#137: Stephen Kendrick: Show Me the Father
In their first-ever documentary, the Kendrick brothers have released a film that is designed to challenge your thoughts on Biblical Fatherhood.
In our conversation, we talk about what it means to serve God, hear His voice, and be obedient.
You are going to love this conversation!
Links:
EP. 137
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life on. And today is episode 1 37 of the podcast where I sit down with legendary filmmaker, Stephen Kendrick, Stephen, and his brother, Alex have been making Christian. For quite some time, you've probably heard of their movies, fireproof, courageous facing the giants.
One of my all time, favorite feel-good movies. And today I sit down with Steven to talk about his brand new documentary. That's right. Something a little different than the fictional films they've previously done. We talk about what it means to have a fight. Know, what does it mean to lean in to the idea of biblical fatherhood about being a man in your family and their documentary?
Show me the father [00:01:00] is is pretty important. I think for many of us who want to make sure we're doing our very best to pour into the next. So, whether you are a dad, you know, a dad or you have some kids this is an important discussion for you. So I'm thankful to be on this journey with you. And now, without any further ado, here's my conversation with Stephen Kendrick.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have a kind of a legend in the Christian world with us today, Stephen Kendrick, a movie producer, extraordinary writer, so many great things. Stephen, thank you so much for being with us.
Stephen: My pleasure, Tony, get to talk to you.
Tony: Well, as I was, I was trying to think about like, how do you articulate your calling?
When somebody says, Stephen, what kind of ministry do you do? How did you end up getting into the, you know, the Christian film industry? How do you, what's that story look like?
Stephen: Well, it's totally a journey of faith and it is [00:02:00] basically. Living out the scriptures in our generation. I accepted a call to just serve the Lord.
In my teenage years, I fell in love with the Lord with scriptures and was trying to just say God, here am I, you know, use me and my brother, Alex, the same story with him going on. Mission trips, getting a taste of ministry. And we had seen God work in our parents' lives. Both of them had done Christian school ministry.
Our dad had done church ministry, but we saw incredible answers to prayer. We saw the work of the holy spirit, you know, in our parents' lives and God just doing amazing things. So we knew it was real. We, the scriptures had transformed our lives and had, had blessed and impacted us. And so we we're basically just wanting to serve God a ministry.
As from his early teen years, wanting to get into filmmaking, you know, he's watching writers of the lost Ark on the big screen and watching the fire come down from heaven and fry all the Nazis at the [00:03:00] end of that movie. And he's just like, I must do this. You know, this is my passion, you know? So looking back though, I can see that God was using our parents to prepare us they prayed about what house we should live.
And they moved in next door to this guy who played with video cameras back when VHS cameras were two parts with the little, the big suitcase on your shoulder. And, you know, and we're playing with this son and shooting our own versions of movies out in the woods, and we were doing stop and go animation kind of stuff.
And this is a secular family, not believers, highly intellectual, but we're learning filmmakers. As we're playing, you know, with them. And then our dad would sponsor Billy Graham movies. You know, let's take the church in the community. Go see, I remember when the prodigal came out and were handing out flyers, go see the prodigal, you know, knowing that it would present the gospel.
And, but he would also rent Disney movies on film that would be sent to our church. And he would have these [00:04:00] popcorn movie nights. It would set up a screen and would predict. You know, snowball express or Herbie goes bananas kind of stuff. As clean family friendly alternatives as to you can sit down and eat popcorn and watch this movie.
And so looking back God was using them to prepare us for this. But when Alex announced, I want to get into filmmaking. My parents were like, Hollywood is, is the cesspool of morality. Why would you want to go do this? This is horrible, but they continued to pray and, and point us back to the Lord.
And and so God continued to open doors for ministry. So really even now the great commission is our passion, loving the Lord and loving on people is what we want to do. And we try to do discipleship at every level. So that. Even when we're on set, we're trying to disciple the crew or lead them to Christ.
When we are filming a movie, we want them the movie itself to be an [00:05:00] instrument of blessing to the church of evangelism, to the lost, and then any resources or. Profits that come in. We want to be generous and giving to kingdom causes because we ain't going to take it with us and we need to stand before God.
And the hope would be that there'll be many more people knowing the Lord, loving the Lord, worshiping the Lord in heaven as a result of us joining God in what he's going to be doing, whether without us, but Hey man, jump on that train because there's nothing. Then glorifying God with your life. So if you come back to what we're doing now, God led us specifically into filmmaking.
And I did not realize that God had wired me to be a producer. 'cause, I didn't know what a producer was when we made face in the giants. I'm the producer and I don't know what that is. And so we never been to film school. Perfect. Yeah. And so now I know that it's a, get it done leader that helps the movie from beginning to end get into the end zone and get completed, whether I do [00:06:00] it or a hire somebody that's the simplified version of what a producer is, but Alex is wired like a.
