Risen Fall 2013

faith hope love

Kirk Cameron

Three Ways Growing Pains Changed His Life Forever Pro Surfer Lakey Peterson

Hometown Tour With This Title-Winning Teen Fireproof Filmmaker Alex Kendrick

A Decade Of Patience Leads To Prayerful Projects: His Dare, And New Direction

Fall 2013

$6.95 USA • $7.50 Canada

02 Risen Magazine

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contents

interviews

fall 2013

>>

08 Kirk Cameron

Bold in His Faith, Kirk Cameron Speaks Out

14 Lakey Peterson

Star Surfer Lakey Peterson Hits Waves to Shine in Water and on Film

22 Billy Ray Cyrus

Playing it By Ear: The Adaptability of Billy Ray Cyrus

28 Alex Kendrick

Season of Prayer Guides Filmmaker to Tell the Story

34 Jay “Alabamy” Haizlip Sinner’s Church

40 AJ Michalka

Nothing to Prove: From the Stage to the Screen, AJ Michalka Stands Strong in Her Faith

departments

>>

Miracle 44

Craig DeMartino Freefalling Faith

Outreach: 50

Q-5

Larry Brown

A Heart of Submission Led to the Start of an Overseas School: Larry Brown Speaks to the Lost

58

Ender’s Game

60

Divergent

Hailee Steinfeld, Asa Butterfield & Gavin Hood Shailene Woodley, Mekhi Phifer, Maggie Q, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Christian Madsen

Expressions 62

Sevenly

Leading A Generation For Generosity: Sevenly Founder Dale Partridge

Sound 67

Muisc Notes

The National, Empire of the Sun, Capital Cities, and Tegan and Sara

Photo: Melanie Swerden

Falling into a New Season with a Surfer and a Singer Spending the day with professional surfer Lakey Peterson was not what I had expected. At a mere 18-years-old this bubbly blonde is mesmerizing.

Whether she’s winning awards for her performance in the water, letting cameras follow her around all day, or showing off her Santa Barbara hometown, Peterson’s spirit and heart for God shine so brightly that you can’t help but be attracted to the light. Her story will inspire and encourage you to go after your dreams.

Another unexpected night was spent in the recording studio with Billy Ray Cyrus. The Cyrus family has been in the headlines a lot this year, from a separation, and thankful reconciliation, to Miley Cyrus’ MTV performance that sent the social media world in a complete tizzy over her “unique” behavior, so I did my best to sit down with Billy Ray and remove any positive or negative bias that media might have built. As I spent time with this Kentucky-native, hearing about his father and his love for baseball, how much of a role music plays in his life and the adaptability that he’s able to display in such a cutthroat industry, I have to say that I was moved. I genuinely felt humility in the room 06 Risen Magazine

and an authentic desire to want to be used by God, however that may look. His Biblical roots are deep and fortunately provide such a strong base, that no matter how hard the tree shakes, Cyrus still stands tall with a reach wider than he ever thought possible.

I guarantee this interview with shift perceptions you may have had, and you might just find yourself connecting with the trials and triumphs of this country singer.

(l-r) Kelli Gillespie, Billy Ray Cyrus, Rob Springer & Henry Ortlip.

PUBLISHER :: Allan Camaisa EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF : Kelli Gillespie CONTRIBUTING WRITERS : Mei Ling Starkey, Henry Ortlip, Samantha Baer, Chris Ahrens Kelli Gillespie, Nikki Jimenez, Lindsay Schwarz COPY EDITOR: Patti Gillespie

ART ART DIRECTOR :: Rob Springer CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS :: Henry Ortlip, Rob Springer, John Stephens, Melanie Swerden, Brian Lowe, Roadside Attractions, Richard Foreman Jr, Jaap Buitendijk, Willie Kessel

MULTIMEDIA WEBMASTER :: Brett R. Schoeneck

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The views and opinions expressed by the subjects interviewed are not necessarily those shared by the publisher or staff of Risen Media, LLC. All interviews remain the sole property of Risen Magazine.

