Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / The Night COVID Closed the Doors and 3 Million People Heard the Gospel
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Life Audio.
- 0:04Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, thanks for joining me.
- 0:06Speaker 3: Absolutely, Michael. It's an honor to be with you today.
- 0:09Speaker 2: Matt Neff, CEO of Sight & Sound Theaters, which brings
- 0:12Speaker 2: the Bible to life. I'm big fans of what you
- 0:14Speaker 2: guys do. You do this through live theatrical musicals, celebrating
- 0:20Speaker 2: your 50th anniversary this year. You guys have theaters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
- 0:24Speaker 2: and Branson, Missouri. As I say, Lancaster, I think. I
- 0:27Speaker 2: might be mispronouncing that.
- 0:29Speaker 4: Not bad.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Not bad.
- 0:31Speaker 2: I don't want to assume everybody knows what you guys do,
- 0:34Speaker 2: who you are. What do you think makes Sight &
- 0:36Speaker 2: Sound unique? And for those who have never been there,
- 0:38Speaker 2: what is Sight & Sound?
- 0:41Speaker 3: Yes.
- 0:42Speaker 4: Well, we are first and foremost storytellers. That is our calling.
- 0:45Speaker 4: That is our passion. We love bringing either the Bible
- 0:49Speaker 4: to life on stage shows or true redemptive stories of
- 0:53Speaker 4: God's intervention with man on screen via films.
- 0:57Speaker 3: That's our passion. And we love storytelling.
- 1:00Speaker 4: Using the creativity God has given us to tell these
- 1:02Speaker 4: stories that have been changing lives for hundreds or thousands
- 1:05Speaker 4: of years. And our role is simply to tell them
- 1:08Speaker 4: again and see how the Lord works through them. And
- 1:11Speaker 4: that does not get boring.
- 1:14Speaker 2: And these are not just Bible plays. I'll try my
- 1:18Speaker 2: best to describe it, but I think I've heard it
- 1:21Speaker 2: described as a stage as wide as a football field.
- 1:25Speaker 2: So it's kind of a surround sound stage.
- 1:27Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:28Speaker 5: You have live animals, you have screens, you have special effects,
- 1:33Speaker 5: there's people walking up and down the aisles, you know, characters,
- 1:38Speaker 5: characters and animals, and it's a musical, of course.
- 1:41Speaker 3: Yes.
- 1:42Speaker 2: What would you add or, yeah, I mean, did I
- 1:45Speaker 2: get some of that right?
- 1:47Speaker 4: You totally did. You sound like a pro.
- 1:49Speaker 3: You've been here.
- 1:51Speaker 4: So, yeah, I think the biggest thing that makes us unique,
- 1:53Speaker 4: I'm not supposed to maybe say traditional theater, is the
- 1:56Speaker 4: immersive experience.
- 1:57Speaker 3: Elements.
- 1:58Speaker 4: And that's been from the beginning. Our founder, Glenn, as
- 2:02Speaker 4: a creative and an artist, just wanted to put people
- 2:05Speaker 4: in the heart of the story. How can we make
- 2:07Speaker 4: it more relative to the person in the seat? So
- 2:11Speaker 4: some of the things you mentioned are ways that we
- 2:13Speaker 4: do that. So every show when we're designing it, it's
- 2:16Speaker 4: designed with that in mind. How do we surround the
- 2:18Speaker 4: guest with the story that they can be a part
- 2:21Speaker 4: of that? And what we see happen is when you're
- 2:24Speaker 4: in the story, walls can come down, It connects hearts
- 2:27Speaker 4: to what the Lord wants to do. So some of
- 2:30Speaker 4: my favorite things to watch are if a guest comes in,
- 2:32Speaker 4: you can spot the guest who was drunk there, you know,
- 2:34Speaker 4: by a significant other, like the guy whose wife took
- 2:37Speaker 4: him to some Bible show, right? And in the beginning,
- 2:41Speaker 4: you know, his arms are crossed and he looks like
- 2:44Speaker 4: the furrowed brow. And then halfway through, he's like, okay,
- 2:47Speaker 4: all right, this is not what I expected. And by
- 2:50Speaker 4: the end, he's crying, you know, like those are my
- 2:52Speaker 4: favorite moments when you see that happen with guests.