He can see the finished product on the inside of his forehead. And so he edits in his head. He writes editing emotions in a sense it has had, and he's a good storyteller, emotional. So that he can grab your attention and make you at the end of the death cross seen on the edge of your seat, you know, choking back tears or in, you know, you pick a movie and I can point out a scene where Alex has emotionally shepherded the audience to a place of inspiration.
But at the same time, we're trying to communicate God's truth and praying that the holy spirit will anoint it. And when people are sitting in the theaters or on an airplane watching an in-flight movie, or they're at home, On an iPhone or in a prison cell that they're having. We're praying that they'll have an encounter with God that can be tailored specifically to their heart.
Tony: I love that. And [00:07:00] discipleship is one of our favorite things to talk about here. And so I'm kind of curious if we could drill in just a little bit more on what, what does discipleship at every level look like? I mean, obviously you you've created a Christian environment, but I would assume that not everyone in your world is of the same belief.
How do you guys shepherd that discipleship at every level kind of mindset? How do you. CRI. I mean, you've obviously created a very successful company based on that idea. What, what does that look like in practice?
Stephen: Well, if you go back to the great commission and you look at Jesus finishing up his ministry on earth before he ascends into heaven, and he gives us in Matthew 28, the all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me now go make disciples.
And then he breaks down. You're leading them to Christ. You're baptizing them, connecting them to a local church body, and then you're teaching them to. Read study, obey, live out his commands and he's with us. Well, [00:08:00] first we have all authority and all resources back in. And he says, not only do I have all authority, but I'm with you every step of the way.
So wherever we go, and we've seen it in the filmmaking world, if God calls you to do something, he can provide anything in any amount to anyone anywhere at any time. And if you know that, then if he calls you to Africa, to the Bush, if he calls you to China, you don't have to be. That he is going to show up with the resources that you need.
And if he can feed the children of Israel for 40 years and the wilderness, and he can feed a lodge through the Ravens when they're hungry. And Jesus says in the sermon on this. The first sermon that he preaches in the first gospel, quit worrying about it. Your father knows what you need. He's going to take care of you.
If you start with that foundation, then that's how we can be in Charlotte, North Carolina, without the funding for war room, with crew, moving into town, by faith, walking in obedience. And then we get a phone call that God is sending us half a million dollars. Unexpectedly [00:09:00] for us to carry us through production.
And I was sleeping well at night, but I was praying fervently and the Lord shows. He showed up with a golf cart. I'm sorry. He showed up with a a forklift when we were shooting the train scene in fireproof. He has, I can tell you just about with every movie things where God has stepped in to fill in the gap and it's not because we're chasing our dream and asking God to bless it.
No, we're jumping off of our bus and we're jumping on his bus, he's driving and we say, wherever you want to go, Lord, we're with you. We want to serve. You know, you lead the way. And so we tell people, quit asking God to bless your passion, and you start surrendering to the Lord and say, God, here I am, send me, what do you want me to do?
And it was through that kind of surrender that he led us back into filmmaking. Alex wanted to make a movie about time travel rapture stuff, and God says, make a movie about a used car. And so we make the movie Flywell for [00:10:00] $20,000 and Alex, wasn't really excited about that, but God was in it and now. 3 million DVDs now around the world internationally makes no sense that a $20,000 movies shot on a four ADP camera could have that kind of impact internationally.
Well it's because we're the boy without gloves that do fish and the Lord us to, to bless it, to do something with it. And he gets the credit for it. We get the credit for the low resolution and camera getting out of focus, you know, so with every one of the movies, though, it has been one string of answered prayer.
But that journey of faith, we try to communicate that to the people that we're making movies with. So when we talk about discipleship at every level if someone doesn't know. We want to be the fragrance of Christ to them with treating them better than unions in Hollywood would treat them being concerned about them and their families, their health, their faith, paying them an honorable wage giving them weekends [00:11:00] off encouraging them to prioritize their kids.
Just the whole environment that we operate. We're not run by unions, which in a lot of secular sets, if you don't have unions involved, People get shot on a Western set. You know, you know, you have, you have things happen that are toxic in our environment. We want our motivation to be our love for the Lord and our love for people.
So when they come on our sets, we've had people say no to Hollywood movies and come work on our movies. Because their marriage is falling apart and their faith was falling apart and their health was falling apart. And then they show up and we're creating an environment of unity and love and prayer. And we understand the purpose while we're filming it.
Our movie matters and your movie matters. You're not just putting a sandbag down now you're saving a marriage in Africa. You're not just, you know, lighting a scene or, or moving a sea stand. You're turning the hearts of fathers back to their children [00:12:00] in Ecuador. You know, everything you're doing is embedded with eternal value.
If it's connected back to the great commission. So for us, you meet somebody who doesn't have relationship with. Hey, let me be an instrument and example of the gospel and let me communicate the gospel as God opens the door to them. And we've had people saved on our sets and that kind of environment. The jump rope coach on, on war room gave his life to Christ at the end of war room.