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of Risen Media, LLC. Copyright © 2013 “Risen” is a Trademark of Risen Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Cover Photo :: Brian Lowe risenmagazine.com 07

Kirk Cameron Speaks Out Writer: Samantha Baer Photographer: John Stephens

rowing Pains meant a lot to Kirk Cameron. Not only was it one of the most popular sitcoms from 1985-1992, but it marked a couple key milestones in Cameron’s life, including meeting his wife, and trading atheism for Christianity.

Some twenty years later, a family with six kids, making movies, running a camp, and speaking across the country, the former Mike Seaver has shifted the focus from teen idol, to faithfully following the Lord. Risen talks with Cameron about everything from his television days, to marriage advice, adoption and to accepting God’s love.

Interviewed exclusively for Risen Magazine in Naperville, Illinois

Risen Magazine: You identified at one point in your teens as an atheist, but then converted to Christianity, what made you decide to follow the Lord?

Kirk Cameron: Well, I guess the simplest answer would be I grew up in a family where we didn’t go to church. We didn’t ever talk about God, and I just loved all my math teachers, my science teachers, and all my history teachers. I wanted to be a doctor, or an astronaut. So my whole world was math, science, physics, evidence, and proof – all that stuff. I just thought there wasn’t proof or evidence for God. Since I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, that was my default position until I was about 17 or 18 years old.

Then I started asking basic, but very important questions, like “How did all this get started? How did we get here in the first place? How did this universe come into existence? What happens when you die?” Those are questions that science can’t answer and there is no authority to answer those questions. You kind of need to ask God those questions. So I started doing that. I asked God, “If you are there, I want to know the truth.”

Someone took me to church and I heard a great message from a pastor who was preaching from the Bible. I didn’t believe in the Bible, but I really liked what this pastor had to say. That gave me one hundred more questions!

I started talking with friends and reading some books and checking things out. I then started becoming captivated by the words of Jesus Christ and his teachings. Not just his moral teachings like, “Do unto others” and the Golden rule, but things like, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the

Father but through me.” Things that had to do with eternity, things that had to do with why Jesus died on a cross, and rose from the grave… those things got me thinking more and more.

I started going to church on my own then with some other friends and eventually I became convinced and persuaded that God wrote a book, and that book is the Bible, and that Jesus Christ is who he said he is, and that I needed to then submit myself to his Lordship and his authority. When I did submit, it really started changing me on the inside; who I was, what I was doing, how I was living my life, what I believed, and what I thought. This all happened when I was around 18 years old. So I was kind of young for questions like that, but I was living in a very adult world working on a television show called Growing Pains. I was making an adult salary and agents and lawyers even lived in my own house, so I was thinking about bigger questions in life. It wasn’t like I was in a youth group because all my friends were going to youth group, or my grandma was a Christian so I was; that’s just how it went for me.

RM: So would you say around 18 years old is when you decided to accept Christ as your Savior?

KC: Yes…well… I say the same thing that you say, “accepted Christ as my Savior.” The truth is, Christ doesn’t need my acceptance, I need his. And I’m saying that because it is an important thing for all of us to remember. God risenmagazine.com 09

isn’t waiting around on a cloud somewhere saying, “Who is going to accept me?

Who is going to say that I’m here? Who is going to get on my team?” God doesn’t need that. We need him to say, “I’m going to have mercy on you, and I’m going to turn you around and take you off this path that is leading you bad places and put you somewhere where things are going to go well and you will be a blessing for other people.”

So I would say God rescued and found me because I was lost. He wasn’t lost, I was. He found me and put me on a road that was different from a lot of my friends. It was hard, but at the same time such a blessing because a

each other a lot at work and we got to be good friends, and about a year later I asked her to marry me. I was nervous, I really wasn’t sure if she was going to say yes, but she said yes and we were married about six months after that.

