Speaker 1: You know, there are so many things that I love
Speaker 1: about my podcast. I love I love that I get
Speaker 1: to spend more than a minute or two or three
Speaker 1: that my radio program allows to talk about a particular
Speaker 1: topic or talk to a particular guest. I love that
Speaker 1: I'm not limited, I have no limitations on what topics
Speaker 1: I can or can't cover, and that I've had the
Speaker 1: pleasure of hosting guests that come from so many different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: writers and authors, musicians, dreamers, teachers, nurses. I have talked
Speaker 1: to so many fascinating people on my podcast, Folks that
Speaker 1: are changing the world with their skills, their talents. They're
Speaker 1: innate gifts, like folks working tirelessly on behalf of vulnerable
Speaker 1: and at risk children and teens, those that are feeding
Speaker 1: and housing people in need, health and wellness professionals, book author, singers,
Speaker 1: songwriters and musicians who entertain who inspire stage and screen actors.
Speaker 1: They have all been here with me on Love Someone,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to every new episode that we
Speaker 1: are able to produce. Today's guest comes to us from
Speaker 1: the world of faith based entertainment. He's the son of
Speaker 1: celebrated Left Behind author Jerry B. Jenkins, and he grew
Speaker 1: up to be a writer, a director, a film producer.
Speaker 1: Twenty years ago, at the age of twenty five, he
Speaker 1: produced the independent film Hometown Legend and Shepherd to distribution
Speaker 1: by Warner Brothers. Remember that movie, Hometown Legend. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that's been twenty years ago. Then he's directed and
Speaker 1: produced a dozen feature in short films for companies like Universal,
Speaker 1: Pure Flicks, Hallmark Channel, Amazon, and lions Gate. But he's
Speaker 1: probably best known now as the creator, director, and co
Speaker 1: writer of The Chosen, the first multi season series about
Speaker 1: the life of Christ, which also happens to be the
Speaker 1: most successful media crowdfund of all time. And that is
Speaker 1: why I am so thrilled to welcome him to our
Speaker 1: podcast today. Since jan Jan Haynes, who is the director
Speaker 1: of Point Hope, got me and my family hooked, watching
Speaker 1: The Chosen has become a big thing in our household.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely forbidden to watch any of the episodes
Speaker 1: without my kids. There's like this golden rule that Mom
Speaker 1: can't watch an episode of The Chosen, even if we've
Speaker 1: already seen it four or five times without them. That's
Speaker 1: a temptation I've had a hard time passing up. Just
Speaker 1: between you and I. When I get off the air
Speaker 1: late at night and there's an episode that I so
Speaker 1: want to watch, It's the perfect way to relax too
Speaker 1: in the day a crazy day, but generally most of
Speaker 1: the time, I am able to resist most of the time,
Speaker 1: and so glad that I have when I finally settle
Speaker 1: in with the kids and a bowl of popcorn and
Speaker 1: we all watch it together. Welcoming Dallas Jenkins to love
Speaker 1: someone is a really big treat, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do that right after I share some information with you
Speaker 1: about one of my amazing podcast sponsors, Annie's Kit Clubs.
Speaker 1: Without them, these conversations would not be possible. I love
Speaker 1: being creative, and I'm excited to welcome Annie's Kit Clubs
Speaker 1: as one of my podcast sponsors. As fast paced and
Speaker 1: crazy as the world is today, I love that Annie's
Speaker 1: Kids get kids off the screens and into some hands
Speaker 1: on creative fun. There's kids for all ages, even adults,
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Speaker 1: has a great summer offer sec off your first month
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Speaker 1: a world of creativity. Hi Dallas, Hello, Hello, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm good, Dallas. I'd like you to meet Jan Haynes.
Speaker 1: Jan is one of my dearest friends in the world.
Speaker 1: I invited her to be a part of this podcast
Speaker 1: for one reason. She's the reason I know about you
Speaker 1: and I know about Chosen. Jan and I go away
Speaker 1: way back. We were friends in college and then we
Speaker 1: you know, when our separate ways lost touch and how
Speaker 1: many years ago, Jan to God bring us back together,
Speaker 1: fourteen fourteen years ago, and when we reconnected, I convinced
Speaker 1: her to step up to the plate and become the
Speaker 1: director of my ministry, my charity that I birth and
Speaker 1: that she has carried to amazing heights. She is the
Speaker 1: international director of Point Hope. That is really awesome to hear.
Speaker 1: When covid hit, Jan said, you have to watch the Chosen,
Speaker 1: And every time she would call me, she said, have
Speaker 1: you watched the Chosen yet? Have you found the Chosen yet?