Our sound guy. On courageous during the gang, Beaton's sane, you know, TC Stallings was the hay head gang guy being the tough guy on set, but he has a dynamic testimony of how Jesus changed his life. And he was sharing his testimony in between takes. And the sound guy is listening to the gospel being shared.
You know, in between takes and he gives his life to Christ at the end of that scene. And so onset, and then put the believers. You meet someone that knows the Lord. They may not know how to walk with the Lord. They may not know how to surrender their day-to-day to him, or pray [00:13:00] to him in faith or learn to receive, understand their identity in Christ, which we were talking about on overcomer.
So everybody you meet is on a spiritual journey, and if you can. Identify where they are on that journey when you're interacting with them and then help them to move on to the next level and their walk with Christ. You are joining God in the sanctification process of bringing about disciples. And so if a disciple is a fully devoted follower of Christ, then we want to be modeling that where every area of our lives, we want to resubmit to the Lord on a regular basis.
But also we try to be real that we don't have it all. That were S you know, broken people, serving a perfect God. Then they see us repent when we blow it. You know, producers notoriously are known for blaming everybody else for their stupid decisions and taking credit for things that their [00:14:00] crew. And so for us to be able to stand up and say, Hey, I just need to thank Bob Scott for his cinematography.
Because the reason this movie looks amazing is because of him and our gaffer and our key light and guy y'all have done a fantastic job. And we're so grateful for you. That's fun to, to honor those guys who never get honored in other environments, but secondly, if we make a decision and it causes inconvenience on everybody else, they already know it's hard.
But when we stayed up and say, Hey guys, I blew it yesterday. I made it. I made a call that I thought was the right thing, but it inconvenienced you guys my bad, you know? And so here's what we're going to do to fix it. And I appreciate your patience with us as leaders. We're going to give you grace and we're asking you to give us grace, man, when you just be real with people they appreciate that, you know, and th and they're willing to then lock shields with you and head back into the next battle.
Tony: Yeah, I think that the [00:15:00] authenticity of what you guys have done in your ministry really shines through. I also think that there's probably somebody who's listening. Who's never taken that first step of being dependent upon God for the resources that they have. Right. And there they're listening to you talk and they're like, oh, well, you know, of course, he's got this big movie empire.
However, you know, people want to categorize it. You know, what's the first step. And in the balance of faith and preparation, when it comes to dependence on, on God for what.
Stephen: I would say, be Indiana Jones and step off the cliff when you don't understand or see how it's going to work. And what that means is obey what God has told you to do and watch what happens.
You know, he says in Malakai, those of you that are robbing me and they're like, how are you robbing me? He says, you're tight. You're not tithing. You're not honoring me with your finances. And as a result of it, here's all these things that are happening. He says, So I tell people, test the Lord, you [00:16:00] know, take what you're worried about and then write it out and pray about those things and ask God for help and watch what happens.
Take the things that are in your life and commit them to the Lord. As you're stepping into a business meeting. Pray God give me wisdom. And grace, as I step into this meeting helped me to, to be loving and kind to the people that I'm going to be interacting with. Give me discernment as to what I need to do.
And you lean into the Lord and watch what happens in that meeting. You will be a way better leader in a way. Employee or employer, if you're surrendered to God and you have a servant's heart stepping into that meeting, every time we give God a little bit more of our lives, he doesn't screw it up. He makes it way better.
He resurrects it, you know, and we have this stupid mentality that thinks that we're better than God making decisions for our own lives or that we can make ourselves happier than. But the truth is when Jesus showed up in Peter's life, [00:17:00] not only did he give him the fish that Peter was longing for, but he re he pulled him out of an empty life that was meaningless, and he made his life count from there on out.
And they were amazed at what it was like to interact with Jesus. He was more loving, authentic, truthful, powerful understanding. Why is that anything they had ever experienced? And it was. It was a great adventure following Christ. And that's not just for the gospels today in our lives. The holy spirit is alive and well, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
And it's amazing when you can hang out with people that walk with the Lord. And when you begin to walk with the Lord more and more to see what God does. It's awesome. It's awesome. When. Takes a mediocre marriage and I've seen it happen again again in marriage counseling, when Jesus starts driving that marriage, how much better it gets when you see a dad, who's a deadbeat, dad surrender his life to Christ and let Jesus step in.
And then the Lord helps him be a loving, [00:18:00] involved wise. At Bob father with his kids and just, it's a man. That's what happened to us. Our dad had grown up with dysfunction, but he surrendered his life to Christ and God started helping him. And we grew up with this amazing father, not because he was so amazing, but because God took over his life and God began to do something great with it.
So I would just tell people, get into the scriptures, ask God. Teach me speak to me, help me to be humble and receptive and whatever he tells you to do, do it and watch what happens. And what happens is your faith wings will begin to grow. You know, we, with flywheel, we thought it was amazing that God provided $20,000.
