<\/p>\n
KIM LAWTON<\/strong>, correspondent: Sunday morning at Friends Church in Yorba Linda, California. Richard Nixon\u2019s family helped found this Quaker congregation 99 years ago, and the former president attended here as well. Today, it\u2019s a megachurch with a nondenominational evangelical style. During worship services, pastor of creative ministries Brent Martz makes sure everything goes as it\u2019s supposed to, and in the control room, church media director Jon Van Dyke calls the camera shots. Those may be their day jobs, but the two have another responsibility as well. They\u2019re helping Friends Church make a feature film.<\/p>\n JON VAN DYKE<\/strong> (Director, \u201cNot Today\u201d): And I still hear people say it in the church, that \u201cWhat are we doing? We\u2019re making a movie? What are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: The film is called \u201cNot Today,\u201d and it tells the story of a spoiled young American who goes on a partying trip to India and gets pulled into the search for a little girl who was sold to human traffickers. The film was partly shot in India and centers around Dalits, the so-called \u201cuntouchables\u201d on the lowest rung of the traditional caste system. Friends Church connected with Dalits during mission trips.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: The church committed to help free Dalits who had been trafficked and to build 200 schools for Dalit children, and because they\u2019re in the backyard of Hollywood, they decided to make a movie as well.<\/p>\n PASTOR MATTHEW CORK<\/strong> (Friends Church): It wasn\u2019t just to make a movie, because we\u2019re not in the movie business. We\u2019re a church. But as a church we do have an obligation and a responsibility to tell the message, and so we believe that this was the best way for us in what God had gifted us with.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: What\u2019s happening here at Friends Church in Yorba Linda is being repeated in congregations across the country. More and more local churches say they are frustrated with the movies Hollywood has been putting out, so they are making their own. But there are questions about whether this is something local churches should be doing. Mark Joseph is a film producer who writes about religion and pop culture.<\/p>\n MARK JOSEPH<\/strong> (MJM Entertainment Group): I guess I have an outdated notion that churches are there to inspire parishioners to then go and do things in whatever genre, whether it\u2019s politics or media or whatever. I\u2019m not sure about church as film studio or church as commercial enterprise. But that\u2019s, I think, the danger down this path.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: The church filmmaking trend really began at Sherwood Baptist in Albany, Georgia, where associate pastors and brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick have released three feature films since 2003. They are currently finishing up number four, \u201cCourageous,\u201d about policemen struggling to be good fathers.<\/p>\n From film clip: What I want for you is that you seek the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: In Sherwood films, volunteer church members make up virtually all the cast and the crew and do everything from catering to building sets. Sherwood teamed up with Provident Films, a division of Sony, and found a very receptive audience. Their third film, \u201cFireproof,\u201d starring Kirk Cameron, was made on a half-million-dollar budget, and it took in more than $33 million at the box office, making it the highest-grossing independent film of 2008. Sherwood films always have a specific message, and they say making their own movies gives them the freedom to express it.<\/p>\n From flip clip: David, I\u2019ve asked God since you were a baby that he would show how strong he is in your life. <\/em><\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: The films all have an overtly Christian tone, and the upcoming \u201cCourageous\u201d continues that. Sherwood\u2019s efforts have inspired churches across the country.<\/p>\n JOSEPH<\/strong>: You\u2019ve got these church media directors and their pastors going, \u201cHey, why can\u2019t we do that?\u201d They\u2019re in position where they have access to a studio sometimes, to cameras, equipment, lights, and some talent in the church.<\/p>\n DR. DAVID EVANS<\/strong> (Director, \u201cThe Grace Card\u201d): I realized that God had been preparing us for the last 15 years to do something far greater than we could ever imagine, and that\u2019s what set off the course of actions for me to begin writing the basic story of \u201cThe Grace Card.\u201d<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: It\u2019s a story about forgiveness and racial reconciliation.<\/p>\n Dialogue from film clip: Something going on at home? \/ Don\u2019t go preacher on me, man. \/ I\u2019m not going preacher. I\u2019m your friend.<\/em><\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: Although many in the cast are Calvary Church members, the film also stars Academy Award winner Louis Gossett Jr., and it has several Hollywood partners, among them Samuel Goldwyn Films. \u201cThe Grace Card\u201d was released in theaters this week at a red-carpet premier in Memphis.<\/p>\n EVANS<\/strong>: We want, number one, for God to be glorified through this movie. We want to plant seeds that result in people demonstrating forgiveness and extending grace. That\u2019s something we all need to do on a larger scale.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: The team at Friends Church says they tried to incorporate their characters\u2019 faith into the main story in a natural way.