And I'm saying that not just because you're sitting here with me.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Right, of course.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Truly. I got the email from, I don't know, somebody on your team. And they were like, hey, do you want to talk about this movie? And I was like, ew, Christian media. Like, I don't know. I don't know if I do.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: So I had to look into it some more. And then I was like, hey, what are the chances I could get some clips? And that's when she went ahead and sent me the whole. The whole screener. And it was. It really was so much better than I anticipated. If that feels like a confession. Maybe it is, but it was better than I expected it to be.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Well, it was better than we expected it to be. It turned out pretty. Pretty darn good in our opinion. So we're happy with it as well. And, you know, it's one of those things where, man, when you're in the process, it's like, there's about 4,000 ways this could turn out really poorly and, like, three that it could turn out well. And so we're grateful that it actually landed, but it surprised us, too.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Okay, good, good. Well, hopefully for the listeners and everybody else that watches it, they'll have the same reaction.
So, like you said, Light of the World is an animated film. You had Disney animators working on this film. Did I read that?
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So Tom and Tony Bancroft, they're old Disney animators. Tony. They're twin brothers, but Tony directed Mulan alongside a co director.
And Tom has been an animator from. For. Well, he was an animator for Disney from, like, Beauty and the Beast to Lion King, and he designed Mushu from Mulan. So he's a character designer and character animator. Both of them had a long career at Disney and then split off into their own thing. They're both Christians, and they were friends with John Schaefer, who was one of those four employees way at the beginning and was the co director of the film. So he was originally attached as a director and realized very quickly animated films are unbelievably massive.
And so he needed a co director. There was just not enough hours in the day to actually direct the film just with one person. Some animated films have three or four directors. That just goes to show you how massive they are.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: So Tom came on board. He brought on Tony as head of story and animation director as well.
And so they helped to kind of bring the level of quality of the character expression and animation up for the film. And I think that shows through really clearly. I mean, we are an indie. Indie film on an indie budget, but we stretched it pretty stinking far, in my opinion. So, you know, it's not like it's not the quality of a $150 million Disney feature film because we didn't have the budget. But it's solid, it's good animations, and it's largely because of their involvement.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: But you guys also did this intentionally. I read that you intentionally chose to use 2D animation. So talk about that. Was it. Was it really just cost and budget or like, in the age of, you know, AI And CGI and all those things. Why did you choose to stick with 2D animation?
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Well, honestly, we could have done CG cheaper, but.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: What?
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah, 2D hand drawn animation is extremely work intensive and expensive.
That's why Disney stopped doing it. They could do CG cheaper and faster, probably. And faster, yeah. It's. It usually takes longer to do a 2D animated film, especially one of this size. So a lot of 2D feature animated films will have like 20, 30 animated characters.
You know, unique designs, different people that are animated. We had over 100, not counting crowd shots.
So it was unbelievably massive for a 2D animated film.
And so we would have probably saved some money going CG. But the reason we went with 2D, there's a few reasons. Some of them practical, some of them just artistic. We love 2D animation. We're huge 2D animation fans. I grew up in kind of the heyday, the golden age of Disney 2D animation. Very influenced by a of lot, a lot of Asian and European 2D animation as well, like the Studio Ghibli films and the, you know, films from like, Secret of Kels and a lot of the French ones as well, like Ernest and Celestine. So love boutique animation. Right. So we're nerds about it. We love it. We wanted to do it because we're artists.
But also, 2D animation doesn't look dated in five years because of the progression of computer technology.
Usually CG animation looks dated within three to five years, even if you're like top tier animation. And we wanted something that was just an evergreen, that could be a classic for 10, 20, 30 years. Because this for us is a 30 plus year project. Light of the World is a ministry tool that will be translated into hundreds of languages and then shown to people for free around the world.
And so we wanted it to last. And when you have something that's made by humans, made by human hands, it lasts. You look at Pinocchio by Disney that was put out in I think the 40s, and it still looks great.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, valid point. The story might be a little weird. Maybe the story doesn't have so much. Yeah, but it still looks good.
Well, I jumped really into the details real quick, but Brennan, give us an overview. Give people listening an overview of Light of the World. Tell us just about the film in general, what it's about. Sure.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: So it's the story of Jesus through the eyes of his youngest apostle, John. And in our film, John is pictured as a teenager because he probably was.