RM: Together you have six children, four of which are adopted. What encouragement can you give other families with adopted children and what has been the biggest blessing with becoming a father?

KC: We’ve been married for about 22 years now and we have six kids, three boys, three girls – my eldest is 16, and my youngest is 10. I can’t remember which ones are adopted now! I guess my advice would be for people who are looking to start a family that adoption is such a great thing on so many levels and adoption is the answer to so many things. My wife and I knew we wanted to be parents, and my wife herself is an adopted child. So that was very close to her heart and I was like, “Well I want to be a dad and I don’t need to donate the DNA if there are kids that need moms and dads out there.” So we started adopting kids and we adopted our first four children before we had two natural children of our own.

And you know, I think that adoption is the answer to abortion. I just love changing the two letters on abortion – the “b” and the “r” and you get the word adoption. My four little mixed babies, who so easily might not be here today – my Bella, Ahna, Luke, and Jack – there are just so many parents out there that want desperately to have kids and I think one of the most beautiful and unselfish things for a mom that is not able to raise a baby can do, is to give that baby to a family like us who want children and want to raise them.

Adoption pictures the heart of God in that he adopts us by faith when we come to him and he makes us his sons and daughters by changing us and saying, “And now I love you, and I forgive you of your sin, I bring you into my family, I have an inheritance for you, and I’ll never leave you and won’t ever forsake you.” God adopts us. So adoption is just awesome. I recommend it.

Now the biggest blessing to be a father, well it reminds me of a verse in Scripture that says, “I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in truth.” As a father, there are current blessings today like hearing my kids laugh, just being with my kids, listening to what is important in their life; but I think by far the thing that will mean most to me is to see my own kids walking in the truth. I think the hardest thing as a parent would be to see your children not walking in truth. I think that would be the hardest thing, maybe next to losing a child. Just to see them walk away from God would be so hard. So the greatest blessing to me, is to see them walking in truth.

e found me and put me on a road that was different from a lot of my friends. It was hard, but at the

same time such a blessing

lot of my friends in the acting world are now having a really hard time. They had been in and out of rehab, dealt with drugs, alcohol, and suicide – my best friend on Growing Pains, Boner (Andrew Koenig), committed suicide – even the other guys that I would audition with for the same parts like Corey Haim and River Phoenix, are both no longer here anymore. So I look back and say, “Wow, you [ Jesus] rescued me from an awful lot. Not just Hell when I die, but tragedy now.” And I’m so thankful for that. So it’s not like I figured it out and I found God, it’s like God said, “Get a clue because I’m going to rescue you.” And he opened my eyes to things that I was ignoring.

RM: Speaking of Growing Pains, Mike Seaver was so well loved during your time on the hit 80’s show. When you think about the series what stands out to you most?

KC: I would say three things. Least important, but still a top three, would be that the Seavers became like a second family to me and they were a good family. There was the mom, the dad, the brother, and the sister, and for a Hollywood set that was a healthy place to be so I’m really thankful for that.

I mean you look at Britney Spears or others and you say, “Where are the people protecting these kids?” And I had a lot of protection; the environment was great. Secondly, I would say I met my wife there, [Chelsea Noble]she played my girlfriend [Kate MacDonald on the show.] So that stands out as a huge thing! I was 19 years old then and I still think now, “Man, if it wasn’t for Growing Pains I wouldn’t have met my wife. That means I wouldn’t have had my kids, and I wouldn’t be doing all the things that I’m doing today.” I mean we wouldn’t even have this interview if it weren’t for Growing Pains. Third, and most importantly, this is where I lost my faith in atheism. This is where I could no longer hold on to the belief that there was no God. RM: How did you know Chelsea was the one you wanted to marry?

KC: Well, I didn’t know that she was “the one.” I just knew that she was beautiful. I knew that she was way out of my league, but she surprisingly had a cross on a necklace around her neck and I had just become a Christian. My mind was thinking okay, there are all these things that I’m going to have to give up since I’m a Christian, and then I thought, “Well, here is a girl that is sweet and beautiful, and they come as Christians too?! Wow! What a great idea!