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: But they acknowledge they do have an agenda\u2014helping the Dalits. The church contributed the budget of under a million dollars, and any profits will go toward the work in India.<\/p>\n CORK<\/strong>: At the end of the movie, we want to give something compelling to say, \u201cYou can do something. You can change this issue of human trafficking, as Dalits are the majority of those in India that are trafficked. You can sponsor a child. You can build a school.\u201d<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: Cathleen Falsani wrote a book that explores religious themes in the movies of prominent directors Joel and Ethan Coen. She worries that with church-made movies, a strong message could get in the way of a good story.<\/p>\n CATHLEEN FALSANI <\/strong>(Author, \u201cThe Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers\u201d): I think artistically when you go into any kind of creative act with an agenda you run the risk of whatever it is that you produce being inauthentic, and I think audiences\u2014particularly filmgoers, particularly young filmgoers\u2014can smell inauthenticity from ten miles away.<\/p>\n FALSANI<\/strong>: One of the ways that I find my faith most enlivened is when I engage with art, particularly with film, and my favorite films in terms of what I think are faith messages, Christian messages, messages about God\u2019s grace and love\u2014not a single one of them is a Christian film.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: Mark Joseph says he applauds people who want to make movies to appeal to faith-based audiences, but he doesn\u2019t want to see Christian films ghettoized.<\/p>\n JOSEPH<\/strong>: These filmmakers are energized to tell their stories to the world, but if they\u2019re too successful as a genre, they\u2019ll wall themselves off and end up only making films for each other, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what they\u2019re intending to do, but once marketing folks and distribution folks see a genre here, then they will likely create an industry that will ironically cut them off from the mainstream.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: He\u2019s also concerned about the production quality of many small-budget, church-made films.<\/p>\n JOSEPH<\/strong>: You wouldn\u2019t go, you know, to a friend at church for brain surgery who hadn\u2019t been to medical school, and I think the same thing applies to filmmaking. I mean, there\u2019s a reason why people go to Hollywood to make films, because these are experienced professionals.<\/p>\n VAN DYKE<\/strong>: So, incredibly important, paralyzingly important that it not be perceived on any level as sort of a \u201cB\u201d movie. Clearly, there\u2019s tons of talent in the church, so why are we making crappy home movies? I mean, we should be making\u2014Hollywood should be following us. They should be going, \u201cWow, look what the church is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: Friends Church hopes to release \u201cNot Today\u201d early next year, although they\u2019re still negotiating for a distributor to get it in theaters. In the end, the church believes the movie is part of its overall ministry.<\/p>\n CORK<\/strong>: We\u2019re going to go forth in maybe a new expression, in maybe a new way in creating a movie that has a cause and a mission behind it, because we believe that we\u2019re going to do what Scripture tells us and be active in our faith.<\/p>\n LAWTON<\/strong>: And that\u2019s not something you hear every day in Hollywood.<\/p>\n I\u2019m Kim Lawton in Yorba Linda, California.<\/p>\n![\"post01-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post01-churchmovies.jpg\")
BRENT MARTZ<\/strong> (Producer, \u201cNot Today\u201d): I had never heard of the Dalits until I went to India, and then to meet them actually and to touch their hands and to be involved in their lives was overwhelming, and to come back and do something about it\u2014that was part of the mission of our church was to get involved outside of ourselves.<\/p>\n![\"post02-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post02-churchmovies.jpg\")
Film crew: Roll camera, roll sound.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"post03-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post03-churchmovies.jpg\")
LAWTON<\/strong>: At Calvary Church of the Nazarene in Cordova, Tennessee, optometrist David Evans wrote and directed the church\u2019s annual passion play for 15 years. He says after watching \u201cFireproof\u201d he came away believing Calvary should make a film.<\/p>\n![\"post05-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post05-churchmovies.jpg\")
MARTZ<\/strong>: This isn\u2019t a Christian movie. It\u2019s a movie about human trafficking that happens to be through the experience of a couple of Christians, a couple of Christians who are really struggling to live a good Christian life, you know?<\/p>\n![\"post06-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post06-churchmovies.jpg\")
LAWTON<\/strong>: She says she wishes conservative Christians would look more closely for spiritual themes in Hollywood\u2019s movies.<\/p>\n![\"post07-churchmovies\"](\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/02\/post07-churchmovies.jpg\")
LAWTON<\/strong>: Friends Church intends to deliver Hollywood quality on \u201cNot Today,\u201d and that\u2019s where they have an advantage over other churches. Director Jon Van Dyke spent more than 22 years in the Hollywood entertainment industry, and other Friends members are in the business as well. In addition, the church hired professional actors and crew members.<\/p>\n