That seemed like so much money when we were making that movie. You know, my, my salary at that time was. It was like $30,000 for our whole family for a year. And you know, we're barely making our mortgage payments, but we don't have a lot of money in the bank and we've got kids at [00:19:00] home and, but yet we saw God step in and meet our needs, but then he was providing.
For the films, every step of the way. So facing a giant, a hundred thousand dollars seemed like a ginormous budget. You know, Hollywood has a hundred million dollar movies. We had a, we had a hundred thousand dollars, you know, for facing the giants. And so with every movie, he began to build our faith wings that were now believing him for more.
If he can do more than we can ask or imagine, then let's ask for a lot and let's imagine a lot and let's trust him with it and watch.
Tony: D do you have a process? And when you discern what's the Lord's voice and what's yours, I mean, kind of a lot of our listeners are struggle to hear God's voice. And so I'm kind of curious, how do you filter through?
Oh, that's definitely God or, oh, that's definitely me in your process.
Stephen: Sure. I would say big picture. Ask and you shall receive seek, [00:20:00] and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. And so I tell people there's a cycle that we're doing all the time. One of those is we're asking in prayer and we're getting very specific pray, general prayers, get general answers, pray specific prayers, get specific answers.
And so we will pray very specifically for God to give us wisdom, clarity, and direction about something. And then we will begin to. Sikh and we're gathering information. We're considering the options we're considering the costs we're searching. The scriptures were seeking counsel from other people we're knocking on doors.
We're asking God, you know, and then we're looking for where God opens the door, provides provisions. Gives us confirmation in the word where we have a unified sense of rightness about it. And then there will be a peace in our hearts. It's always connected to his will as well. So one of the things I tell people is you keep that cycle going, whatever decision you're [00:21:00] trying to make, pray very specifically for clarity, provision, direction, wisdom, timing from the Lord, then start gathering.
And ask God to open and close doors, ask God to shut things down that are not of him. Ask God to provide. The support the favor of the resources and be ready when he does that to move more by faith. If God says, okay, here's my will go into Canaan land and kick tail, you know, but you disobeyed him now you're worse off because he gave you direction.
But then you now you're as a greater level of disobedience or lack of faith in your life because of that. So be ready to trust him and begin to move forward by. So here's the other thing I tell people Colossians three and four gives us eight different things that God uses to speak to us. Colossians three 15, he uses the peace of God and he'll give us a check or a [00:22:00] peace about something.
He'll use the word of God. It will be a confirmation from his word oftentimes, or a verse of scripture will jump out and punch you in the face. Right. Would you need it? And God's like, this is for you right now in this situation, he'll use the counsel of other believers. He talks about admonishing and teaching one another.
He'll use his name and reputation. What is going to honor the name of Christ in this situation? He'll lead us for his namesake. It says in Psalm 23, he will use authority. You know if you're praying about something and you're a kid and your parents say no, Don't run in disobedience to them, you know try to honor the authorities that God has set over.
You like Romans 13 and Hebrews 13 says that he'll use prayer as you're praying. There are times when in the midst of surrender prayer, when I run out of things to pray for this piece will come over me. And then the Lord will just give clarity to what the issue is that happened on courageous. [00:23:00] When we were praying about the wording of the, of the resolution ceremony, it was in the midst of prayer that God downloaded that whole resolution in my heart.
And I sat up and typed it up. And when I was kneeling down to pray, I didn't know what was going to be in that resolution. And it was after praying and thanking and surrendering and just sitting there before the Lord, not knowing what else to do that. It just downloaded that. That doesn't always happen.
Sometimes it does. And then open doors and chapter four, he talks about praying for me that God will open a door. So there'll be times when you're like which door to all walk through and God slams one and opens another. That's another way that he will. And then he talks about wisdom walking in wisdom in light of all eternity in light of scripture, in light of all that he's done in your life.
What is the wisest thing? That will honor him the most in this situation. So those are like eight different arrows. And when we [00:24:00] seek him. And we're doing that asking, seeking, knocking process. There will be oftentimes he'll line up all those arrows and the provision, the open door, the counsel, the scripture of the peace, all of that points in one direction and just not discounting the holy spirit to that.
There will be times in the lives of believers. We can begin to tune our hearts to the voice of the spirit where you're just in a situation. You're right with the Lord. And he prompts you with a specific thought that's in alignment with the scriptures and it is usually to do something very loving, but it will require you again.
All logic sometimes in that moment to trust him and by faith to move forward towards doing something that will honor him. And so there, there are, there are times when God is just like, bam, do this. And you're like, what builds an Ark marched around Jericho? I didn't make [00:25:00] sense. So, but that's part of what walking by faith is about.