- 2:55Speaker 3: And so, yeah. That's what we get to do.
- 2:57Speaker 2: How do you guys make sure that the spectacle doesn't
- 3:00Speaker 2: overshadow the message, though? Because it's both, but I'm just curious,
- 3:03Speaker 2: what would you say to that?
- 3:05Speaker 4: That is probably some of the most passionate debates in
- 3:07Speaker 4: the production process are letting story drive the spectacle. We
- 3:13Speaker 4: love cool stuff and things that impact people, but we
- 3:17Speaker 4: have to be really vigilant to say, but does it
- 3:19Speaker 4: serve the story? Does it advance the story? And if
- 3:23Speaker 4: it doesn't, then we have to Cut our darlings, so
- 3:26Speaker 4: to speak. Things we might be a little attached to, like, oh,
- 3:28Speaker 4: that would have looked cool. Yeah, but if it doesn't
- 3:31Speaker 4: really advance the story, it's not going to serve it.
- 3:34Speaker 4: And that makes for a better production, is what we found,
- 3:36Speaker 4: just by really being committed to what moves the story
- 3:40Speaker 4: forward the best. And I love how some of my
- 3:44Speaker 4: colleagues like to say it, when spectacle and story meet,
- 3:47Speaker 4: that's like the magic that can happen at sight and sound.
- 3:50Speaker 4: Great example of that would be an older show, right? Noah,
- 3:53Speaker 4: the story of Noah. Top of Act 2, you are
- 3:56Speaker 4: in the Ark for the first time.
- 3:58Speaker 3: The audience is literally in the Ark.
- 3:59Speaker 4: The curtains rise and you're surrounded by it. And it's
- 4:02Speaker 4: a moment where it's all coming together for Noah too.
- 4:05Speaker 4: So the heart of the story is hitting the same
- 4:08Speaker 4: time the spectacle is being revealed. Those are the magic
- 4:11Speaker 4: moments that we strive to hit. And just see what
- 4:15Speaker 4: the Lord does with that. It's pretty fun.
- 4:18Speaker 6: I don't know if you have an answer for this,
- 4:19Speaker 6: but I'm curious. How many different characters of the Bible
- 4:22Speaker 6: have you guys– spotlighted. And if you don't know, just
- 4:27Speaker 6: kind of help me name some of them. Samuel, Noah, Moses, Daniel, David.
- 4:34Speaker 6: Those are ones that are off the top of my head.
- 4:35Speaker 6: I think you had an Esther.
- 4:37Speaker 4: Jesus, Esther, Ruth.
- 4:40Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of them.
- 4:43Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about Joshua. That's your latest production.
- 4:49Speaker 2: Give us a preview of what that production is. And
- 4:53Speaker 2: I ask that because you could have gone a thousand
- 4:55Speaker 2: directions with that story.
- 4:58Speaker 3: That's always the challenge.
- 4:59Speaker 2: It's my understanding that it began, I haven't seen it yet.
- 5:01Speaker 2: I wish I had, but it's my understanding that it
- 5:03Speaker 2: begins long before he takes the mantle of leadership. Is
- 5:07Speaker 2: that correct?
- 5:08Speaker 3: Absolutely.
- 5:09Speaker 4: Yeah. And, and that's, I guess I'll give this little
- 5:12Speaker 4: sneak peek away, right?
- 5:12Speaker 3: Like we wanted to jump into.
- 5:14Speaker 4: The heart of the story and portray what made Joshua, Joshua.
- 5:20Speaker 4: So the top of the show literally jumps right into
- 5:22Speaker 4: the crossing of the Red Sea. Like, boom, curtain opens.
- 5:26Speaker 4: There's Moses on the rock.
- 5:28Speaker 3: Here they go.
- 5:29Speaker 4: And you start to see this just normal Israelite Joshua.
- 5:33Speaker 4: You see his character revealed in that first scene, even
- 5:36Speaker 4: in the crossing. You're like, there's something different about this guy.
- 5:39Speaker 4: You know, when everybody's complaining, there's something different.
- 5:41Speaker 3: About this guy.