Speaker 1: So we started watching the Chosen. Oh my word, Dallas,
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you how your projects has blessed
Speaker 1: our family. It means a lot, Thank you. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's been a life changing experience for all of
Speaker 1: us involved, and I feel fortunate to just be a
Speaker 1: part of it. God clearly has something to say, and
Speaker 1: I feel like he has something he wants communicated to
Speaker 1: the world right now and I'm just trying to do
Speaker 1: my best to steward it. And it's it's been a
Speaker 1: it's been really cool to see. So tell me I
Speaker 1: know a little bit about your history. Thank you, jan Um,
Speaker 1: But tell our listeners you kind of have a background.
Speaker 1: It's kind of in your DNA to create amazing programming. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad is Jerry Jenkins, who's the author of the
Speaker 1: left Behind books. Last year was actually the anniversary of
Speaker 1: left Behind coming into the world, which was right around
Speaker 1: when The Chosen was really coming into the world. So
Speaker 1: it's been really cool to see two different generations kind
Speaker 1: of have a similar experience, which is my dad took
Speaker 1: the Bible, in his case, the Book of Revelation and
Speaker 1: and put it into a context of what would it
Speaker 1: look like if it was if you know, if it
Speaker 1: came true today. And The Chosen isn't a modern telling
Speaker 1: of the story, but it also takes the Bible and
Speaker 1: puts it into a context that is digestible and viewable
Speaker 1: and something that makes it a little bit more real,
Speaker 1: a little bit more personal, more human, a way to
Speaker 1: really experience it, you know. So I think that's clearly
Speaker 1: where I inherited the desire to tell stories, or to
Speaker 1: desire to take my faith and communicate it through the
Speaker 1: power of storytelling and through media in some ways. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is my my background. And for sure, I
Speaker 1: think the greatest thing that I inherited from my dad
Speaker 1: besides the love of storytelling, though, is just the fact
Speaker 1: that when he experienced the Left Behind phenomenon, I saw
Speaker 1: firsthand just how much it humbled him and how much
Speaker 1: how surrendered he was, and how it didn't actually become
Speaker 1: a personal thing for him or an ego thing for him.
Speaker 1: As the Chosen has started to reach some of the
Speaker 1: heights that Left Behind reached, I I just had such
Speaker 1: a great model of how to make sure that I
Speaker 1: maintain that this is not about my own work, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've, I've I'm trying to do my part,
Speaker 1: but ultimately, the feeding of the five thousand uh is
Speaker 1: God's job, and my job is just to provide the
Speaker 1: loaves and fish. The first episode, I was so hooked
Speaker 1: and I thought, yeah, how's how are they going to
Speaker 1: follow that up? Each one gets better and better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good to hear. I mean, but since you're using
Speaker 1: the term better and better, and I would I would
Speaker 1: push back just a bit on that, because I don't
Speaker 1: think that I'm necessarily a better storyteller or director each episode.
Speaker 1: I think that it's just we're doing something that's really unique,
Speaker 1: which is there's never been a multi season show about
Speaker 1: the life of Christ. And one of the things about
Speaker 1: multi season shows that I think is really great, and
Speaker 1: I think what has served us really well for this
Speaker 1: story is that in a movie or a mini series,
Speaker 1: when you're trying to tell the story of Jesus, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of ground to cover in a short
Speaker 1: amount of time, So you don't get the characterizations, you
Speaker 1: don't get the you don't fall in love with certain
Speaker 1: characters during needs, you don't see much of an arc.