It's trusting God. Limited understanding based upon what he's told us. And he's expecting you to quit waiting for everything to fall into place. So you can lean on your own understanding rather than trusting him with all your heart. He wants you with the light in front of the car that he's put in front of you to move forward.
And then as you walk in obedience, he'll, illumine the next a hundred yards or the next 200 yards. And we've seen that happen really with.
Tony: Hey guys, just pause in this conversation with Steven to tell a little bit about the March 17th through 19th spirit and truth conference. It's going to feel a little bit more like a camp meeting, kind of like a revival.
So if you feel tired, exhausted, or worn out by all the things happening in your life, you need to go ahead and head on over to spirit and truth.life/conference and sign up. For this important, important meeting, it's an opportunity to connect with the holy spirit. It's an [00:26:00] opportunity to hear a world-class speakers and more than anything, it's gonna fill your cup.
And we can't minister to anyone. If we don't have anything in. So check us out spirit truth, that life slash conference. And when you sign up, make sure you use the code reclamation for $20 off the conference fee, a small little gift from us to you. I'm super thankful. I'll be there hosting the conference, and I hope to see you now.
Let's carry on our conversation. With Steven, it's obvious to me that you have this very personal and intimate relationship with the Lord. And I love that, man. I love all the scripture that you're spitting at us. I am curious who, who instilled all this into you? Who, who would you say is your, your spiritual father?
Obviously you give a lot of credit to your dad, but I'm curious if there was any other men in your life that really poured into you. That really kind of. You know, I don't know if people are watching or not, but you don't have any notes for any of this. This is all just off the memory. I mean, like, this [00:27:00] is the kind of discipleship I love because it's, it's stored up treasure in your heart.
So I'm curious, how'd you get there?
Stephen: I was challenged by, you know, an early age with a praying mama and a, and a dad that loved the Lord to get in the word. And I would say number one has definitely been. Yeah, I was as sarcastic, disrespectful, silly, dumb middle schooler, and a, and somebody challenged me to start reading the Proverbs every day and just how transformational that was to my life that I began to develop an appetite for the scriptures and then to start memorizing chapters of the Bible passages.
So I would in high school find a girl that I was. And would say let's memorize this jet for the Bible together.
The relationship would fizzle out, but the chapter would have remained, you know.
Tony: Is that, is that how you snagged your wife?
Stephen: [00:28:00] No, but, but Jill week we've memorized Colossians one together while we were dating and leading up to our marriage. But I know Romans 12, Philippians four, Philippians two. Those are chapters that I've memorized with different girls.
And now. Now, most of those girls, I'd never talked to her or see ever, but those scriptures are help be every day.
Tony: In my head, it looks like you. Oh, Philippians four. That's the Bonnie chapter.
Oh, that's so good. Thank you for sharing. You, you know, one of the reasons that we're chatting today is because you guys have a brand new project that's being released out into the homes and it's, it's this documentary. And I'm curious show me the father, a documentary all about pointing his back to the father and what that looks like.
How did you have to shift your brain to go from a fictional very [00:29:00] intentionally curated story in, in a traditional movie sense to this documentary, how did that mess with you?
Stephen: It was totally outside of the box and it was. You know, feature films. We write the script from beginning to end a documentary.
You go with an idea, but you're shooting interviews and in the edit room, you're kind of crafting the story and what's the order. And should we even include this line or not? You know? And so it was, again, a faith journey. You know, the Lord had said, as we were finishing up the release of overcomer, he began to say, I want you to make a documentary about fatherhood.
And so, and he did, he was sending. Rick all ties are a talented award-winning director to help us Mark Miller, a talented producer to step in and help us. And so we were moving forward, not knowing what the stories were going to be. Basically, we had a a blank sheet of paper and we just wrote out we a few things.
We wanted people to understand more about the fatherhood of God. We wanted them to [00:30:00] walk away. And for them to be able to say, God became my father after I watched that documentary. And so with that as a key premise in a biblical, a biblical understanding of fatherhood being in people's minds and hearts, when we moved forward, We had no idea about Jim Daley, Sherman Smith dealer Macola, any of that stuff, that it was going to be a part of this.
And the Lord surprised us as we moved forward to interview people, doors begin to open and he provided some incredible stories that will grab your heart. They're very inspirational. And the end result is that people feel loved by God when they finished watching this movie. And they're like, I know 50 people right now that I want to share this to, you know, and because fatherlessness and the father wound is connected to addiction, depression, trafficking, you know, drug [00:31:00] abuse you know kids dropping out of school, health issues.
It is. Common denominator of the majority of people sitting in prison today. Fatherlessness it's I have found out research was done on the last four centuries of the most prominent atheists. The one common denominator is they were either abandoned or abused by their earthly fathers. So they were deeply wounded and fatherhood.
It says in Ephesians three was created out of the fatherhood of this. So I father should be an introduction to the fatherhood of God, to his children, being a, a father who provides and protects and teaches and comforts and keeps his promises and his nurturing his children, because the seven roles that dads are supposed to play in the lives of kids.