And a lot of the disciples, with the exception of Peter, were likely teens. And there's clues in scripture that point to that. And we wanted to show a different, unique viewpoint that hasn't been done in the past.
Also, from a story perspective, you want your main character to change through the course of the story. We wanted to show how Jesus changed the life of a child so that children and families around the world could see, oh, Jesus could change my life. This is about how he can change what the course of my life. Just like he changed John's.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: And so we told it from John's perspective. It's also pretty easy to make the choice because John was the only one present at the crucifixion and we knew we wanted the crucifixion in there. So there's some practical reasons to it.
But yeah, we wanted to tell the story in a way that hasn't been told before and that got as close to the gospel truth as it could. And by showing how the gospel changed John, you really illustrate it rather than just talking about it. And it's more powerful that way.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I wish I was shocked at all of the different ways that you guys were able to work in different parts of the gospel and characters. And I mean, it. It was so full of truth and so full of scripture and so full of, like, actual things that people, you know, hopefully will recognize from reading their Bible without it feeling forced or crammed. It just. I was amazed at the way that you were just able to naturally, like, and we're just gonna mention this person. Sometimes you showed, sometimes you told the story, but it was really beautiful that you guys were able to do that. Did you give your writers a specific lens to be able to figure out, hey, here's kind of how to bring all of this in here.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: So it was very much a group effort.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: And so originally I was the only writer on board. Couldn't keep that up. We brought on other writers who were better and full time to work on it. Yeah, so there's two full time writers and then a third one got brought on board and I still stayed on as producer. And there's still some sequences in there that I. I wrote or touched or dialogue I wrote or whatever. And, you know, Tony was in the story room. The storyboard artists had had things that they brought to the table, Story ideas and. And the way that they were visualizing everything really influenced everything. And John and Tom, of course, and Daniel Armstrong. And like, there was so many people who were attacking this story. What about, what if we did this. What if we did this? No one agreed. I mean, so literally everything that's in there had to be fought to be put in there. Because it's, you know, you have all these opinions. You have brilliant people who are like, I think it should be this way. I think it should be this way. And it's like, well, we have to figure out which way to do it. And someone has to make the call at the end of the day. And, you know, sometimes there'd be great story ideas and I would just be like, well, but that's not true to the gospel, so that's wrong. We can't do that. And so it's like, well, then you come up with a better idea. Well, how are we going to do this then? So it was very much a working it through. And, you know, it was a mad process. We. We wrote the script, then we threw it out and rewrote the script. And like, as we were getting scenes in, they were going off the storyboard, artists to visualize before we even finished it. And then once we finished that, we did it again.
And it was just a madhouse. So, you know, it was very much a bunch of people all working extremely hard, 80 hours a week to try and pull it off on time and to make sure it's true, accurate, meaningful, well paced, well structured.
It was really challenging.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Well, again, kudos to the entire team because as both. I watched it with my two daughters, so as a. As a parent, I appreciated how much it stuck to the gospel. Gospel. But as a pastor, again, I was also. I was just shocked. I was blown away by how much you were able to incorporate, to keep it true and to keep it real, even in a way that. That kids could understand.
And I know even you mentioned, you know, the crucifixion scene.
My youngest daughter will tell me that she has to close her eyes because when she sees, like, violence and she's nine, I mean, she's not little, little, but, you know, things will like, quote, unquote, hurt her tummy when there are uncomfortable things.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Oh, no, no.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: But so I asked her after and I said, you know, what did you like? What did you not like? What did you notice? What do you remember? I asked them all kinds of questions about what they learned about Jesus from the film. And that was one of the things that she talked about, was that it makes her uncomfortable to watch crucifixion as arguably, I think it should make us all a little bit uncomfortable to watch that.
But the way you handled it with, like, shadows and Cutscenes really made it acceptable for children to participate.
What is. Did you guys have a particular age range that you were thinking when you were considering, like, these creative choices? And how can we depict what really happened without making it scary?