Speaker 1: It's just Jesus goes from miracle to miracle, Bible verse
Speaker 1: to Bible verse, and you're not really emotionally engaged in
Speaker 1: each incident. You're just kind of watching it from a
Speaker 1: voyeuristic perspective, like, oh, that's cool, Yeah, I remember that,
Speaker 1: I remember that story from the Bible. Oh look how
Speaker 1: they did that. That's really interesting. Um. Whereas with the Chosen,
Speaker 1: because we have the time to introduce you to these
Speaker 1: people and really show you there before that, that's what
Speaker 1: we call the before they met actually Jesus, they actually
Speaker 1: met Jesus, and we get a chance that we were
Speaker 1: not rushed. We really get to take our time. It's
Speaker 1: not that the episodes are getting better and better. It's
Speaker 1: just that you know these people more and more, and
Speaker 1: so in the first episode, when you don't know them
Speaker 1: at all, you're kind of confused. Maybe you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out who they are. You're trying to get to
Speaker 1: know them, like like any show, the first episode of
Speaker 1: any show can be a little bit challenging. But then
Speaker 1: once you really get to know them and fall in
Speaker 1: love with them, you'd love you. You'd be happy to
Speaker 1: watch them read the phone book. And so each episode,
Speaker 1: the more you know them, the more impactful each of
Speaker 1: these moments are. And so that's been what's so cool
Speaker 1: and unique about the show is that we are doing
Speaker 1: it in a multi season format that really gives the
Speaker 1: time to explore each of these stories to their full extent. Well,
Speaker 1: that may be part of it. But I've picked up
Speaker 1: two on the chemistry between the actors the performers. You
Speaker 1: can tell there is genuine love, respect, humor, Like you
Speaker 1: can't fake that. I don't care how good of a
Speaker 1: director you are, how good of writers you have, you
Speaker 1: cannot fake the tenderness that has developed. And it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to watch to be a part of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really have become in many ways a family, the
Speaker 1: cast and crew. What's really exciting about it is that
Speaker 1: you know at least half, if not more, of the
Speaker 1: cast and garity, even believers. I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: for a lot of them. They range from atheists to agnostic,
Speaker 1: to journeying in their faith to two believers. We have
Speaker 1: the we have the whole spectrum, but we're all united
Speaker 1: by the desire to really to make a great show
Speaker 1: as much as possible and to see the impact that
Speaker 1: it's having. I think has been in has been life
Speaker 1: altering for everyone involved. And I think because we're part
Speaker 1: of something that feels bigger than we are, and I
Speaker 1: think we all feel lucky and humbled to be part
Speaker 1: of it, I think that does contribute to it. I
Speaker 1: think you do see a we don't want to screw
Speaker 1: this up. We don't want to let our egos get
Speaker 1: in the way. And I try to model that from
Speaker 1: the top, you know, just from a servant leadership and
Speaker 1: and humor and all of these things that that when
Speaker 1: people come onto our set, they do feel loved, they
Speaker 1: do feel cared for and seen and uh and I
Speaker 1: think that comes through in the show. So in this podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to assume that most people listening have
Speaker 1: not seen the full series and now the second series
Speaker 1: of The Chosen, the second season of The Chosen. But
Speaker 1: more than that, we stay and watch you because after
Speaker 1: each episode, sometimes before each episode, you share a little
Speaker 1: bit of information and for me, that is as actful
Speaker 1: almost as the episode, hearing the little behind the scenes stories.
Speaker 1: So tell my listeners how this thing came to be,
Speaker 1: because you're not funded by one of the big you know,
Speaker 1: movie tell the story of how it came to be
Speaker 1: and how you really had to step out on faith
Speaker 1: to make this happen. Yeah, my partner in this project
Speaker 1: is a guy by the name of Darrell Leaves, and
Speaker 1: he told me early on, he said, it's one thing
Speaker 1: for a project or a show or YouTube influencer or
Speaker 1: a brand or a company to have success. But the
Speaker 1: brands and the companies and the projects and the ministries
Speaker 1: whatever that really have a legacy, and that really makes
Speaker 1: people feel like they're part of something and that they're
Speaker 1: part of a mission, or when they actually know your
Speaker 1: story as well, and when they trust you and they
Speaker 1: feel like they're on a journey with you. And so
Speaker 1: he was really encouraging me to make the as I'm
Speaker 1: making the show, to be telling my story as well,
Speaker 1: and to build our social media pages as an unvarnished,
Speaker 1: authentic peek behind the curtain of how this has made
Speaker 1: and also what it's doing in my life. And I
Speaker 1: was at first a little bit resistant to that, partially
Speaker 1: because I didn't think I had time, but also there's
Speaker 1: always that fear of what it's not about me, you know,
Speaker 1: I want I want people just to enjoy the show
Speaker 1: or to be impacted by the stories. But he said, no,
Speaker 1: that's it's actually it actually can be an enhancing part
Speaker 1: of the process. So the reason I say that is
Speaker 1: just to explain kind of where the decision came from
Speaker 1: to show this journey from the beginning. And people have said,
Speaker 1: like what you just said, which is for a lot
Speaker 1: of them, not everybody. Some people don't care about me
Speaker 1: and just want to watch the episodes, and that's completely fine.
Speaker 1: But for a lot of people seeing my story, seeing
Speaker 1: my wife's story, seeing how we went from failure from
Speaker 1: a very low point. I mean, this show was birthed
Speaker 1: from failure. I had just had a big career failure.
Speaker 1: My movie had bombed at the box office. I went
Speaker 1: from the director with a bright future to a director
Speaker 1: with no future, and to suspend of a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: I ended up pouring myself into a short film for
Speaker 1: my true Just Christmas Eve service that was filmed on
Speaker 1: my friend's farm in Illinois, twenty minutes from my house.