This is bonus!” So we got talking, and our first date was actually a Michael W. Smith concert. Anyways, she was my girlfriend on the show and so we saw 10 Risen Magazine

RM: You travel the country speaking to couples at Love Worth Fighting For marriage events. What have been a few main points that keep your marriage strong?

KC: Hmm... buying my wife lots of chocolate and flowers! Let’s see, well my wife has driven a 15-passenger van for the last 13 years so I was about to win the “bad husband of the year” award if I didn’t upgrade that vehicle.

[Laughter] So I did just upgrade her to a sporty eight-passenger Suburban.

And we’re closing in on the two-seater Porsche, we are getting closer! Okay back to the question, I would say understanding that having a great marriage is not about changing your spouse – that is not the strategy that ever works. It’s about God giving my spouse a new me and that I need to be the man or the woman that God creates me to be. Then I can trust God to do what needs to be done in my spouse. That is the main thing.

Always remembering the cross, the cross is the most important picture

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to have set before us because there it pictures the whole story, the whole ball of wax. The cross is a cruel torture execution machine that demonstrates God’s furious wrath towards sin. Sin is so wicked that it put the Son of God on the cross. It’s terrifying because God hates sin. It also pictures the deep, wide, eternal love of God in that he spares us from the consequences of our sin by sending that which is most precious to him as a substitute. And there is the love of God demonstrated for me at the cross.

try to live for an audience of one, and what that one is looking for is faithfulness.

God is looking for faithfulness.

That is the source of my fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and it’s the source of the love of God, which fills me with gratitude.

If I can remember that, then I don’t get to say to my wife, “I deserve better than you… Don’t you talk to me that way!” No, no, no, I actually deserve worse than you, much worse, I deserve the wrath of God and he saved me from that and you’re a blessing and a work in progress just like me. I’m just going to try to get my part right and be a better husband for you. That’s the plan.

RM: One of your highest grossing films, Fireproof, was on the topic of marriage. Its success revolutionized Christian filmmaking. How do you think Christian films should look moving forward?

KC: I just think they should be better. They should be more thoughtful, they should be better stories; writers should imitate stories that God has written in the Scriptures. Stories that don’t imitate the Great Author in his stories will always fall flat and come across cheesy, and uninteresting. So the best stories are never going to be about the villain on the motorcycle with the babe on the back as they ride off into the sunset after they just stole one million dollars of money from the bank – that story is never going to work.

The stories that work are where the serpent’s head is crushed, and the hero is the one who lays down his life for the girl, right? Because that is the story of the Bible because God says to Eve that one will come who will crush the serpent’s head, he will bruise his heal, but he will crush the serpent’s head and he will win back his bride who is right now under a death curse. And Christ has come, he crushes the serpent’s head on the cross and he wins back his bride and beautifies her to set her apart as a special treasure for all of eternity. And after death is a resurrection, and now everything and all enemies are put under his feet.

And that’s why Fireproof worked. It wasn’t about the character muscling to the top, it was about him rescuing his wife, and rescuing his mar12 Risen Magazine

riage, by first dying to himself and saying, “Oh God I’m an idiot, and a selfish jerk, and I’m ruining everything and I need you to resurrect me as a man.” Those are the stories that work. What we need to do is imitate God better in the story telling and not get lazy with the quality of our productions.

RM: Because Christian’s love you and so identify with your work as an actor, how does that affect the roles you take?

KC: Obviously in the business of marketing and producing movies, you do want to give your customers what they are looking for. But that’s not what really has ever driven me, because if I was really just looking to make money from customers, I can go make money doing a whole lot of other movies and not do marriage conferences or not have made Fireproof for free. I try to live for an audience of one, and what that one is looking for is faithfulness.

God is looking for faithfulness.

RM: You and your wife started Camp Firefly. How did this idea come about and how involved with the camp are you?

