By Ashley McIlwain

Associate pastor at Sherwood Baptist Church, co-writer and producer of all four of Sherwood Pictures films, co-writer for several books including New York Times bestseller The Love Dare, Stephen Kendrick is a man of God that is making a difference. A father of four and committed husband, his integrity and leadership starts in his home and radiates outward.

Stephen, alongside his brother Alex Kendrick, has entered the homes and subsequently the lives of millions of people worldwide through the silver screen. Unlike most Hollywood features though, their movies are encouraging, uplifting, challenging, and tackling life’s difficult subjects. From perseverance to forgiveness, strength to courage, marriage struggles to personal triumphs, Stephen is using the platform and gifts God has given him to change lives in a big way.

Recently I had the honor of sitting down with Stephen to discuss his personal filmmaking journey, along with tough topics like marriage, pornography, and leadership as well as their upcoming feature Courageous and so much more. Hear what he had to say.

Ashley: How did you get into the ministry of making Christian movies?

Stephen: Looking back we can see that God was preparing us all growing up to do that. It goes back to 1978. My parents were praying about where they should live, and God led them to a house in Smyrna, Georgia. We moved in right next door to a man who worked at Lockheed, and he had an 8mm film camera. My two brothers and I were in elementary school at the time, and we started making stop and go animation movies on his camera. Then he got a video camera when those came out, and we started making home videos on his camera. Our parents later bought us a video camera, and making home movies became our hobby.

The Sherwood Picture crew including Stephen Kendrick, Alex Kendrick, Michael Catt, and Jim McBride

We both enjoyed working on home movies and video projects, but in 2002 God opened the door for us to make a small film for twenty thousand dollars in our community called Flywheel. That little movie just took off. Blockbuster video picked it up, eventually Sony picked it up, and it’s been in Wal-Mart. We sold 500,000 copies of that little twenty thousand dollar project. God used it to reach so many people, and that really opened the door for us to continue making movies. It was one of those situations where, like Henry Blackaby says in Experiencing God, “You go where God is working,” and God was clearly working through that. So, we just continued to walk through the doors as He opened them. That led into Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and now Courageous.

Along the journey of Christian filmmaking, what have you personally taken away from the movies you’ve been a part of and the experience of making them?

Every movie has been a very steep learning curve on multiple levels. Firstly, we’ve learned a lot about walking by faith because we were launching way out of our comfort zone and training. We had not been trained in filmmaking, script writing, producing, directing. With a lot of prayer and moving forward in obedience, every movie has taught us to trust the Lord and to seek Him with all major decisions. I tell people that the most important question you can ask is, “What does God want me to do?” It’s not how much money can I make, or what’s going to make me famous? It’s not even what are people asking me to do, or what do I want to do? It needs to go back to, “what does the Lord want me to do in this situation?”

If we will learn to tune into His voice and position ourselves to be in the center of His will then He speaks, opens doors, and does things that no man can do. We’ve learned a lot about faith and walking by faith. With Facing the Giants we didn’t do any fundraising, but we prayed that God would send the $85,000 – 100,000 that we would need to shoot that movie. We watched God do it. He would prompt people to give without us even going to them and asking.

Throughout each production we’re praying for God to lead us concerning what the movie needs to be about. Every time Alex and I get together, we pray about the things that we’re writing, and then when we’re on set, we’re asking God to guide the production and to help the actors. In every aspect of the filmmaking process, we’re praying and asking the Lord to intervene, guide, and lead. Proverbs 16:3 says, “If you will commit your work to the Lord, He will establish your plans.” So, that has been something we’ve tried to do.

Brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick on the Albany, Ga., set of Courageous, which they co-wrote, directed (Alex), and produced (Stephen). Alex also directs and performs. Photo by Todd Stone

Secondly, every movie has been a big learning curve concerning the topic of the movie. With Flywheel, we learned a lot about car salesmen. With Facing the Giants we learned a lot more about football. With Fireproof we learned a lot about firefighters and marriage. With Courageous we’ve learned a lot about fatherhood, police officers, and sheriff’s deputies.

Then there’s the whole filmmaking side. With each movie we’ve been learning more about cinematography, acting, writing, sound, editing. There have been multiple levels where we have been growing. It is very fulfilling to be doing something you know God has called you to do and to be experiencing His fingerprints on your work. It is more fulfilling than I think anything Hollywood could ever tempt you with … or the world for that matter. There is such a great joy in knowing the Lord, walking with Him, obeying Him, serving Him, and then watching Him do things through you that are way beyond your ability.

Speaking of movies, let’s talk about one of my favorite movies and resources to recommend to people, Fireproof. This movie is a powerful story about salvaging a crumbling marriage. Why did you think this was such an important story to tell?

Marriage is such a foundational building block upon which families, churches, and cultures are built. When we prayed through asking the Lord what the next movie should be about, He led us to marriage. Both Alex and I are married, love our wives, and are constantly trying to learn how to be godly husbands. So, it’s something that’s on our minds often, but marriage is also such a beautiful picture of Christ and His bride, the church. It was a great opportunity to communicate what real love is, and also demonstrate it on the screen in a way that we’ve not seen it done before.