- 5:43Speaker 4: He's keyed into what God is doing. He's keyed into
- 5:46Speaker 4: honoring Moses.
- 5:47Speaker 3: As their leader.
- 5:48Speaker 4: So yeah, there's a buildup to who this guy is.
- 5:51Speaker 4: The hard part when we're producing shows is identify what's
- 5:55Speaker 4: the core message we believe the Lord once told through
- 5:58Speaker 4: the story today, right? So it's not just, well, let's
- 6:01Speaker 4: retell Joshua. It's, no, what's the core theme?
- 6:05Speaker 3: What's the message?
- 6:05Speaker 4: And so like, for example, what emerged in this production
- 6:08Speaker 4: was the fact that the actual promised land was more
- 6:13Speaker 4: about the giver of the promise, right? Like the heart
- 6:16Speaker 4: of Moses, the heart of Joshua was to be about
- 6:20Speaker 4: God who was giving the promise. He is the promised land,
- 6:24Speaker 4: not the physical space so much, right? So it's like
- 6:27Speaker 4: most of Israel is like, let's just get to the,
- 6:29Speaker 4: get us to the promised land, you.
- 6:30Speaker 3: Know, whatever, whatever, whatever.
- 6:32Speaker 4: And you have that moment in the Bible with scripture
- 6:34Speaker 4: where Moses is saying like, Lord, if you go without,
- 6:37Speaker 4: or if you let us go there, but you're not
- 6:40Speaker 4: going with us, your presence is ignored before us, I
- 6:42Speaker 4: don't want to go.
- 6:44Speaker 3: Like that's the heartbeat.
- 6:45Speaker 4: So that essence of being with him is one of
- 6:48Speaker 4: the things we got to communicate through this story. And
- 6:51Speaker 4: that's the part I love about the show the most.
- 6:53Speaker 4: You just see this heart after the father and the fulfillment,
- 6:56Speaker 4: joy and peace, because you can find that in the wilderness.
- 6:59Speaker 4: You can find that when you have new food, when
- 7:01Speaker 4: you have new weather, like his presence is always accessible
- 7:05Speaker 4: to us. So for me, that's probably the main theme
- 7:08Speaker 4: that I love coming out of his production. And that's
- 7:11Speaker 4: the fun work is like mining for what are those subtle,
- 7:15Speaker 4: maybe hidden themes behind these characters that we've read about
- 7:18Speaker 4: hundreds of times maybe. Or in some cases, people have
- 7:22Speaker 4: never heard the story and now this is their first introduction.
- 7:26Speaker 2: I think a lot of times these productions, movies as well,
- 7:29Speaker 2: not specifically sight and sound movies, but Bible movies and
- 7:32Speaker 2: Bible productions, it's not driving back to the Bible because
- 7:35Speaker 2: I want to know which part of that was 100% biblical.
- 7:39Speaker 2: That really is.
- 7:40Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 7:40Speaker 2: And sometimes I'm shocked to learn that it was in
- 7:42Speaker 2: the Bible, you know, to my own shame. But how
- 7:47Speaker 2: do you guys balance creativity with biblical fidelity? Because that's
- 7:52Speaker 2: a question anybody who does these types of projects has
- 7:54Speaker 2: to deal with.
- 7:56Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 7:57Speaker 4: Because we recognize like we're, we are telling a creative portrayal, right?
- 8:01Speaker 4: A true story, but not just a true story, a
- 8:03Speaker 4: sacred scripture. So we take that pretty seriously. So When
- 8:07Speaker 4: push comes to shove, it's always going to err on,
- 8:10Speaker 4: we're going to honor God's word, right? Like, we're not
- 8:13Speaker 4: going to, I don't know, add some kind of crazy
- 8:15Speaker 4: character there.
- 8:16Speaker 3: That's going to make you go, wait, what?
- 8:18Speaker 4: What's this message about, right? That's not what the message
- 8:21Speaker 4: of that scripture said. So, finding creative ways to tell that. Like,
- 8:26Speaker 4: for example, we don't know much about Joshua's wife in scripture.