KC: Camp Firefly is a camp that is for terminally and seriously ill children and their families. My wife and I started it back in 1989 when we were working on Growing Pains. Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we met kids that were terminally ill and they were granted a wish and their wish was to meet the Seavers and to get autographs from us and take pictures.

And we would meet so many of these kids and wanted to do something more than just sign autographs, so we decided to do something that would really help the whole family. We decided to give them an all expense paid, weeklong vacation in a great place where they can get away from needles, chemotherapy, doctors, hospitals, and just be together. Mom, dad, and the brothers and sisters can make some memories that will pull them together again during those difficult times and meet other families that understand what they’re going through. We have six families that come together for a week at a time and do all sorts of things like water skiing and jet skiing, mom makeovers, golf, pool parties, barbecues, square dances, nature walks… all kinds of stuff. They even can rekindle their faith and strengthen the family by making friendships that will last them into the future. If anyone wants more info on they can go to campfirefly.com and get more details.

RM: What can we expect next from you?

KC: I have a new documentary film coming out called Unstoppable. It is the most personal film project I have ever made with regards to my faith. It’s based on a true story of a friend of mine who lost his son to cancer this year.

It’s taking people through my own journey into the hopes and dreams and questions and doubts that I have had to struggle through with the question, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” It’s a journey back into the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and the serpent, the fall, Cain murdering his brother Abel, the flood, and why does God allow all this tragedy? I mean all this happens under his watch and he could have stopped it. I don’t ask that as a perspective from an atheist saying, “Oh yeah if there really is a God would he let kids die from cancer?” No, I’m saying, “God, I know you’re there, I love you and they love you, we pray to you and yet why did you let him die of cancer? Really, why? Why couldn’t that happen to a ‘bad’ family, or someone who really rejects you?” I come out in the end of that journey with my faith stronger than ever. It’s called unstoppable because God is good and his purposes are never failing – they are unstoppable.

Unstoppable hits theaters on September 24, 2013.

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Writer: Lindsay Schwarz Photographer: Rob Springer

t first glance you may think Lakey Peterson is your typical Santa Barbara surfer girl. And in many ways she is. She loves coconut chips and horseback riding and is actively involved in areas passionate to her, including installing clean water filters in Indonesia. But this 18-year-old blonde blows your average teenager accomplishments out of the water. Literally. As a professional surfer, she won the 2012 US Open of Surf, she is currently ranked in the top 10 on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Ranking, and she recently starred in the documentary about her life called, Zero to 100. Inviting Risen to her hometown, this outgoing and warm-hearted star shared about everything from faith to family, schooling to surfing, and even her tie to the Egg McMuffin.

Interviewed Exclusively for Risen Magazine in Santa Barbara, California

Risen Magazine: When you were five years old, your parents decided to take you and your two older siblings on an extensive trip around the world, which is when you first learned to surf. Describe that experience.

Lakey Peterson: It was an awesome experience. My mom had always told my dad that she wanted to do a big trip around the world once they had kids. So when I was five, and my older brother [Parker] was 10, and my sister [Whitney] was 13, my parents pulled us out of school and we just traveled for seven and a half months. We went everywhere except Asia. We traveled to Switzerland, Paris, and it was when we were in Manly, Australia, that I learned to surf. It wasn’t my first experience with waves, but it was my first experience surfing them. I got to surf every day at a surf camp, so I got a lot of time in the ocean. I still remember my instructor, Tom, called me “Lakey Surf Legend,” and I loved it. That stuck. It’s very freeing being in the ocean, it’s just you and the wave. I loved that trip; I think that we became so much closer as a family because of it.

RM: When was it that you decided you wanted to pursue surfing?

LP: After we came home from that trip, I started playing tennis a lot because my dad was a tennis player, as well as my sister, but you can’t really compete with tennis so I got over it. I wanted to compete so I played flag football with the boys up until I was 10, then played baseball and basketball too. But, I grew up right on a point break, this perfect wave, Rincon, that my neighbors would take me to and I just loved it, surfing was so natural.