We talk about these, talk about these in showing the father are reflective of the seven [00:32:00] roles that God, our father plays in our lives, the scripture talks about. So those introductions to the character of God should be, and the lives of dads introducing their kids early on. Yeah. So with that in mind, would you remove that when you pull a good example of a loving father away from a child and he's wounded deeply, then he begins to grow up thinking, well, dad didn't keep his promises, so God will keep his promises.
Got dad didn't love me. God doesn't love me. Get, you know, my dad doesn't care about me or have time for me. God doesn't love me or have time for me. And it causes them to reject a Straumann. A misrepresentation as to who God is. So we talk about is show me the father that we've got to learn to throw down those faults perceptions as to what God is like based upon the woundedness that has come from our fathers.
And we've got to view God through a new lens. And [00:33:00] scripture says that lens is actually Jesus. What if Jesus was your early. Jesus told his disciples. If you've seen me, you've seen the father, the words I speak are the words from the father. The love I have has come from the father. So Jesus was the perfect representation of the father.
And if you study Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, and you figure out what did Jesus do? What did he say? How did he live? What if he had been my. How would my life be differently? Cause he always provided, always protected, always, you know, cared for rebuke 20 needed. It provided boundaries when it needed to always get clarity and direction.
And then John tint lays down his life for his. That's what a father supposed to be, because that's exactly what God the father is like right now. And the lives of every believer that if you've given your heart to Jesus, God has adopted you as his, as his child. And you can relate to him now as that perfect, loving heavenly father that always [00:34:00] keeps his promises and will, will never disappoint you.
If you.
Tony: Come on now, pastor Steven, we're going to pass off and play here. See I'm here for all of it. Well, one of the things we talk about here a lot is that is that we've the church as a whole, which I love the local church and I pastored in it for a long time. But what we've done is we've taught people how to come to church and not how to follow Jesus.
And so when you look at Paul and Timothy's example, Paul calls, Timothy, his spiritual son in the faith. And right now we have an entire generation of people who said yes to Christ, but then we're left at the doorstep of the orphanage and no one's ever raised them. And what I love about what you guys have done here is you really drawn out some of the keys in the great commission, some of the key things that we have to do in making disciples.
Now I am curious because it's powerful stories, including a couple of. A couple of my guys from Ohio, Eddie, George, and McCullough. And some of these guys who've been around a while for a [00:35:00] long time. I'm curious if, as you heard these stories what did it do to the way that you parent your kids?
Stephen: Well Eddie George's story is about taking responsible. You know, with whatever God entrusts to you, he shares about finding out his girlfriend was pregnant when he was young and the NFL and how how Sherman Smith stepped into his life and was a mentor and a father figure for him. And so it's interesting that not only did.
Prominent atheists have stories of abandonment about the earth by the earthly fathers, but prominent ministry leaders also have stories of either a strong godly father or a strong father figure that stepped in to fill the gap, which is the story of Jim Daley. And so seeing those stories was inspirational to me.
And it it's crazy that you bring this up because in the last 24 hours the Lord has just been speaking to me about basically calling some of these guys that I'm [00:36:00] mentoring and discipling like a spiritual son and viewing them as a spiritual son. And so just that concept, because Paul keeps telling Timothy, like you said, he calls him my son, you know, that he is spiritually stepping into his life.
It's interesting. If you look in first, Timothy, Paul says that it wasn't Timothy's day. It was the spiritual example. It was his mother and his grandmother, which means that his mom was praying for him sharing the scriptures with him, trying to impact him. And then God set a surrogate, spiritual father, Paul, the apostle come on Timothy's life to step in and be a spiritual dad for him.
And so if we don't have any. Knowledge of Paul being married scripture first Corinthians seven, communicates basically he wasn't married and not having any biological children, but he had a spiritual son and Timothy pouring into him. And I'm thinking that relationship, that father son relationship is so pivotal that we need to be raising up men, especially [00:37:00] to go on the orphans.
You don't have to be seminary trained. You just got to love Jesus. And they willing to reach into the lives of people that have less gray hair than you. And to be able to say, what can I do for you? How can I serve you? How can I pray for you? And then let's just go through the scriptures together and let me help you as a father would to his son.
That's what Sherman Smith did that we feature in. Show me the father. That's what Jim Daley had in his football coach that impacted him and really that's what we all need to be doing.
Tony: Yeah, we always say that good disciple-making is it's intentional. It's relational and it's reproducible. And ideally like we're not raising up.
In show me the father, one of the things that it becomes clear is that we're not raising up. Children to be adults. We're raising up children to be fathers, right. Specifically as it pertains to men. We're not, I'm not trying to raise my, and I have two boys and a princess, and I, I'm not trying to raise them to just be adults.
