JOPLIN – Christian movie-goers are slowly becoming used to more faith-based films being available to watch at home or at the box office, but one Missouri church is taking matters into its own hands to release new films and follow up with resources that point people back to the biblical truths brought up on screen.
Journey Church is a Southern Baptist congregation here, and the owner of Light of Life Films, which released its first feature-length film this spring, “Undefiled.” It addresses one of the largest – and often unspoken – issues in the church: the sin of pornography. It tells the fictional story of an aging minor league baseball player Struggling with an endless cycle of family-destroying addiction and shame.
After a successful short film in 2017, Matt McCaulley, part of Light of Life Films and member of Journey Church began searching for the next project. A conversation with a friend led him to recognize just how pervasive pornography and addiction was in society as a whole, and even within the church. It was a heavy subject, but one he felt was necessary to address.
“I didn’t really want it to be – it’s a hard, difficult topic – but after a lot of prayer, we knew it was going to be our next project,” he said. “It’s a fictional story, but it’s very real and not at all what you might expect your normal faith-based film to be. It has a very real ending to it.”
And McCaulley would direct it. So for the next five to six years, that’s what he and Light of Life Films did. They prayed, wrote, edited, rewrote, raised money through donations and investments, found cast and crew, rustled up equipment, and they scouted locations in Georgia, Kansas, and of course, Joplin.
Though there are more and more faith-based movies being released and believers have more entertainment options than ever, McCaulley said it’s not a luxury to be taken for granted.
“Making a feature-length film is still really, really hard to get from start to completion,” he said. “But at the same time, it is more accessible to more people than it ever has been, and that’s a good thing.”
McCaulley said that just telling a solid story – even one that exposes sin, points people to the truth and promotes a biblical worldview – wasn’t enough.
“Yes, making film is fun, but our main goal is to glorify God and pursue the message He’s given us to put forward,” he said. “We want it to be the best it can be and be entertaining, but we also wanted there to be a high ministry value.”
That’s why they partnered with Pure Desire Ministries to create resources and a six-part curriculum to go alongside the movie. More information about those resources is at livingundefiled.com.
“It acts as a follow-up and next steps kind of thing,” McCaulley said. “The film is just the top end of the funnel to change lives.”
“Undefiled” is available for rent and purchase on Amazon Prime, and will be released May 10 on Apple TV and Tubi. McCaulley said the movie will eventually be released on DVD. More information about the movie and Light of Life Films can be found at www.lightoflifefilms.com.