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we did. And we did a lot of different renditions and revisions of pretty much every sequence.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: But especially the crucifixion. We. We knew that we wanted it to be true. We didn't want to water it down. And to do that in a way that doesn't just, like, overly disturb children was really important to us.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Because if you overly disturb someone, the message just falls apart.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: But we shouldn't be comfortable with it. So it was like, where is that balance? And my daughter, she's 8, and she. If she could watch a surgery, she'd be like, oh, yeah, interesting. You know, so, you know, every kid is different. And so we. But John had been involved in a lot of children's animation. He was the lead producer for Superbook, the revamped version of it, and so had a lot of experience with, you know, what. What actually tends to be, you know, palatable for people.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: But we workshopped it many different ways. And, you know, even to the point of, like, well, how loud to make the scream do we. Do we mix it down with the music? Take over more like just really finessing it and played it to a lot of families and children. And so we've been very relieved to hear in general that. That families are like, yeah, totally comfortable taking my kids to this. Didn't have any issues with it. But obviously it's pg. There's Jesus Gets Crucified.
[00:16:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Use wisdom. Right. If your child is super, super sensitive, maybe think about it. But yeah, but, yeah, I think we. I think we handled it in the way that, at least for our conscience, we were. We were comfortable with it.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, like I said, it was beautifully done. Just. And you would. Certain things were only shown in shadows. Or, like, you would see maybe a hammer and nails, but then not actually, like, how they were used.
I think it was good. One of my favorite things, another which I feel like is probably an intentional choice that you guys made, was that you named all of the characters. Like, a lot of kids movies would have left John's parents as just like mom and dad, you know, like all the Disney movies. You don't know any of the. You don't know any of the names of the princesses, like, their parents. It's just the King and the Queen or the evil stepmother.
But you guys named Zebedee and even Salome.
And I want you to talk a little bit about their relationship and their portrayal, because I love the dichotomy of, like, familial leadership, where Salome was the one who had the strong faith throughout, while Zebedee, you know, the male, was the one that, like, wasn't quite sure. How did you guys come up with that?
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Well, you know, originally, we weren't going to have Salome be as much of a part of things, but the two. Two writers that we brought on board came up with the idea of, you know, the creation story, which I had written previous to that. We knew we needed to start with that to set the stage of, like, what's the cosmology? What's our view of, like, how we came to be and why we need a savior? What's in nature? Like, many cultures don't understand that. We needed to start with that. He came up with the great idea of having Salome tell it to the children, because that's what she would have done as a Jewish mother at the time, is tell those stories, tell them to your kids. Right. This is beautiful. Set up this familial relationship. And then we were. You're thinking, well, what. You have to define these characters. They're not really defined in scripture, Right? We have some clues, but you have to build those characters in a way that you can visualize and tell a story with, and that's really tricky. So, yeah, a lot of the writers and storyboard artists really were the ones who came up with, like, how do we nuance the character of Zebedee and the character of Salome, and, like, how are those foils for John's belief and Andrew's belief, et cetera? So there's a lot of really smart people, really great at story, who came up with a lot of cool ideas. But one of the things that I really cared deeply about, because in animation especially, usually the father's uncomfortable with emotion and he's the jerk, and the parents are always in the wrong, and the child has to tell the dad off and stand up for what he believes in. And we really didn't want that. Those cliches drive me nuts. And so we fought hard for, no, this has to be a respectful relationship, where in this culture, it was a patriarchal culture where the father was respected, period. And many areas around the world in Africa, you do not insult your father in many areas of Africa.
That's a shame.
And so we wanted that to be an accurate portrayal of the culture of that type of Familial relationship. And we wanted to show a healthy family dynamic with differing opinions that were not toxic. And so, anyways, a lot that went.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Into that, but, yeah, no, I love it. It was. It was general, genuinely one of my favorite things, because I was so. Especially in a patriarchal culture. Right. Where I was like, I just loved that you let her be the one with the strong faith.
And then also the way that John. Not. I mean, no spoilers, guys, but if you read scripture, you kind of know how it works out. But I love how at the end of the movie, it's even John, who was able to kind of like, help Zebedee along, which you don't generally see that either. You don't usually see the child, you know, going to help bring their parent along in their faith. Was that an intentional move that you guys made, too?
[00:20:41] Speaker A: It was, and it's the capstone of his character arc. So from, like, a story perspective, we're showing John become the evangelist that he. That we know he became. Right. And wrapping up his story in a very personal fashion.
And Zebedee's character made it the right fit for that. But on top of that as well, there are few people on our team who came to Christ because of their children.
And of course, we wanted to show that in a way that was respectful. Where Zebedee was meeting John, where he was at, and being honest about where he was at and asking for John to show him the way, really.
