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The regular film world has the Coens, the Wachowskis, and the Farrellys—brothers who collaborate on producing and directing both blockbusters and arthouse flicks.

Alex and Stephen on the set

The Christian film world has the Kendricks—a couple of associate pastors in Albany, Georgia who made a couple of ultra-low-budget movies with a mostly volunteer cast and crew as part of their church's outreach program, and then hit it big when the second film, Facing the Giants, grossed just over $10 million at the box office.

Now they're putting the finishing touches on their third film, Fireproof, due for a theatrical release on September 26. The film concerns a firefighter whose marriage is on the rocks, and whose father challenges him to take "the Love Dare"—a series of recommended activities that might, just might, help patch things up.

In some ways, the Kendricks' films, all produced through Sherwood Pictures, have gotten bigger and better. The budgets have increased exponentially—from $20,000 on their first film, Flywheel, to $100,000 on Facing the Giants and now $500,000 on Fireproof. The sounds and visuals show more technical polish. And their newest film even has a professional Hollywood actor—Kirk Cameron—in the lead role.

But Fireproof remains a ministry, produced almost entirely by members of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany. And the Kendricks wouldn't have it any other way.

"We love each other, we love being together," says Stephen Kendrick—co-writer and co-producer of the Sherwood films—of his fellow churchgoers. "When we're done shooting, we want to go share life with them, we want to go catch a movie with them, we want to go hang out, we want them to come to our Christmas party. There is a family kind of theme there that God has built, where we're not just trying to put on some cool Hollywood face when we're in front of the camera."

Kirk Cameron as Caleb, a firefighter

The church has used the unexpected success of Facing the Giants to reach out to the wider community, too. Alex Kendrick—who co-writes and directs all of Sherwood's films—is quick to note that, after the movie theaters and the distributor got their cut, only a small portion of the grosses went to the church itself. But even that small portion was enough to allow the church to move ahead much more quickly than expected on an 82-acre sports park that will be open to the community.

And then there are the thousands of responses from people all around the country, and even the world, who say their lives have been touched by their films. "So spiritually we've had the ministry we were hoping for," says Alex. "It's built morale among our church members, doing something as an entire body. Financially, it's been worth it. Ministerially, it's certainly been worth it."

Where do they go from here as filmmakers? The Kendricks say they are eager to get better as artists and storytellers, and they even recently released a slightly improved and slightly shorter "director's cut" of their first film, Flywheel, on DVD. (The original version was put together in just ten days, after the hard drive with all the edits was accidentally destroyed just a couple weeks before the premiere.)

Some people would say the Kendricks should start hiring professionals—and indeed, they have hired a handful of people to oversee some of the more technical aspects of their more recent films, such as the sports footage in Facing the Giants. But for the most part, they want to continue relying on volunteers, both in front of the camera and behind it—though they know they face certain challenges in doing so.

In a Sherwood production, everyone pitches in

"Although we would like every aspect of our movie to be excellent, the number one priority for us is the ministry," says Alex, who starred in the first two films and has a small role in Fireproof. "The most important message we could ever share with the world is the message of the gospel. For us, we do not want to put somebody in front of the camera who proclaims it in the movie and doesn't believe it themselves."

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Kirk Cameron, best known as a teen idol in Growing Pains, has been in a lot of Christian movies lately—including Fireproof, from the makers of Facing the Giants.