Speaker 1: And that thing, that little short film I did about
Speaker 1: the birth of Christ is the catalyst. Is the the
Speaker 1: quote unquote proof of concept that ultimately went out on
Speaker 1: social media and generated over ten million dollars from nineteen
Speaker 1: thoud people around the world who crowdfunded Season one. That
Speaker 1: is mind blowing. The first time something that magnitude has happened. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the number one all time crowdfunded media project of
Speaker 1: all time. I love that. I don't think Dallas it
Speaker 1: would be what it is had you been a huge
Speaker 1: success with your last movie. Had you been writing that
Speaker 1: high Oh, that's that's unarguable. I mean, I think, first
Speaker 1: of all, just from a purely logistical perspective, if my
Speaker 1: last movie had succeeded, I would not be making the
Speaker 1: show because I'd be doing other movies. That was the
Speaker 1: plan with all these Hollywood companies was who We're gonna
Speaker 1: do this movie, that they're gonna do five more movies
Speaker 1: over the next ten years. And I was set. And
Speaker 1: then they all pulled out after the first movie Bone,
Speaker 1: and two things happened. One is I think again, I
Speaker 1: became available to do what I think God was really
Speaker 1: calling me to do. But then second, I think, just
Speaker 1: even for me personally, God was waiting for me to
Speaker 1: be broken. He was waiting for me to be surrendered.
Speaker 1: He was waiting for me to truly believe it's not
Speaker 1: my job to feed to five thousand, It's only to
Speaker 1: provide the loaves and fish. And I didn't truly believe that.
Speaker 1: I was trying to control everything. And so once I
Speaker 1: was truly broken and surrendered. Uh. And and that's been
Speaker 1: part of my story and part of the story of
Speaker 1: the show. If I tell the story All the time,
Speaker 1: I show how I'm growing, how I'm failing. We just
Speaker 1: let you see behind the curtain. And for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, I think that that allows them to a
Speaker 1: connect with the show a little bit more because they
Speaker 1: trust me. But I also think that they also connect
Speaker 1: with my story. I think people everyone can connect with
Speaker 1: being in the wilderness, with being under the fig tree.
Speaker 1: Like Nathaniel was crying out to God, you know, asking
Speaker 1: if he sees him, and that was me. And I
Speaker 1: think that as they've seen us not shy away from
Speaker 1: showing our failure years and showing our struggles and those times,
Speaker 1: even after the show started to be successful, other problems
Speaker 1: creeped up and I would get online and say, look,
Speaker 1: this is where I'm struggling. What do I do? I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do next. That whole part of it,
Speaker 1: I think has connected people even more to the show.
Speaker 1: And I think that's been all part of this whole process. Well,
Speaker 1: you're doing a wonderful job and I don't even know
Speaker 1: is there a way to rate how many millions of
Speaker 1: people have been touched, have watched have Like do you
Speaker 1: have a barometer? Do you have a measuring stick? Not
Speaker 1: that it matters. I mean, well, yeah, it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: really doesn't matter in the sense that I don't actually
Speaker 1: have expectations or goals. I'm just trying to do what
Speaker 1: God wants me to do, and I wanted my My
Speaker 1: goal is to introduce the authentic Jesus to the world.
Speaker 1: And the way we phrase it is we want to
Speaker 1: introduce the authentic Jesus to a billion people. But the
Speaker 1: billion people goal is more just like a symbol. It's
Speaker 1: a representation of the fact that we want people to
Speaker 1: spread the word we want like jam for you, your
Speaker 1: friend jan who told you to watch the show. She
Speaker 1: was like Philip do or Nathaniel. You know in the Gospels,
Speaker 1: Philip goes to Nathaniel and says, come in, see those
Speaker 1: three words that I think are three of the most
Speaker 1: powerful words in all of the Scripture. And Nathaniel's responses, Oh,
Speaker 1: can anything good come out of Nazareth? I mean, he
Speaker 1: just doesn't believe it. So many people were hesitant to
Speaker 1: watch The Chosen because they thought, can anything good come
Speaker 1: out of Christian media? But there's always a Philip who says, no,
Speaker 1: just just watch it, just come and see. We want
Speaker 1: to encourage people to go and tell others and to
Speaker 1: spread the word and say, come and see this is
Speaker 1: how the show has impacted my life. But right now,
Speaker 1: so far, we know how many views there have been,
Speaker 1: how many people have watched the show in some form,
Speaker 1: and it's approaching a hundred and seventy million or so.
