Leadership Journal

When Alex Kendrick said he wanted to make a movie, most people thought he was nuts. Kendrick, pastor of media at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, had enjoyed making movies and staging plays ever since he could remember, but churches just weren't supposed to make movies.

But Kendrick, with the help of the Sherwood congregation, did it anyway, and Flywheel was a hit, first in Albany. Since its debut at the Albany theater three years ago, the film sold 36,000 on DVD, and the church has received more than 2,000 phone calls, e-mails, and letters from people the film had touched.

"It just blew us away, because it didn't make sense that this little tiny movie starring local actors could do something like that," says Kendrick.

Recognizing God's blessing on their efforts from the lives that had been changed through Flywheel, Kendrick began to ask God for a plot for a second movie. With his brother, Stephen, Alex developed a plot about a high school football coach whose team mired in a long losing slump, whose job was on the line, and whose home life only made matters worse. Facing the Giants was born.

This time, the Kendricks prayed for a widespread theatrical release and aimed to shoot the film in high definition. They prayed for $100,000, and support poured in. More than 500 people from the church donated their money, time, and talent to the picture.

The cast was made up entirely of church members and Albany residents, the meals fed to the cast were prepared by Sunday school classes, and the local high school football team volunteered to serve as the football team depicted in the film, taking time after practices to shoot scenes. Church members and community businessmen playing other roles filmed scenes on extended lunch breaks or after work, sometimes not leaving the set until after midnight. No one got paid, except for the travel expenses of five professionals from a film company in Orlando who were brought in to help train all of the volunteers in film and makeup techniques.

"The widespread theatrical release thing was really a ridiculous thing to pray for, because what theater would ever pick up a movie made by a church?" says Kendrick. But it happened. Sony heard about the film, and eventually decided to distribute it in 400 theaters and 80 cities all over the U.S. Debut was set for September 29.

Tackling such a big, out-of-the-box project as this was more than many churches would have taken on, but Kendrick says his congregation is getting accustomed to challenges. For them it became a cause for prayer, first of all.

Before each shoot, Alex and Stephen led the cast and crew in prayer and devotions. Senior pastor Michael Catt recruited prayer warriors to pray for a different aspect of filmmaking each day. "All the people on the project saw prayer at work and the power of it, and they were able to see God's hand in this project," Catt said.

"We told everybody to think of (the project) in terms of going to war," Kendrick ...