- 8:30Speaker 4: In the show, we have a character who plays his wife,
- 8:33Speaker 4: and she's a key part of the show. and how
- 8:35Speaker 4: she helps call him up, how they grow together. We
- 8:38Speaker 4: don't really know what that relationship looks like scripturally, but
- 8:42Speaker 4: that's not going to detract from core scripture, if that
- 8:45Speaker 4: makes sense. So that's how we endeavor to handle that.
- 8:50Speaker 2: And the cool thing about these productions is each one
- 8:52Speaker 2: of them ends with a gospel presentation. For those who
- 8:55Speaker 2: don't know, that's how it ends. You have the story
- 8:58Speaker 2: of Joshua, you have the story of Moses, you have
- 9:00Speaker 2: the story of David, and at the end of every
- 9:02Speaker 2: single show, You hear a gospel presentation. How did that
- 9:06Speaker 2: start and why is that so important to you guys?
- 9:08Speaker 4: That's a good question. How did it start?
- 9:11Speaker 3: I think it was, I don't know.
- 9:13Speaker 4: I feel like that's kind of always just one.
- 9:15Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does stretch back to the very
- 9:17Speaker 2: beginning because I think you're fabulous. So that's what I've
- 9:19Speaker 2: heard at least. You're founders.
- 9:20Speaker 3: Sure.
- 9:21Speaker 2: That was the point. You don't want to convert people
- 9:24Speaker 2: to followers of Joshua. You want to convert people to
- 9:26Speaker 2: followers of Jesus.
- 9:27Speaker 5: Right.
- 9:28Speaker 2: Well said.
- 9:29Speaker 3: That's about scripture, right?
- 9:30Speaker 4: And every story presents either a direct or a shadowed
- 9:34Speaker 4: image of Christ to come. So like, for example, in
- 9:37Speaker 4: this show, Joshua, right? There's that moment where the angel
- 9:40Speaker 4: of the Lord meets Joshua before they take Jericho. And
- 9:44Speaker 4: it's one of my favorite, like, even one of my
- 9:46Speaker 4: favorite scriptural interactions, even though it's brief. I just love
- 9:50Speaker 4: the fact that Joshua meets, he sees this warrior and
- 9:53Speaker 4: he goes, are you with us or against us?
- 9:56Speaker 3: It's like, neither.
- 9:57Speaker 4: The commander that hosts the Lord's armies. Oh, Joshua's on
- 10:00Speaker 4: the ground, right?
- 10:01Speaker 3: Shoes off. Like, this is all we know about.
- 10:04Speaker 4: So, there is that element in this story as well.
- 10:06Speaker 4: And that's where you get to see Christ interact with him. So, yeah,
- 10:11Speaker 4: everything is geared to point to him because that's what
- 10:14Speaker 4: scripture does.
- 10:16Speaker 2: So, amen to that. And you guys are I think
- 10:18Speaker 2: you're going to film one of these, film it before
- 10:21Speaker 2: a live audience and show it. You're going to bring
- 10:24Speaker 2: it to theaters all across America. Yeah. October the 30th.
- 10:27Speaker 2: Is there anything you would add to that?
- 10:39Speaker 4: Well, we love getting to do that because we recognize
- 10:43Speaker 4: right now that show is running in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So
- 10:46Speaker 4: the only way to see it is to physically come.
- 10:48Speaker 4: Not everybody can do that.
- 10:50Speaker 3: So to capture.
- 10:50Speaker 4: That before a live audience and then do a quick
- 10:54Speaker 4: edit and then show it around the country in movie
- 10:57Speaker 4: theaters is pretty exciting. It's a great way for people
- 10:59Speaker 4: to experience the story who maybe can't physically come.
- 11:02Speaker 2: And for those who missed what we said at the
- 11:04Speaker 2: top of the podcast here, there's a location in Lancaster,
- 11:08Speaker 2: one in Branson. They don't show the same production, though.
- 11:11Speaker 2: I don't even know what's showing in Branson right now,
- 11:13Speaker 2: but it's not Joshua. David is showing there. How often
- 11:18Speaker 2: do you guys launch new productions?
- 11:21Speaker 3: Pretty frequently.
- 11:22Speaker 4: We are always working on two new productions at a time.
- 11:25Speaker 4: It's a four-year process to create a show from start
- 11:28Speaker 4: to finish. So, yeah, we have new ones in the
- 11:31Speaker 4: works and excited to tell them if here's a hit.