But even you mentioned Salome, Even though she is the one with. With faith, she respects Zebedee in his viewpoint throughout the whole process. And, you know, even when John is like, is Papa right? Is this not real? She's like, he just wants to protect you. She says it in a way that's building up her husband, their father, and showing his viewpoint and respecting it while still making it clear she disagrees, you know, so. And, like, all those little things felt more true to real family dynamics.
So we were trying to just be true to characters, be true to what we see in scripture and tell an interesting story that worked and showed the. The power of the gospel.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Yeah. How did you kind of lean on your. Like you said, there's not a whole lot that we know about some of these characters, especially, like, the quote unquote side characters.
How did you guys kind of lean on, you know, holy imagination to figure out how to fill in those gaps, especially with, like, their personalities or, you know, language, conversation, that kind of thing?
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's. A lot of. It is. You do a Lot of research. And then you see where the holes are, and you fill the holes and make sure they're all unique. I mean, one of the guys, I can't remember who it was, but he came up with the idea of Andrew being, like, the super fan of Jesus.
And at first I was like, I'm not sure about that, but it really worked. Where. Because he was one of the first ones to follow Jesus.
And so he's like, we'll follow you through the darkest depths of anything. And it just worked. And it made him unique in a way that didn't fight against anything that we see in Scripture and filled it out in a way that was believable. So a lot of it doesn't feel believable.
Some of it is it better not contradict anything in Scripture. And how does it augment or, like, help us understand what is in Scripture? Yeah, so most. Most we tried to make it so that if we're inventing things, it was for the purpose of making sure the things that are in scripture came across clearly.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: So, yeah, just to help us better understand the people so that we can better understand maybe why they did the things that they did.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: And what was the. What was the meaning of the miracle catch?
You know, to. To really attach yourself to that from an emotional standpoint, you need to understand the people, what was at stake for them. And so, you know, you. You bring them to life in a way that helps that come through more clearly rather than just trying to do your own thing with it. I mean, that's the trick with adaptation, is how do you make an adaptation that is somehow more true because of the changes that you made instead of less true.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
And helping people to better understand while also leaving them room to think about it then afterwards, too. Right. Like, not giving everybody every answer, giving them enough truth so that they can continue to ponder it.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Well, how, Brennan, this movie comes out on September 5th. How can people watch this? Where is it going to be? How can they access it?
[00:24:15] Speaker A: It will be in theaters everywhere. So you can go to lightoftheworld.com and, you know, click on the little tickets button and find out how to see it at a theater near you. But August 13th, tickets will go on sale. You can start buying them then.
Or right now, you could donate to our nonprofit through that ticket button on lightoftheworld.com and buy group tickets or do a theater buyout. If you do a buyout of a screen, you can actually watch it, like, two weeks before September 5th.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: We can service that in A lot of different ways, but go to lightoftheworld.com and get tickets to go see it in theaters. And the thing is, because this is a nonprofit, we're launching this film with zero debt, zero investors.
100% of the proceeds from the launch of the film will go back to funding the ministry work. So none of it lines any private pockets. It is purely a ministry endeavor. So when you go see this film in theaters and you bring your unsaved friends to it, not only is it an evangelism opportunity for you, but it supports evangelism for the next, you know, 20, 30 years. So that's really valuable. And opening weekend is everything. So try and go. Opening weekend, September 5th.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, in addition to it just being a truly delightful film that I really hope that. That people will go and see, like I mentioned, it does leave a lot of room for creativity and discussion afterward. What's your hope for families who go see this together? That. What. What do you hope that happens when they leave the theater?
[00:25:45] Speaker A: I hope they fall in love with Jesus more. And, you know, we've crafted a bunch of publishing products through Tyndale family 90 day devotional children's picture and coloring and activity books. Children's picture book. And there's a Bible storybook coming out as well for more ways to help your family dig even deeper into your faith and into the stories from Scripture.
But also, you know, we have a free children's curriculum for churches. And so your churches can use that for no cost.