In most Hollywood movies, the romantic comedy is usually about a couple that’s not married, and they meet one another, fight, end up sleeping together, there’s some kind of misunderstanding, they get back together at the end, and then the credits roll. That’s not where most people live. Most people live in twenty, thirty, forty year marriages, and we wanted to go where people are. We wanted to communicate how you work through issues, how you learn to love, and what that looks like after the honeymoon is over. So, in Fireproof we tried to put in the movie specific things, key lessons for couples to see.

One is about love, which The Love Dare is an integral part of that. Forgiveness is the key thing that has to be understood to have a strong marriage. We included that through the scene with Caleb apologizing to Catherine in the bedroom. We wanted that to be a vivid, clear picture as to how we need to apologize. Also, we wanted him to be saying what so many women are wanting their husbands to say. Then in the bay scene, she communicates to him what so many men are longing to hear from their wives. We wanted people to walk away saying, “Okay, my marriage is worth fighting for. I don’t need to give up. I need God’s help, and I need Him to help me learn how to love my spouse. I need to learn how to forgive, reconcile, and I’m going to go home and start working on our marriage.”

That’s exactly what’s been happening all around the world. Fireproof is in seventy-five countries now . It’s in multiple languages, and we’re just very grateful for what God has been doing. It’s reaching marriages in Brazil and South Africa. Soldiers in Afghanistan have been watching Fireproof. In China and India, people have been using these resources. In some of these cultures, the husband “humbling himself and apologizing to his wife” is a brand new concept; there’s such a dominance, dictator kind of male leadership in their homes. Even though the husband should be the male leader, he should be a servant leader like Jesus, but they don’t know that or understand that. It’s brand new to them for the wives to be treated that way.

Is there any advice you could offer a couple or individual whose marriage is on the rocks, and they aren’t sure what to do about it?

First, God is in the business of resurrecting dead marriages. We have seen it happen with so many couples. There was a man who was cheating on his wife, took his mistress to the theater to see Fireproof, and God convicted him throughout the movie. He left his mistress, went back home, and worked out his marriage. There was a couple that was divorced for twenty-seven years and the wife saw Fireproof, she called and reconciled with her ex-husband. They got remarried. When people think that it’s over or there’s no hope, that’s a lie. God can save any dead marriage. That’s the first thing; they need to realize there’s hope.

Courageous co-writers Alex (right) and Stephen Kendrick watch shooting on the Albany, Ga., set. Photo by Todd Stone

Secondly, they are not responsible for their spouse, but they are responsible to obey what God is commanding them to do. There’s a tendency for couples in crisis to blame all the problems in their marriage on their spouse and for them to not take steps toward reconciliation. God is taking the initiative in love to send His Son to reconcile with us even though we were His enemies. He is commanding us to love our enemies and pray for them. It says in Romans, “If you’re enemy’s hungry, feed him, and if he’s thirsty, give him drink. Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That’s one of the things we tried to communicate in The Love Dare – don’t wait on your spouse to get their act together. You go ahead and start getting right with God. You start demonstrating love, and don’t let your feelings or your circumstances determine your decisions or your behavior. You need to do the right thing whether you feel like it or not.

What I tell couples that are in crisis is that first base is: you need to get your own personal walk with God and your own heart right with the Lord first. If you’re bitter you’re not going to care what happens to your marriage. You’re going to want out. If you don’t have a relationship with Christ, you’re not going to understand forgiveness, and you’re not going to have that agape and unconditional love inside your heart to be able to give to your spouse. So, you need the Creator of marriage, the One who created the blueprint for it, the Designer to be right in the center of it. I tell people, Jesus said, “Before you try to point out a speck in your brother’s eye, you need to deal with the log in your own eye.” Deal with your own issues first. You need to begin to spend time with God, be in His Word, begin to pray, and work through your own issues first. Secondly, you need to forgive. Don’t wait on them to apologize. You go ahead and forgive. Don’t wait on them to get their act together. You go ahead and apologize if you have wronged the marriage. You get clean yourself.

Second base is to begin to reach out in love. Do not try to fix your spouse. You need to love them first. You need to win their heart back. You need to listen with understanding. Second base is winning them back over because if you don’t have their heart, you don’t have their ear. If you’re trying to say anything to fix, correct, work on the marriage, or whatever, they’re not going to want to hear it if your marriage is in a crisis. You getting your life right with God is first base. You winning them over is second base.

Third base is now when you’ve won their heart back, you need to begin to use God’s Word to speak truth into your marriage. It says in Ephesians 4, “We need to speak the truth in love.” Truth is like seed, Jesus said, and love is like soil. The Apostle Paul said we need to be rooted and grounded in love. You need to begin to pour God’s Word into your marriage, into your own life, and with your spouse. The truth of God’s Word, pour it into that soil of love. Again, second base is love, and third base is now planting that seed into the soil of love. That’s when God begins to change and transform minds. He begins to revolutionize your marriage. He begins to rework the framework, the design of it when you can let His truth penetrate into an environment of love. That’s what’s going to bring your marriage back to home plate, and that’s what’s going to head it in the direction it needs to go.

One of many things I loved about Fireproof is that you didn’t shy away from addressing a serious issue that plagues so many marriages and homes, the destructive force of pornography. Many people underestimate the devastation and addictive power of pornography. What would you suggest for a husband or wife who is struggling with this addiction as the victim or user?

To hear Stephen’s answer to this question and much more, come back on Thursday, September 29 for Part 2 of the Stephen Kendrick interview!

Copyright © 2011, Foundation Restoration.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No reproduction allowed without written permission from Foundation Restoration and/or the author.

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