I'm trying to raise [00:38:00] them to be spiritual mother and fathers versus cause. Cause I do think that there is a difference between Christian parenting, which is important, right. Christian parenting super important. But I think there is a distinction. Distinction, when we think about disciple-making versus Christian parenting, because in disciple-making we know that you've fully matured it as, as a disciple when you've made another disciple.
Right. We know that you fully matured as a parent when you are granted. Right. I, I, I'm very passionate about that because I think it's such an important distinction on the promise that that God makes Abraham, that your descendants will outnumber the stars. That promise is available to us if we're willing to make disciples.
So I'll step up my soap soap box there.
Stephen: Let me add to that. And that is before there was a marriage in a garden, there was a father and a son in all eternity and the first commandment. The first commandment that he gives to people is to be fruitful and multiply. [00:39:00] It is not to mature. It is basically to become a mom and a dad.
And so if we translate that over into Jesus says, I'm the vine, you are the branches. And if you're walking with me, what's going to happen. Fruitfulness is going to start coming out of your life. Spiritual fruitfulness is going to start flowing out of. So absolutely a sign of walking with the Lord, a sign of following Jesus is stepping into fruitfulness, spiritually that you're bringing people to Christ.
So they're born again, and then you're growing them into maturity, which is what Paul said at the end of Galatians. If you read cautions one, which I remember I was with my wife when I was dating her. Yeah. He said, I am striving. I'm working on laboring. What for, he says preaching Christ so that I may present every person in Christ mature, basically in a complete in him.
And so he says, I'm striving for this, that I may bring about spiritual maturity in you, that discipleship [00:40:00] process. And so I tell people, man, far better than producing a movie, which is a bunch of pixel. You know far more than that is changing the lives of people so that you will see that translated into eternity.
You know, the people that will be in heaven because better than working on the next. And pouring your life into something like that. It's going to be outdated in a year anyway, you know, but, but for you to pour into people who have souls that are made in the image of God, that Jesus died for, that can then produce more disciples, man, man, that's totally worth it.
Tony: My best ministry is ministry. I have no part in, you know, other than just watching as a, as a, as a grandparent or a spiritual great-grandparent. So that's so good. So good. Biblical characteristics of a father, you list seven of them. I'm going to ask you a personal question. I'm going to list them off here for our listeners friend, encourage your provider leader, teacher protector helper.[00:41:00]
I'm curious which one convicts you the most, in which one do you think your.
Stephen: Let's see provider. I spent a lot of time providing for my kids, pouring into them. I spent a lot of time teaching helping been increasing more in, but just getting your hands dirty on the day to day, whether it's untying my daughter's shoes this week.
Cause she had. Turn them into a big knot, you know, and being a comforting friend as my kids get older now I'm realizing, and my brother, Alex is really good at this. He plays with his kids a lot. He doesn't just parent them cause I've spent a lot of time spiritually nurturing my kids and talking about adulthood.
And you know, let's sit down and let's study the scripture together and let's pray about this. I've kept it at that level. Alex spends a lot of time saying, Hey, this is. Throw the football shoot, basketball, whatever. And that heart bond that takes place from playing with your kids, opens the [00:42:00] door then where they're even more excited about hearing what you have to teach them.
You know? So when scripture says speaking the truth in love, you know, we have a loving relationship and then the truth is like a seed that we plant into that soil soil. So I played with my kids a lot when they were. And and I'm very involved in their lives on a daily basis, but I've just known. I've noticed that I spent a lot of time saying, Hey, let's go work on this project together because there's always stuff in my mind that we should knock out around the house or whatever.
And sometimes it's just like, Hey, let's just go throw the football together. Let's go hang out in the backyard. Or what is something fun you would like to do that we can go do? Because that heart to heart connect. You know pushes the relationship to another level, which gives you an opportunity later on when you're talking about the Lord for them to soak it in, you know, even more than.
Tony: Yeah. And just in disciple-making we call it the, with him principle that, that Jesus probably really strengthened his relationship with his disciples because they were [00:43:00] just with them and, you know, and, and you, you can't strengthen your relationship with anyone. If you're not, you know, with him, I was listening to a podcast this morning and said, you just, you can't rush intimacy.
And that's, that sounded a lot like what you're talking about.
Stephen: Yes, absolutely. I agree.
Tony: So I know that my listeners are fierce prayer warriors. As this film, this documentary gets released into the world for, for wider consumption now at homes and churches and all the different places where it's, it's officially released.
What, what are some of the things that we can be praying for as this is seen by the multitude of men across.
Stephen: Well, well, it is in Mexico, central America. It is about to open in Brazil this week in theaters. So we've been praying for that already. But show me, the father is there's something special about this movie and courageous legacy is a new updated version of courageous has coming at the same time on December.
It will also have a theatrical [00:44:00] release. We got a new ending that we shot showing the officer's 10 years later. So both of these movies, one from a feature film, fictional kind of storyline with courageous legacy and one with a documentary, true stories, both of these are a one-two punch specifically to call men back up into spiritual leadership.
