Faith Filled Family Magazine October 2016 | Page 78

a bit that God puts dreams and
desires into your heart. They
don’t always come into fruition
overnight- sometimes they take
awhile.
When we did God’s Not Dead,
we were in our sixth or seventh
year of business. PureFlix was
growing, but we had always
seen a bigger vision of what God
was going to do. We had created PureFlix to uplift and inspire
people through ongoing content.
So the Lord took that movie, and
against all surmountable odds,
our small company needed Hollywood to take that movie theatrically. We needed a good five
to ten million dollars to help put
it in theaters. We shot it around
every studio to see if they would
help take it on, and everyone
said, “no”.
It’s an interesting thing as to how
that how that corresponds with
even our dreams-everybody’s
dreams. Often we have a small
something that we believe- that
the Lord puts in our hearts- but
time after time after time failure happens. Then, suddenly,
down the road you will just touch
something and bring it to fruition.
Now we have the largest faith
film production and distribution
studio in the world. It’s crazy!
What led you to be the “founding partner” of Pure Flix?
I had been producing Christian
films for quite awhile. I think that
my first one was in 1999. Myself,
three other actors, and a D.T.
raised eighty seven thousand
dollars. We made a little movie
called, “The Moment”. After this
movie went out and made a lot
of business. People were really

touched in the process.

stuck doing what we don’t want
to do, and yet those times turn
In the process, we as produc- out to be the best times in our
ers were learning how to feel our lives because it gives us an opway through the marketplace. I portunity to think about what we
think, at the time, I had produced really want to do. So it makes
about four or five different Chris- us get out of our comfort zone to
tian films along the way. None of chase what it is that we are rethe original guys were PureFlix, ally desiring.
but I had good relationship with
Michael Scott and Russell Wolfe. Conversely, some inventions
The three of us had the same vi- were born out of a desire not
sion about having this content to do certain tasks.
on a consistent basis, and knew There’s a great catapult for gothat we wanted to make more of ing into God’s plan and calling
it.
in your life. By simply designing
something to get you out of doHowever, we needed a way to ing a chore that you absolutely
put it out there because studios hate!
were just shutting down evangelistic movies. They would start a What advice would you give
faith label, and then shut it down. you parents, based on your
Then the cycle would repeat. So own experience, who want
that’s why we really felt the need their children to either take
to start PureFlix production-dis- over a family business, or to
tribution company.
walk in their footsteps?
I think there’s going to be a lot
BETWEEN HEAVEN & HOLLY- of pressure about taking over
WOOD
your family business or walking
in your parent’s footsteps.
You seemed to have a bit of an
entrepreneurial spirit early on My dad wished that I would be
in life. How do you think that an evangelist, but there is no
you ended up cultivating it?
doubt about that it was his deI don’t know. I think that it was sire. It was their hope, but they
something the Lord put in me. released me to do whatever it
One of the giftings that He had was that I wanted to do.
given me at an early age was
connecting with people- which I was eighteen years old, and
are two differen