RM: When did you believe you were good enough to compete?

LP: I decided I wanted to compete when I was 11 years old. I felt I was ready. So with my family’s support I went for it. My dad was usually working so just about every weekend my mom would drive me to competitions within California. Once I was 14, I won the NSSA (National Scholastic Surfing Association) Open Women’s Title. I was the first female surfer to perform an aerial maneuver in competition. After that, I started traveling all over the globe.

RM: As a teenager, what was life like for you as you were making huge strides in your career?

LP: I’ve been homeschooled since I was in seventh grade. I just graduated from high school this year, the same time I would have if I were in public school. Honestly, it’s been hard to build relationships because I’m just gone all the time. It’s not easy; it’s something that I struggle with.

RM: Obviously your family has been a huge support to you during your endeavor in becoming a professional surfer, but you also have some creative genes in your family, particularly concerning a specific breakfast item. Your grandfather invented the Egg McMuffin?!

LP: Yes! My grandfather, Herb Peterson, was friends with the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc. So my grandfather managed the McDonald’s Santa Barbara accounts and noticed that there were lots of quick grab-n-go meals, but nothing was available for breakfast! He wanted to invent something hand held for those on the go and headed to work in the mornings. His favorite thing was eggs benedict so he wanted to make that into a sandwich.

Now my dad manages the six McDonald’s stores in Santa Barbara. I used to take all my friends there when I was little. At age ten I was saying, “Breakfast is on me!”

RM: It seems like you have a great foundation and you’ve always been forward with your faith. Did you grow up in a Christian home, and what does Christianity look like to you?

LP: I did. My family surrounded us with Christian friends and great people, teaching us that you become like the people you hang out with. I’ve always known God, and believed in God. I grew up going to church here at Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara and Reality Church in Carpinteria. Lately, I have decided to take it upon myself to really dig deeper into my faith because if I’m going to believe in something, I am going to believe in it wholeheartedly. That’s just who I am. I want to be all in, or all out, so that’s risenmagazine.com 17

what I’ve been focused on. I grew up on the Gospels and I know that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but the last few years I have really grown in my faith, finding comfort in the fact that no matter where I am, I can open my Bible and talk to Him and He’ll talk back. Prayer has been my comfort, especially being on tour away from family and friends so often. I just find peace in prayer.

RM: How does a relationship with God affect your career as a professional surfer?

LP: My faith has affected my career in a lot of different ways. The surf industry is not a God-related industry, at all. Most people don’t believe [in God] and in a way, I feel that’s exactly why I’ve been placed there – to be a light in a dark place. I want to show people my faith through actions and when opportunities arise, I take them. I tweet Bible verses and do public speaking.

It’s been difficult at times, being in the position I am, but my faith has given me the strength to persevere. I have a lot of people telling me what to do with my life, a lot of opinions and input, but I’m not living for the world, I’m living for Him. RM: You have had a great amount of success at such a young age, what has been the most challenging aspect and what is the most enjoyable part for you?

LP: I have been forced to grow up quickly. Here I am, a professional athlete at age 18, I was just talking with stockbrokers this morning about investing. I’m doing things that most do when they are 25, or 35, but I’m 18 18 Risen Magazine

and I’m learning everything now. It’s happening so fast. It’s overwhelming at times, but I really have been praying about it, “Lord give me a clear head and tell me what I should do here.” You can’t plan out your life; you have to learn to give it to God. RM: Now in your rookie year as a part of the official ASP Women’s World Tour, what is the dynamic between all the girls on tour?

LP: It’s definitely a unique position to be in. There are only 17 of us on tour. But that’s seventeen different personalities and opinions and the tour is half the year so we see each other all the time. We stay at the same hotels, eat at the same restaurants, we go out to dinner together at night and then compete against each other the next morning. It gets weird sometimes, but we realize that it’s our job so there are no hard feelings. I’m really neutral about it and at the end of the day we all get along. We’re playing hardball in the water, but out of the water we’re all just friends having fun together, laughing.