We have mini games they can interact with for free. We just want this to be a dive, deep point for families to fall in love with Jesus, follow him faithfully. And then we also, you may have noticed at the end of the film, it actually has a direct call to action. If you want to follow Jesus, scan this code and learn how to actually be faithful to him. And that takes people through a free discipleship course that we have that's been licensed and put on the platforms of Jesus Film and Crew and Child Evangelism Fellowship and CBN and all these other ministries. And we know it's effective. It gets people into the local church. It gets them to understand the significance of the commitment that they've made. So for us, it's about the holistic spiritual good of the people who go see it. We're not just wanting to get a bunch of people to go watch it. We want them to follow and love Jesus, period. And so any way that this can help people do that, we're gonna celebrate.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and even my girls I mean, they come to church with me, you know, as a family, we go every Sunday and. But even we got to the end and we saw, I think John's like sitting up there by the little QR code and they want, they were like, mom, scan it. Let's see what it is. Not because they needed to, like, they weren't accepting Jesus for the first time, but they still, they wanted to know more. So, yeah, yeah, you guys do a great job of making it intriguing and attractive in the film. Well, I would say there's definitely a theme going through of like, no matter what your age, you're empowering kids in a helpful way. Right. That they can, that they can make good change in the world.
Is there anything specific, if we had kids listening that you would want to say to them or maybe to encourage the parents that they can help their kids kind of foster that, like using their voice and empowering them to know that even though they're little, like, they can still make a difference.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: I think if you love Jesus and you love spending time with him, he'll naturally change the way that you are your life.
And that's really what Christianity is all about. It's about loving and being with Jesus.
It's not about doing big things. It's not about being someone important.
It's about being loved by him because he made us and enjoying that, that intimacy with Him.
You know, there's a lot that's come up in church structures and a lot of different ways of interacting with other people who love Jesus. You know, regular worship, Bible studies, etc. What is most important is that we love him and enjoy spending time with Him.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: And he will change us if we do that.
So I just hope that parents will model that, will experience that and model that for their children and that children will experience the joy of that. Because for me personally, you know, I grew up in a Christian household, but it was in college where I was like, you know what? I kind of like half lived this.
I should really get serious about this. And started spending dedicated time in prayer and scripture every day.
And it completely changed my life, became the most enjoyable part of my life. Every day I woke up and I look forward to the time that I could spend in prayer more than anything else.
There is a joy that you get that is far and above anything else, because you can love Jesus to an extreme extent and it never becomes too much.
You can become obsessive in weird ways about theology or about these other elements where it's a pride driven thing. But if you really, truly just love Jesus and be being with him. That makes you better.
And everything else in life, food, video games, movies, books, people. If you get too far obsessive in your love for those things, it becomes destructive.
So there's this kind of infinite. Well, you can go to for joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control that you can never get too much of. And there's something about that. I don't know why that really hit me where it's like, oh, I can just go all in with this, and it just makes me better as opposed to if I go all in with video games, I kind of become a loser.
And it's really wonderful because there's just nothing like it. This transcendent experience of being with your creator, of experiencing his intimacy with you inside of you, no one can take that away from you. No one can take that joy from you. It's beyond any circumstance.
It's the gospel and it's real.
It completely changed my life. So I just hope that people really do dive deep and spend time with him and enjoy and find him, you know, seek and you'll find him. Knock and the door will be open. He promises that.
How many of us actually do that? I mean, there's lots of people are like, well, I don't feel close to Jesus. I don't know if it's real. Well, if you doubt him, it's because you're not with him.
And if you're with him, you won't doubt him. It's like, okay, I don't doubt my wife. I'm with her. Right, Right. But if I was never with her, I'd probably not feel the same. Right?
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: It's that way with Jesus as well. And so just spend time with him. That's the most important thing. And I hope that this is an opportunity for people to be reminded of that and to.
I think, art, what it's good at is inciting desire in people's hearts. We want to incite a desire for Jesus.
That's it.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah. That's so good. Well, and I think the difference too, as I was even just hearing you talk about your personal experience, I think one of the things that I could see this film doing is helping people understand the difference between, like, okay, I believe in God, maybe I even love God. But it's then the acceptance. What I think Jesus shows us is how much God loves us. And I know for me, that was the turning point. It wasn't just going to church because I love God and I respect God and I honor God, which is all still true.
But when I could realize how much God actually loved me and sit in that acceptance because of Jesus.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: That's what. That's when I was like, oh, now I really want to do this. It changes everything, you know.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: It does. It really does. And there's a writer, Andrew Murray, he wrote a devotional called Abiding in Christ. And that book in particular really changed my life. And the basic message of it is the message of Jesus, Parable of the vine, where we are grafted into him and he's our. Our life, right? He. He sustains us. He's the one who grows the fruit in us. We're not naturally fruit bearing people. Right. We don't. We're not naturally, you know, faithful and true and gentle.