And so a lot of churches have. Restarted their men's ministry since COVID hit and they need to be jumping on it fast. Every day that men are not engaged is a crisis, a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. And so I would say please pray for these movies that the holy spirit would work in people's lives as they watch them.
Show me the father is. Hits people at a deeper level emotionally than most about other films and the scriptures that are sprinkled throughout. And the true stories that are sold that are told very sincerely [00:45:00] are pretty captivating and they grab you at a deep level, but everybody has a father.
Whether it's one of pain or of joy and respect. And so it ends up grabbing people at the heart level when they watch it. But ultimately at the end, we point them to the gospel and to Christ. And so we're praying. And I would ask you to pray that churches and ministries would use these films as harvest tools to win the lost to Christ and to do deep level ministry because addiction, ministries, depression, ministry.
People that have been through some PTSD in abuse situations, discovering God as a loving father and discovering who you are in Christ are fundamental for you to break through break free and to heal. And this movie takes you there. It takes you to that deep level of seeing God is that loving father that you need as.[00:46:00]
But we can meet, we can make a movie, but only God can change your heart. So we're just praying that the word were spread. We've been translating them, spending extra money to get them translated into other languages around the world. And I'm thinking that show me, the father is going to be able to evangelize people at a deep level, unexpected.
And it's going to be happening in prisons. We're already been talking about how we can get this in prisons because the majority of guys in prisons have been deeply wounded by their dads. So,
Tony: So good. Yes, we'll definitely be praying for all of that. And for just like you said, that, that great awakening of people understanding who the father is and, and what that can be.
Okay. So I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you on the interwebs. I have one more question for you, but before we get there, where's the best place to follow you and your ministry and all the things that are are coming out and you know, whatever you're working on now.
Stephen: Yeah, sure.
Well, Kendrick [00:47:00] brothers, we have a Facebook page. You can go to our kinder brothers Facebook page. We've got Instagram staff, Twitter staff. You can jump on, we have a website, Kendrick brothers.com. You can see our films and books and those kinds of resources and stuff. So and please sign up anytime a movie's coming in.
There'll be an opportunity to sign up for like an email updates. And that gives us an opportunity to send out really quickly to a lot of people it's about to hit stores or kind of keep you abreast in case you're not, you know, it's not on your radar, you know? So but those would be starting.
Tony: That's awesome.
Okay. Last question. I always love to ask people. It's an advice question, except you get to give yourself one piece of advice and I get to take you back to a very specific day. And so I'd like to ask you to go back to the first day of, of work in the position that you're in now. So your very first day filming, making films with your brother, doing this sort of work.
If you could go back and give that younger version [00:48:00] of Steven one piece of advice. What would it be?
Stephen: Hmm. I would say start getting up earlier in the morning, just with the Lord and do not let your schedule run your life. You run it. Those two things. And even today, I mean, this morning, I was thinking about that, prayed about that, you know the guys that I know that are getting the most done are usually early, early to bed, early to rise guys.
And. Usually at night, cause I'm a night owl. A lot of times I'll get a lot stuff done at night, but at night, a lot of times we're hanging out, having fun, you know, goofing off with our kids, cleaning up stuff around the house in the morning though. I'm thinking about the priorities of the day. I'm wanting [00:49:00] to just make my heart happy in the Lord.
I'm praying, gearing up, getting. For the race of the day. And when I get up earlier and do that the day goes better. I get more done. I'm more efficient rather than playing catch up all the time. So filmmaking is weird schedules exhaustive deadlines, but I just looking at my life. I'm like, man, if I could go back, start that habit of getting up earlier sooner.
Tony: Oh, that's good. That's a good word. Stephen, thank you so much for your generosity today, with your time and for your commitment to what you're doing to put out great content for, for all of us to consume. So thank you. And we appreciate you and I can't wait to connect with you further as you continue to put out great stuff into the.
Stephen: Tony. Thank you brother so much. And I appreciate you and your heart for the Lord. It's an honor to get to talk to you to have a good day. I told
Tony: you guys what a great conversation [00:50:00] with Stephen Kendrick, all about what it means to be a father about the biblical characteristics of a father. And I think when we can recognize our shortcomings as dads or as fathers in our own.
Then it gives us an opportunity to depend on God. So I love this idea about obey, what God has told you to do. I love the way they do their ministry. Do me a favor, go hit them up on social. We'll be sure to check out their new documentary. Show me the father or even a go ahead and read, download their, the remake of their courageous movie.
Courageous life. Also, if you could hit that subscribe button, wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure you leave a rating review on iTunes. It goes a long way to get the word out and the best compliment you can give us, share this episode with a friend. I'm so thankful to be on this journey with all of you.
And remember, if you want to follow Jesus, you must be willing to move.