Speaker 1: How many people that is, we don't know for sure
Speaker 1: because so many people watch the show together. So sometimes
Speaker 1: there's one view that shows up on our app, but
Speaker 1: that was ten people watching all at once, or nine
Speaker 1: nine nine in our living exactly. Or you know, we
Speaker 1: saw a picture from Nigeria where there's this whole group
Speaker 1: of Nigerians who watched the show all at once, and
Speaker 1: then there's other people who've watched the show twenty five times,
Speaker 1: even though it's one person. So we don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how many people it is. What we do know that
Speaker 1: it's in every country in the world. We know that
Speaker 1: we've heard from people in countries like Iran and China
Speaker 1: who said that because of the app was free and accessible,
Speaker 1: they could they could have an experience with the scripture
Speaker 1: or at least the stories of the scriptures that have
Speaker 1: driven them closer to the Bible, which they would have
Speaker 1: been able to do otherwise if it wasn't on this app,
Speaker 1: that could just get directly to their phone. So the
Speaker 1: numbers don't matter on one sense, but another sense, they
Speaker 1: do represent lives touched, and that really is what it's
Speaker 1: all about. Well, I am so excited to talk to
Speaker 1: you and so proud to get to talk about this because,
Speaker 1: like I said it, it's really been a gift to
Speaker 1: our family, especially during the COVID shutdown. I think it
Speaker 1: drew us closer. And don't tell my older kids, but
Speaker 1: Jan made me watch a few episodes in the new season.
Speaker 1: Now we've watched two of them as a family together.
Speaker 1: They don't know that I kind of cheated and my
Speaker 1: husband and I watched without them, because that would be
Speaker 1: a big betrayal. It's a family thing. I'm make sure
Speaker 1: that doesn't get out as long as long as we
Speaker 1: don't talk about it on this podcast. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: know they don't listen to my podcast. Come on, are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Um? And I want to talk specifically
Speaker 1: about a couple of the elements in the show. Where
Speaker 1: do you shoot it? So? Most of it has been
Speaker 1: filmed in Texas. Half of season two was filmed in Utah,
Speaker 1: there's an extraordinary set in goshen Utah that's kind of
Speaker 1: a first century recreation of Jerusalem that we used for
Speaker 1: some of Season two. We'll use that off and on
Speaker 1: throughout the future seasons. I'm also moving to Texas this summer.
Speaker 1: My family is moving because we're setting up our permanent
Speaker 1: home both for our family and for the show in Texas.
Speaker 1: We're building some sets. Yeah, Texas is the primary spot.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up a couple of things about
Speaker 1: the actual characters and the actual show. Tell everybody how
Speaker 1: you found the actor that plays Jesus. The actor is
Speaker 1: named Jonathan Roomy, And about seven years ago, I did
Speaker 1: a short film for my church is Good Friday Service
Speaker 1: and it was about the Crucifixion from the perspective of
Speaker 1: the two thieves. So that's when I first started doing
Speaker 1: this of telling the stories of Jesus but from different perspectives,
Speaker 1: not changing the story, just giving you a unique look
Speaker 1: into it, an a unique perspective. And Jonathan, the Jesus
Speaker 1: only shows up in the short film for about five
Speaker 1: to ten minutes and the majority of it is about
Speaker 1: these two thieves. And Jonathan had auditioned for one of
Speaker 1: the two thieves, and he did a good job. But
Speaker 1: I had these two guys who were terrific and they
Speaker 1: were the best choices. But I didn't have a Jesus.
Speaker 1: The people who are auditioning for Jesus just weren't very
Speaker 1: good at all. So I had Jonathan auditioned for Jesus,
Speaker 1: and twenty seconds into it, I thought, oh, my goodness,
Speaker 1: this is special. I mean, this guy has something. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but uh. And then I
Speaker 1: remember when we were filming it. Uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: only scene we had with Jesus in this in the
Speaker 1: short film was on the cross, and I remember saying
Speaker 1: to a few people around me, this is the best
Speaker 1: portrayal of Jesus I've ever seen, and it's only five
Speaker 1: minutes of screen time. He had the tenderness mixed with masculinity,
Speaker 1: he had the heart mixed with you know, the intensity.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was really something. And so for the
Speaker 1: next few years I would do short films and vignettes
Speaker 1: for my church and we and I would cast jon
Speaker 1: you know, I would work with Jonathan as Jesus. And
Speaker 1: so when it came time to do this show, when
Speaker 1: we had this opportunity, I called him up and obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean he was the first one I cast, and
Speaker 1: I just said, so, we've got an opportunity to take
Speaker 1: the show on the road. I don't know how we're
Speaker 1: going to fund it yet, how it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I'm trusting that God is gonna multiply the fishes
Speaker 1: and loves well. He does a wonderful, wonderful job, and
Speaker 1: You're right, he is such a delightful mix. Yeah, he really.