RM: Okay, I have to ask. Where are some favorite spots that you surf? Do you ever get nervous in the water?

LP: Of course! Well, I just love Rincon, it’s home. I know everyone out there in the water and I know everyone who is yelling for me when I catch a wave; it’s pumping and it’s beautiful. I also love lower Trestles down in San Clemente because it’s just great for high performance surfing. It’s a great wave to work on turns or aerials, so it’s awesome. I also love this Indonesian wave called Cold Springs, it’s a hollow reef break and obviously it’s not crowded

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at all. And yes, I get scared. When I know I’m in shark-infested waters, I’m on alert. Luckily, I’ve never surfed in South Africa, but still there are certain spots that you know you have to be watching more than others. I would never think of a shark in San Diego, but in Australia, if I see something large and dark moving through the water, I’m paddling in.

RM: You are a role model to many because of your unique position; do you see this as a responsibility?

LP: Apparently it’s the “cool thing” if you’re a pro surfer, so I love that I have the chance to influence people in a positive way. I know a lot of young girls look up to me and it’s neat showing that hard work will eventually pay off. I love speaking in public schools and I usually talk about how everyone in life has unique struggles and weaknesses, everyone, but that you also have strength to accept that weakness and overcome it. I’ve overcome dyslexia. I hated reading and writing, but now I use that to my advantage and I’m talking about it and I’m confident in what I do. I’ve used it for greater good.

RM: You are active in philanthropy and involved in various organizations. Has that always been important to you?

LP: I just find philanthropy really fun. I’ve grown up knowing that it’s the right thing to do and there really is no better feeling then helping someone. I love the Student Conservation Association (SCA). They are nationwide and they take high school and college aged kids and they clean up national parks and communities. That’s important to me because surfing is nature and we’ve got to keep it clean. Also a dear friend of mine, Daisy Merrick, recently passed away from cancer. She was eight years old. She has really given me a heart for other children with cancer. I donate a portion of my proceeds from my film, Zero to 100, to the Daisy Merrick Trust whose money goes to children’s cancer. I also work with Hands 4 Others (H4O), which provides villages access to clean drinking water. We’ve installed water systems to villages that didn’t even have access to water before. Right now we are doing a Surf for Water campaign where we are installing wells in Indonesia. There have been multiple typhoid outbreaks in the region, so we need to get them safe and clean drinking water. Our goal is to never have that happen again.

RM: So many exciting things are going on in your world right now, including your first feature movie Zero to 100. What message do you hope to deliver with the film?

LP: The first movie I was in was a Nike women’s surf film called, Leave a Message, which was just performance surfing with background music. But then I was talking to Aaron Lieber one day, the person who produced that film, and we thought, “There are no female surf movies, but there are tons of surf films featuring guys.” So we decided to film my first year on tour (which was 2012), and it turned into Zero to 100 – because that’s what my life has been ever since I was 14. My career just took off and it’s been non-stop ever since. The footage from the film really involves every part of me; I’m crying 20 Risen Magazine

one day, then winning the US Open the next. It’s weird that it’s so much of me, and I am really letting people in which feels strange. But it’s really a Cinderella story, because last year I kept losing every heat in the second round, then finally, in the last event of the season, I won. That changed everything for me.

RM: So what are you doing when you aren’t surfing and making movies?

LP: [Laughs] I really am normal and try to be as normal as possible. I love barbeques with friends, hikes, getting my nails done, shopping, movies, talking about guys. My friend just got me into horseback riding, so now I’m in love with that; I just went yesterday.

RM: Do you see this as your lifetime career or have you got your sights set on other opportunities in the future?