- 11:35Speaker 2: When does the next one launch? Do we know that yet?
- 11:38Speaker 4: Well, next year we will have Jonah returning to the
- 11:41Speaker 4: Lancaster stage. It was last year, 2017. And every time
- 11:45Speaker 4: a show returns, it gives us a fresh opportunity to say,
- 11:48Speaker 4: all right, how do we make this more relevant for today?
- 11:51Speaker 4: What technology didn't exist last time it was on stage
- 11:53Speaker 4: that we can incorporate to make it more impactful? And
- 11:57Speaker 4: then at Branson, we'll have Daniel, the story of Daniel
- 12:00Speaker 4: will premiere in Branson next year. It'll be brand new
- 12:03Speaker 4: for the Branson stage.
- 12:05Speaker 3: And we're excited about that.
- 12:07Speaker 2: In terms of a brand new, brand new one, though,
- 12:08Speaker 2: I guess we're more than a year away from that one, though.
- 12:12Speaker 2: Stay tuned.
- 12:12Speaker 3: Okay.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Stay tuned. Well, we can talk about the movies. You
- 12:17Speaker 2: guys are now in the movies as well. I guess
- 12:20Speaker 2: it's called Sight and Sound Films. You had a movie
- 12:23Speaker 2: a few years ago called I Heard the Bells. And
- 12:27Speaker 2: then you had one this year called Great Awakening, which
- 12:30Speaker 2: was about the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and I forget
- 12:35Speaker 2: the evangelist's name.
- 12:36Speaker 3: George Whitfield.
- 12:37Speaker 2: George Whitfield. Thank you so much. I kind of just
- 12:40Speaker 2: had a brain lapse there. Wonderful movie. And people love
- 12:44Speaker 2: those movies. Some people wondered when you guys were doing this,
- 12:47Speaker 2: why is Sight and Sound getting into movies? And I
- 12:49Speaker 2: think everybody else knows now. It's because they're pretty good
- 12:52Speaker 2: at it. But why did you guys want to do films?
- 12:56Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one of those, boy, it wasn't birthed out
- 13:00Speaker 4: of like, boy, it'd be cool to make movies.
- 13:01Speaker 3: Let's do that. Because it's really hard.
- 13:04Speaker 4: Work and very expensive to do it. It was really,
- 13:06Speaker 4: we felt called. It's as simple as that. We felt
- 13:09Speaker 4: like the Lord really stirred us to a different style
- 13:12Speaker 4: of storytelling. How could we reach people maybe in fresh
- 13:15Speaker 4: ways that we aren't through stage productions? And as we
- 13:20Speaker 4: teased that out and really sought the Lord on it,
- 13:22Speaker 4: we also felt clarity that they would, like the stage shows,
- 13:25Speaker 4: they would also be true stories, ways that we've seen
- 13:28Speaker 4: God work in the life of mankind. And we sensed
- 13:32Speaker 4: that they did not necessarily have to be Bible stories.
- 13:35Speaker 4: So that kind of opened things very, very broadly. And
- 13:39Speaker 4: there were just certain stories, and then we felt like
- 13:41Speaker 4: the Lord would stir in our hearts. So like with
- 13:43Speaker 4: The Great Awakening, that was one that stirred actually, boy,
- 13:46Speaker 4: all the way back to, I'd say 2019 originally is
- 13:49Speaker 4: when it started to percolate. But we felt like it
- 13:52Speaker 4: wasn't the first one to tell. Like it's a little
- 13:54Speaker 4: bit too big of a story for it first. So
- 13:57Speaker 4: it became the second film. And just that relationship between
- 14:01Speaker 4: George and Ben that most people don't know about, how
- 14:04Speaker 4: formative it was to our nation. But more than that,
- 14:07Speaker 4: how much God.
- 14:08Speaker 3: Desires for us.
- 14:09Speaker 4: Day to awaken to his presence, to awaken to him
- 14:13Speaker 4: in our lives. And so our film was, our intent
- 14:16Speaker 4: was for a call for America to awaken once again,
- 14:19Speaker 4: because we did it.