We're naturally the opposite of those things. Right?
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: And so there's a lot of confusion in many churches where it feels like, oh, I gotta be better. I gotta do better in my own power. And that's not really how it works. And it's not how Scripture talks about it.
It's about resting in knowing that God was enough for us and that he loves us. And when we spend that time resting in his love and peace and setting our desire on him, he changes our actual desires. That's how he changes us. He makes us want what he wants and makes us not want what he doesn't want anymore. Because the more time you spend with your wife, the more you want the things that she wants and you don't want the things that she doesn't want. It's that you grow into each other. And it's the same thing with your relationship with Jesus. He's the one that sustains us. He's the one that brings about life change. It's not something we conjure in ourselves. It's absolutely ridiculous. But that's how we think about it intuitively. Because we're so used to being this kind of independent, you know, creature that's just walking through our day, doing our own stuff, making our own choices, hoping.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: God is like, just coming with us as we. As we go.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Right. He's like, I'm just waiting for you to be with me and then I'll make things better for you, you know?
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: And it is about accepting his love for us and knowing we don't deserve it and, you know, enjoying that.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: And the more we enjoy being with him, the more that we want to be with Him. It's a cycle. So.
Yeah.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, last question for you, Brennan. Which is very much, I think, you know, brings your industry into this. But the podcast is called Becoming Church, because we're really trying to help disciple people and help them to see where God is in every area of their life for them to call out, you know, being the church that Jesus created us to be as a. As opposed to a place that they maybe attend on Sunday mornings.
So how can the people listening become the church to the people around them or maybe even to the kids around them, using this film?
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's. One easy step is just take people to the movie, share it with them.
But people aren't going to believe that it's important unless they see that you really, genuinely believe it and live it. And so, once again, love Jesus, be with him, and he'll. He'll flow out of you. That's how. That's how you change the world, is you let him change you and you let him spill out of you and change the people around you.
That's really. It's really kind of the centerpiece of everything.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: That's a great answer. Brendan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the film. Thank you, guys. Go, go watch it. Make sure you fill up a Theater on September 5th or that weekend. But Light of the Worlds, we'll link it all up and everything in the show notes so people have easy access. But thank you so much for being here.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Okay, before we end today, here is a few minutes, just a few minutes of my conversation with my daughters after they watch Watch Light of the World with me. For context. Marley is 11 and Margot is 9. And so they may give light spoilers about what happens in the movie, but like I said earlier, if you've read the Gospels, there's really not that much they can give away.
All right, I want you to think about if there was something in particular not about Jesus's story, but something from the movie, from Light of the World that we just watched. Was there something in particular about it that you really liked?
[00:36:53] Speaker D: Okay.
Honest. Honestly, I really liked the fact that it was from the perspective of John. I thought that that was, like, really cool that you're not seeing the stories that you've been told over and over about Jesus and Jesus's perspective, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's perspective.
Well, yes, John's perspective, but different John.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Maybe a different John.
[00:37:27] Speaker D: Yeah, I really like that you got to see it from John as a kid's perspective and that John as a child, teen, was a disciple of Jesus.
So I also really like the fact that Mary Magdalene was traveling with the disciples.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: I really liked, like, the cartoony type. I like that type.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:52] Speaker C: It wasn't too realistic and it wasn't too cartoony.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:57] Speaker C: Also, I like that Nicodemus and the blind guy, he.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: They changed, but I.
Yeah, that they changed.
[00:38:05] Speaker C: Yeah. But I didn't like that the other guy didn't change too. Yeah, yeah. I also like how the soldier changed. I like how everyone who was. Who was like, who had. Who had done many sins. I don't want to say who were bad, because they weren't bad.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: You are correct.
[00:38:23] Speaker C: That is a very many sins.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Great point. Thank you for saying that.
[00:38:27] Speaker C: Yes.
I don't like. I like that they did. The people who did many sins, some of them, they changed and they went to the good side, like Matthew.
[00:38:40] Speaker D: I really like that, like, at the end, that they chose to, like, once Jesus was resurrected.
The fact that they chose to, like, they were in this, like, garden, and it was beautiful, almost like in the beginning, how God describes his garden where Adam and Eve were.