Speaker 1: I think the performance is really I think a word
Speaker 1: that can be used to describe it as transcendent. I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like I've had countless people say they they
Speaker 1: are drawn closer to Christ because of his performance. I
Speaker 1: think they have this healthy respect for the difference between
Speaker 1: Jonathan and Jesus. But it does feel like when we're
Speaker 1: when they watched the show, that there's something really beautiful
Speaker 1: happening and some thing that that is not only touching
Speaker 1: the characters in the story that we're telling, but it's
Speaker 1: touching them personally. I want to ask you about a
Speaker 1: couple other characters, Dallas, but I need to give a
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Speaker 1: I am so grateful to them for supporting this format
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Speaker 1: next character that I am so smitten with Matthew, who
Speaker 1: I read the Gospel a million well, I wish i'd
Speaker 1: read a moment. I've read them several times, and I
Speaker 1: am the mother of a child. One of my three
Speaker 1: birth children is on the artistic spectrum. I never thought
Speaker 1: until the chosen you know what I met Matthew was
Speaker 1: perhaps on the autistic spectrum and the way that you
Speaker 1: have developed his character, and it's you know, sticking to scripture.
Speaker 1: He was the man who wanted everything written down perfectly, brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 1: When we were first deciding who the main characters the
Speaker 1: show we're going to be, Matthew stuck out to us
Speaker 1: because it was such a such an interesting story to unpack,
Speaker 1: which is all we know in scripture is you know,
Speaker 1: Jesus walked by his booth said follow me. Matthew dropped
Speaker 1: everything and followed him, and he was a tax collector.
Speaker 1: Were like, wow, that's really fascinating from what we know
Speaker 1: about tax collectors at that time. So we started doing
Speaker 1: our character profile of how we're going to kind of
Speaker 1: write this guy. He started noticing some things that are interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, he's clearly a numbers guy because he was
Speaker 1: a tax collector, a facts guy. The first chapter of
Speaker 1: his book is nothing but a genealogy, and it's split
Speaker 1: up into three, you know, divisions of fourteen exactly, so
Speaker 1: he's very precise and uh. And then he shows a
Speaker 1: profession that made him an outcast. You know, he was
Speaker 1: hated by the Jews and disrespected by the Romans, and
Speaker 1: I just thought, huh, I have a lot of familiarity
Speaker 1: with the autism spectrum. It's in my family and my
Speaker 1: wife and I do a lot of volunteer work with
Speaker 1: special needs communities, and I just know it very well.
Speaker 1: And I thought, this guy sounds like someone who would
Speaker 1: be I don't know if it's a fact, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly plausible that he could have been on the OPTATIM spectrum.
Speaker 1: And wouldn't that be a really human, interesting, fascinating way
Speaker 1: to get into not only this character, but into the
Speaker 1: show itself. I felt like it's a way to kind
Speaker 1: of humanize this character and humanize the show. And it
Speaker 1: has been, besides Jesus, by far the most compelling character
Speaker 1: for people and also the most impactful. We hear from
Speaker 1: people families of autistic family members all the time who
Speaker 1: whose lives have been impacted by seeing that Jesus chose him,
Speaker 1: he could choose me, and it's never been done before.
Speaker 1: I've never seen you, I've never seen a special needs
Speaker 1: character in a Jesus project. So I feel like it's
Speaker 1: something that's just been one of the top three things
Speaker 1: that set the show apart, but one of the things
Speaker 1: that happened in my mind after you presented Matthew as
Speaker 1: perhaps somebody on the spectrum, I went back and reread
Speaker 1: the Gospels and went, all of these characters are special needs.
Speaker 1: We all have massive deficits. Uh. Jan and I worked
Speaker 1: together so well because some of our deficits are similar,
Speaker 1: so that we don't get on each other's nerves when
Speaker 1: we go. We could go to a warehouse and get
Speaker 1: sixteen eighteen twenty medical beds, you know, our husbands or
Speaker 1: our families like, oh, here they go again. But she
Speaker 1: is very very good at following through with details. I'm
Speaker 1: not right after I saw you portray Matthew that way,
Speaker 1: when I went back and reread the Gospels, are like, wow,
Speaker 1: Jesus really does love those of us that are weirdos
Speaker 1: and outcast and and I love that. Yeah. And at
Speaker 1: some point Simon in episode four, season one, he says
Speaker 1: to Matthew, You're a little off, aren't you. And of
Speaker 1: course they didn't have a diagnosis back then, so I mean,
Speaker 1: I I'm certain that they had some form of autism
Speaker 1: back then, but they didn't have a diagnosis for it,
Speaker 1: of course. And like a lot of things that we've
Speaker 1: discovered of the years. But I think that's such a
Speaker 1: great way to look at it, which is, huh, Matthew's
Speaker 1: got a deficit in certain areas, but it's just a
Speaker 1: different deficit from what everyone else has. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the story of the show, is that we really
Speaker 1: try to tell you the story of Jesus to the
Speaker 1: eyes of those who met him, so that you can
Speaker 1: identify with their problems, their question their concerns, their struggles,
Speaker 1: and then hopefully identified with the solution and the answer.