- 14:20Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, let me ask you about COVID. I know
- 14:24Speaker 2: that that was a unique time in the nation's history,
- 14:27Speaker 2: and especially sight and sound, because you guys rely on
- 14:31Speaker 2: in-person visitation. You still rely on streams like Hollywood can.
- 14:35Speaker 2: So what types of Challenges did that present, and how
- 14:39Speaker 2: did you guys survive?
- 14:41Speaker 3: Man, extreme challenges.
- 14:43Speaker 4: Because right before that happened, I mean, we were teed
- 14:47Speaker 4: up to have the strongest year we'd ever had. Record
- 14:49Speaker 4: pre-bookings at that point for Queen Esther was going to
- 14:52Speaker 4: be a brand new show. Here at Lancaster, Noah was
- 14:55Speaker 4: going to be on stage with Branson.
- 14:57Speaker 3: We were pumped. And supposed to open mid-April, or I'm sorry, mid-March.
- 15:02Speaker 4: And the week we're supposed to open that week, That
- 15:05Speaker 4: Wednesday night, I'm watching basketball with my boys, and the
- 15:09Speaker 4: announcer comes on and says, the NBA is going to
- 15:11Speaker 4: suspend the season starting tomorrow. And I just went, oh,
- 15:15Speaker 4: this is not good. I just couldn't believe it. And
- 15:18Speaker 4: the next day is when everything started to unravel, so
- 15:22Speaker 4: to speak. And our governor in Pennsylvania asked large venues
- 15:25Speaker 4: to close immediately. So we went into triage.
- 15:29Speaker 3: Mode as far as, Lord, what are we doing? Because,
- 15:33Speaker 3: you know, we didn't know. Like, is this two weeks?
- 15:35Speaker 3: Is this a month? You know, nobody knew. So we
- 15:37Speaker 3: decided that we would honor that. We would close. And
- 15:41Speaker 3: then just kept seeking the Lord. Like, what is your wisdom?
- 15:44Speaker 4: And pretty quickly, it's interesting. One of the things we
- 15:46Speaker 4: felt like the Lord challenged us was, what's in your hand?
- 15:50Speaker 4: Kind of the question he asked Moses, you know, what's
- 15:52Speaker 4: in your hand?
- 15:53Speaker 3: Oh, a staff.
- 15:53Speaker 2: He throws it down.
- 15:54Speaker 3: That's a snake.
- 15:55Speaker 4: Oh, it's more than a staff. In our case, we
- 15:57Speaker 4: had the story of Jesus ready to be in movie
- 15:59Speaker 4: theaters Easter weekend. And then movie theaters were closed as well.
- 16:05Speaker 4: So we were like, what do we do? So we
- 16:07Speaker 4: reached out to some broadcast networks and Trinity TVN said, hey,
- 16:11Speaker 4: we'd love to show that worldwide and stream it Easter weekend.
- 16:15Speaker 3: We're like, go for it.
- 16:16Speaker 2: Here it is.
- 16:17Speaker 4: And best estimates, somewhere north of three, three and a
- 16:20Speaker 4: half million, maybe more people around the world experience the
- 16:23Speaker 4: story of Jesus in three days. Well, You know, if
- 16:28Speaker 4: we have two sold-out theaters in a full year, that's
- 16:30Speaker 4: like 1.4, 1.5 million people we can reach in a year.
- 16:35Speaker 4: In three days of us being closed, way more people
- 16:39Speaker 4: experienced the gospel. That was mind-blowing. And even though that wasn't,
- 16:43Speaker 4: you know, that didn't bring in anything financially, it was
- 16:46Speaker 4: like reaching people. And it stirred us to accelerate the
- 16:51Speaker 4: launch of Sight Sound TV.
- 16:52Speaker 3: As a streaming platform.
- 16:54Speaker 4: It gave us the idea to broadcast Queen Esther once
- 16:57Speaker 4: we were able to run the show again later that fall.
- 17:00Speaker 4: And so we get to the end of the year.
- 17:02Speaker 4: Biggest financial loss we'd ever had in our history.
- 17:04Speaker 3: We had barely survived.
- 17:05Speaker 4: We had to take on a new bank that kind
- 17:07Speaker 4: of got us through with a breach loan and all that.