They have this garden that they're in and Jesus goes up to heaven, but he leaves their spirit with them billions of years later after Adam and Eve were there. And it's just that special. It's like Jesus, who was always meant to come, is fulfilling his plan, kind of. Because, I mean, that's the reason in the first place that Adam and Eve took from the tree. If they hadn't, we would have just been living in this boring world where nobody made mistakes and everybody was perfect and everybody would have been the same and there would have been nothing wrong with the world. Nobody would have ever had a challenge. And nobody likes everything to be easy.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: You think it'd be boring to just take walks with God in the garden all the time?
[00:39:59] Speaker C: No.
[00:39:59] Speaker D: Well, no, but it would be boring to not make any mistakes and not have something being taught to you. If you knew everything that was wrong and knew everything, there wouldn't be a point to living and learning.
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I liked at the end that Zebedee, he didn't believe. And then at the end he said, how can I. How can I help to change this?
And John said, let's start with a prayer. Yeah, I like that.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: And what was it? Or who was it that Zebedee, finally, who did Zebedee say towards the end of the movie that he was watching? Who was it that helped Zebedee to understand that Jesus was real?
[00:40:50] Speaker C: It was John.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: It was John.
So do you think, kids, do you Think kids can help people to know who Jesus is?
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: How?
[00:41:03] Speaker C: They could start by telling about him. Telling. Telling who they are.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Who he is.
[00:41:09] Speaker D: Maybe invite your friend to church, help them learn. My friend, they hadn't gone to church.
Their family, I don't think, never had gone to church. But, like, she had never gone to church, and we invited them, and they really liked it. And now her mom works at a church.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: So.
[00:41:32] Speaker D: It's just funny what one person can do to change the lives of multiple people.
Just by asking a question.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: And if we don't know the right words to say, how else can we. What else can we do? How else can we tell people about Jesus?
[00:41:52] Speaker D: You say.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: Well, you could start with. You could say what John said. Just start with the prayer.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: The prayer? Yep. Margo, you go first. What do you think this. The movie, told you about Jesus? Like, just based off the movie? You'd be like, oh, Jesus is what?
[00:42:12] Speaker C: He's kind and he knows what's right.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Okay. How about you, Marley?
[00:42:20] Speaker D: Well, I mean that in a way.
We're all like Jesus.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:42:29] Speaker D: Kind of, sorta like.
I mean, he loves his neighbors as he would love himself. He told us to do the same, and we did the same. So in a way, we're all mini me's for Jesus.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Well, that's actually. Do you know that the word Christian actually means little Christ?
[00:42:55] Speaker D: No, but I'm a big brain. See, without knowing that, I'm.
[00:42:59] Speaker C: I'm.
[00:42:59] Speaker D: I'm a big brain.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So we are supposed to be basically Jesus, Mini me. All right, I want you to think about this one for a minute, okay? Think about this one for a minute.
The movie was called what?
[00:43:14] Speaker D: Light of the World.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: The movie is called Light of the World.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Why?
[00:43:18] Speaker B: What did the movie tell you about.
About light?
[00:43:24] Speaker C: That Jesus can.
Jesus. God or the Holy Spirit can be the light.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Okay, but what does that mean?
[00:43:30] Speaker C: Can, like, guide you through anything dark. They can be the light to guide the way.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Does that mean that there's a flashlight?
[00:43:39] Speaker C: No.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Coming out of your body.
[00:43:40] Speaker C: Can tell you where. What. What way to go. And which way is the right way.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Okay.
Good.
Marley.
[00:43:48] Speaker D: Okay.
In the beginning, there was what?
[00:43:53] Speaker B: Darkness.
[00:43:54] Speaker D: And then what did God make?
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Light.
[00:43:58] Speaker D: For what?
[00:44:01] Speaker B: The world.
[00:44:03] Speaker D: That's all I have to say.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Okay, but what about.
How did Jesus. How does Jesus. What does it mean that Jesus is the light of the world?
[00:44:14] Speaker D: Well, I mean, in the beginning of the movie where John and James's mom was telling. Yeah. Was telling them the story of, like, God creating the world and the Messiah and everything.
She started with, like, darkness. And then God creating light in the world. And then he created this garden, which was like his paradise where everybody lived with his power in the light of the world. Hence the name of the movie Light of the World.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Okay, good.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: That's funny.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: All right, friends. I hope you'll check out Light of the World and take a friend along with you to see it. Until next time, keep becoming the church of the people around to.