Speaker 1: And so when someone is able to say that's me,
Speaker 1: I'm Matthew, or I'm Mary Magdalene, or I'm Simon Peter,
Speaker 1: or I'm Nicodemus, then hopefully they can then identify with
Speaker 1: the answer to that problem. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: is resonating so much about the show. Those just people
Speaker 1: feel like they can see themselves in these people from
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago, and then by definition, then connect
Speaker 1: with Jesus. My next character was going to be Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: There's one scene that I've probably watched the episode three
Speaker 1: or four times now, and each time it brings me
Speaker 1: to tears. When Nicodemus leans up against the wall and
Speaker 1: realizes he can't. He can't give up the comforts of
Speaker 1: the life that he has. He's unwilling to be broken. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How many times do we do that every day? Do
Speaker 1: we have the choice to walk the path of Messiah,
Speaker 1: but we don't want to give up the comforts? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes those comforts are those idols that
Speaker 1: we have in our life look different and they're they're
Speaker 1: not as obvious, you know. Sometimes it's an obvious one,
Speaker 1: like someone's an alcoholic and they just can't get over
Speaker 1: their addiction and it just keeps them from from God.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's pride, sometimes it's comforts. Sometimes it's a relationship.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's golf, sometimes it's money, whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: we we just portrayed Nicodemus. We saw in scripture that
Speaker 1: he met Jesus at night, which was indicates that he
Speaker 1: did it on purpose to be hidden. I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw that he believed. He actually says, you know, you
Speaker 1: must be from God because of all the things like
Speaker 1: he he was unique among the Pharisees for believing in God.
Speaker 1: But yet we don't see him in scripture following Jesus
Speaker 1: until Jesus dies. Um, we see that he you know,
Speaker 1: shows up briefly later in the Gospel of John is
Speaker 1: kind of halfheartedly defending him, but it's clear that he
Speaker 1: doesn't go public with his belief. He's just not willing
Speaker 1: to give up his status. And then when Jesus dies, though,
Speaker 1: I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, Nicodemus
Speaker 1: looked in that and went, oh, my goodness, I get
Speaker 1: it now, and he gave up everything. Then then he
Speaker 1: contributed tens of thousands of dollars and perfumes and spices
Speaker 1: for jesus burial. He publicly buried. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: he was all in at that point, and I think
Speaker 1: it is heartbreaking when you realize what we miss out
Speaker 1: on if we wait until it's I mean, I believe
Speaker 1: Nicodemus a story is ultimately triumphant, but think of all
Speaker 1: he gave up by not being willing to give up
Speaker 1: something different. And Jesus says that to him. He says,
Speaker 1: I know it's difficult, and I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: to give up, but if you follow me and you'll
Speaker 1: see so much more. And I think that's the message
Speaker 1: of the gospels. So what's been the hardest thing for
Speaker 1: you personally to give up? I don't know if we
Speaker 1: have enough time to talk about all of it, um
Speaker 1: but I for me, what I experienced few years ago was,
Speaker 1: at that time the hardest thing that I had to
Speaker 1: give up was my desire to control, my desire to
Speaker 1: affect the outcomes of my life, and to be willing
Speaker 1: to be broken and surrendered because each day you're dependent
Speaker 1: and giving up control, giving up future expectations and predictions
Speaker 1: and all of that has been immensely difficult for me.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to give up now, which I'm not
Speaker 1: where I'm not doing very well, is things like time management,
Speaker 1: things like uh, you know, I really feel oftentimes the
Speaker 1: pressure of maintaining this entire project. I mean, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I'm the leader of it, and
Speaker 1: there's so much that I'm responsible for, and I have
Speaker 1: to be willing to give up certain things to really
Speaker 1: do that. So I'm still a good husband and father
Speaker 1: And right now I'm giving up sleep. Right now, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give up my my family time,
Speaker 1: and I can't give up the time it takes to
Speaker 1: make the show and to pitch the show to people
Speaker 1: and to make sure that we're marketing the show and
Speaker 1: telling my story. But I'll say'll just give up sleep,
Speaker 1: and that's not really good either. That's not a good solution. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I got to make sure that that that the
Speaker 1: show itself doesn't become its own idol, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Well, thank you for spending the time that
Speaker 1: you've spent here with us today. Jan I know you
Speaker 1: want to tell Dallas something. Well, I will say that
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity to pay it for it, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity to be able to say that
Speaker 1: lives can be touched. And um, I know for sure
Speaker 1: that the Chosen is being seen in Ghana because that's
Speaker 1: her point. Hope works and that's where I've taken the
Speaker 1: DVDs two and we had little around Eastern time when
Speaker 1: a surprise surprise there might have been a second season
Speaker 1: got started. We gathered around some tablets and televisions and
Speaker 1: got to watch it there and got them caught up beforehand.