- 17:09Speaker 4: And we had reached three times more people than.
- 17:12Speaker 3: We had ever reached in a year.
- 17:13Speaker 4: It's just like, Lord, how did Betches tap it?
- 17:17Speaker 2: And yeah, it went that way. And I know you
- 17:20Speaker 2: guys were under some heavy restrictions there in Pennsylvania, and
- 17:23Speaker 2: I'm assuming Missouri as well. I don't know, state halls. Yeah,
- 17:27Speaker 2: state restrictions are different. But you guys had limited seating.
- 17:31Speaker 2: I guess you were spaced out for a while. At
- 17:33Speaker 2: what point did you guys go full theater once again?
- 17:37Speaker 2: Do you remember?
- 17:37Speaker 4: Oh, man, in Lancaster, not until I think halfway through 2021.
- 17:42Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, it was a long, long haul.
- 17:47Speaker 4: It's either closure or then greatly reduced capacity. Missouri, we
- 17:52Speaker 4: did some spacing in 2020, but then 2021, we were
- 17:56Speaker 4: back full normal ability anyway.
- 18:00Speaker 2: Some of my favorite restaurants in America were kind of
- 18:03Speaker 2: either closed or really changed their menu during COVID. So
- 18:06Speaker 2: I think COVID really impacted some of us in ways
- 18:09Speaker 2: like that that really didn't have a major impact. But
- 18:11Speaker 2: you guys had your ministry kind of I don't know
- 18:16Speaker 2: if threatens is the word, but I mean, you guys
- 18:18Speaker 2: were in danger of closing. I mean, what did you
- 18:20Speaker 2: guys learn about God's faithfulness during that time?
- 18:23Speaker 4: Well, what's cool is we saw, and we've seen this
- 18:26Speaker 4: many times in our past, near-death experiences, but gone, right?
- 18:31Speaker 3: But here's what's cool.
- 18:32Speaker 4: The thing I realized, and it's interesting, that first day
- 18:37Speaker 4: where we decided like, okay, we're going to close in mid-March. Yeah,
- 18:41Speaker 4: it was a crazy day, wild day, long day, exhausting day.
- 18:44Speaker 4: And so the next morning, I wake up and I'm just.
- 18:47Speaker 3: Staying in bed. I'm just praying. I'm like, Lord, what
- 18:49Speaker 3: is going on? You know, that.
- 18:51Speaker 4: And all of a sudden he starts reminding me of
- 18:53Speaker 4: his faithfulness in past seasons. But not just that. He
- 18:59Speaker 4: revealed to me, he used those to take us from
- 19:01Speaker 4: where we were to where we were supposed to be next.
- 19:04Speaker 2: I was like, whoa.
- 19:05Speaker 4: So you're up to something new. And so I literally
- 19:08Speaker 4: came into work excited. And I remember finding one of
- 19:10Speaker 4: my colleagues and shared that. He's like, are you kidding me?
- 19:13Speaker 4: He's like, I woke up this morning with this burning
- 19:17Speaker 4: sense of how do we get the people? If they
- 19:20Speaker 4: can't come to us, how do we go to them?
- 19:22Speaker 4: So all of that's what led to the Jesus on
- 19:25Speaker 4: TV and all those things. So again, it's the Lord, yes, faithful,
- 19:30Speaker 4: not just faithful. It's like, and let's work towards what's next.
- 19:35Speaker 4: And usually we get comfortable, right? It's like, we don't
- 19:37Speaker 4: want to change. Figured it out. Let's keep doing this thing.
- 19:40Speaker 4: The Lord's like, nah, I got something else in mind.
- 19:43Speaker 4: So that's what we've seen, not just faith, but through
- 19:45Speaker 4: the faithfulness taking us to what's next, as only he
- 19:48Speaker 4: can do.
- 19:50Speaker 5: Do.
- 19:51Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's interview, please make sure to subscribe
- 19:54Speaker 1: and share the episode with a friend. A big thanks
- 19:57Speaker 1: to the team at Life Audio for their partnership with
- 19:59Speaker 1: us on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you
- 20:03Speaker 1: will find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network.
- 20:08Speaker 2: See you next time.
- 20:09Speaker 5: Thank you.