Speaker 1: So it's been a blessing on many levels. That's that's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it recks me every time I hear about some of
Speaker 1: these countries that normally and there would never get a
Speaker 1: chance to watch something like this or I can't afford
Speaker 1: it or whatever, but to know that through the power
Speaker 1: of the technology and my my partners at our distribution
Speaker 1: company who invented this technology, that you can just grab
Speaker 1: it wherever you're at, um and it's in countries like
Speaker 1: China and Iran, which you know, we've just kind of
Speaker 1: gotten past the gatekeepers and just gotten directly to the people.
Speaker 1: And that's been the coolest thing about it. So I
Speaker 1: love the fact you just strike me as someone who
Speaker 1: wants to to tell the world and show the world
Speaker 1: who Jesus say is wherever that takes you. And that's
Speaker 1: really let me. Can I just brag on my friend
Speaker 1: here for a minute. Dallas Jan and her husband have
Speaker 1: four biological children. They have adopted a number of children
Speaker 1: on top of their four bio children, and both of
Speaker 1: her bio daughters have opened their homes to kids in
Speaker 1: foster care and adoption. And when her daughters adopt or
Speaker 1: take in or foster a child, um Jan is grandma
Speaker 1: and it's not like she separates out well these are
Speaker 1: the bio grandkids, or these are this, this and everything
Speaker 1: she touches she touches with the love of God. It's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Well, that's that's very clear. I'm a adoptive
Speaker 1: dad myself. We have a child from Thailand, and then
Speaker 1: right now in my home, my wife's sister is here
Speaker 1: and she's got two adopted kids, and my brother has
Speaker 1: to adopted kids. I've I've always said that that adoption
Speaker 1: is the single number one representation of what God's relationship
Speaker 1: is with us. He adopted, adopts us into into his family.
Speaker 1: You know, we are adopted sons and daughters, as the
Speaker 1: scriptures say. And to see that's what true diversity looks like.
Speaker 1: That's what where it's it's it's not being done to
Speaker 1: try to check off a box. It's being done because
Speaker 1: it's literally changing the nature of your family is the
Speaker 1: most beautiful picture of it. So that's really awesome. Dallas
Speaker 1: Jenkins from The Chosen, thank you for spending this time
Speaker 1: with us here today, and I just I cannot thank
Speaker 1: you enough for the good work that you've done and
Speaker 1: for inspiring my family. That means a lot of Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It as a pleasure and we'll hopefully
Speaker 1: do it a after season three. Al right, God bless
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Guys. After Jeanne and I were
Speaker 1: chatting about the latest episode of The Chosen. She asked me,
Speaker 1: why hadn't I ever interviewed Dallas? Yeah, why haven't you,
Speaker 1: I asked myself in reply. So I sent out at
Speaker 1: ap B to all my friends in the media world
Speaker 1: asking if anyone had any connections that could put me
Speaker 1: in touch with Dallas Jenkins. To my absolute delight, a
Speaker 1: few did, and to my further astonishment, a few days later,
Speaker 1: I found myself having an email exchange with him. I
Speaker 1: was fan geeking, I truly was. This man has brought
Speaker 1: so much joy to our family with his series The
Speaker 1: Chosen and helped us to bond in our love for
Speaker 1: one another and our faith together in such a beautiful way.
Speaker 1: Dallas was so generous with his time and his spirit.
Speaker 1: He's been so charming and inspiring, the absolute perfect guest
Speaker 1: for this program. If you have not yet discovered The Chosen,
Speaker 1: you are in for the biggest treat of your life.
Speaker 1: And there's more good news. You can watch the show
Speaker 1: for free anywhere in the world by downloading the mobile app.
Speaker 1: Go to www. Dot The Chosen dot tv backslash app
Speaker 1: The Chosen dot tv backslash a p P, or search
Speaker 1: The Chosen in your app store. From the app, you
Speaker 1: can even stream to your TV using devices like Roku, Apple, TV, Fire, TV,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Thank you for joining us today. If I
Speaker 1: sound a little giddy, my apologies. This has been a
Speaker 1: dream come true for me and for my girlfriend jan
Speaker 1: I hope you as well join me in the evenings
Speaker 1: on my radio program and join me when I have
Speaker 1: another episode I've Loved Someone m