LP: My main goal right now is to win the world title and be the best in the world, just like every girl on tour right now. I want to be improving constantly and really gain respect for women surfers in general, because we don’t get a lot of that. I want to retire young though, so the next years, I want to give it my all and just win. I really want to be a mom someday and enjoy my kids and not worry [financially] so I’m working hard for that now. I also would love to continue public speaking in front of even larger audiences. I feel I’ve been given that opportunity for a reason and it’s really fulfilling. I also love golf and I want to get more into that. Maybe there are some tournaments I can get into when I can find some time.

RM: You are obviously motivated in pursuing your dreams. For the up and coming generation in pursuit of their dreams, what words of encouragement would you give them?

LP: Whatever your dream is in life, whether surfing professionally or becoming a scientist, there are times when you will get so beat down, but remember that everyone goes through those times and that you are not alone in that. When that time comes, put your head down [stay focused] and stick with it and just work harder than anyone else. That will separate you from the rest. Don’t settle for good, be great.

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Photo: Melanie Swerden

Writer: Kelli Gillespie

Born in Kentucky, Billy Ray Cyrus grew up with a biblical foundation, a love for baseball, and music. While this country boy was hoping to become Johnny Bench and play in the big leagues, little did he know that his dreams of playing in a sold-out stadium in front of cheering fans wouldn’t be for games, but rather for concerts. He traded a baseball for a guitar and never looked back.

This multi-platinum selling recording artist may have won over the world with Achy Breaky Heart, but that was just the beginning. Cyrus continued topping charts and transitioned into acting and eventually combined his parenting with performing by starring in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana with his real-life daughter Miley. On the brink of the opening of his new film, Like A Country Song, Cyrus sits down with Risen to talk about everything from finding his way, to family and fame, missed expectations, and writing his memoir.

Interviewed exclusively for Risen Magazine in Burbank, California

Risen Magazine: Your grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher and you grew up with bluegrass and gospel music around you. When you were a child, what did faith look like in your life?

Billy Ray Cyrus: Faith was always a big part of my life, my family’s life; my grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher, my dad had a gospel quartet that sang in the church and all throughout the Ohio River valley, the Bible was the very foundation of our life.

RM: Even though musically influenced at a young age, you decided to play baseball. Who encouraged you, or when did you know you could make a career out of music?

BRC: I’ve just always loved making music for the pure passion of making music. Music was a big part of my life. When I was a kid, I would get up and sing with my dad’s Gospel quartet and I loved singing and I loved harmonies. Their quartet was all about four-part harmonies and a piano player.

I just didn’t think I could play an instrument.

Because I threw a baseball right-handed and I would bat right-handed, I just took it for granted that I was right-handed. And I picked up a righthanded guitar, and I couldn’t play it. Since most of the members of my family could play music by ear, I just thought I wasn’t given that gift. I always thought I was going to be Johnny Bench, the catcher for the Cincinnati Reds.

But I write left-handed and I brush my teeth left-handed and it never occurred to me to buy a left-handed guitar. So I traded in my catcher’s mitt and bought a left-handed guitar, and the moment I picked it up I realized that I actually could play. I had been given the gift – I just had the guitar on the wrong side. Luckily, I listened to that inner voice that said, “Buy a guitar and start a band. You’ll find your purpose in life.” Because even as a kid I felt like God had a purpose and a plan for my life. I thought it was through

baseball, but it was through music that God would use my life to represent his light, his hope, and his love.

RM: You have this flourishing country career with hit songs and albums and in the height of that success you put out a couple Christian CDs; what thought process went into entering that genre as well?

BRC: It’s interesting growing up in Eastern Kentucky on the Ohio River.

Right at the boundaries of West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, there are all styles of music from bluegrass, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs; my dad had every album of Glen Campbell and Merle Haggard. I always loved country music and the Grand Ole Opry was a big part of our Saturday nights. Then Sunday mornings I’d be at my Papa’s church singing spirited versions of I’ll Fly Away, and Amazing Grace even had kind of a blues swing to it. Throwing that mix in with the Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Molly Hatchet, a lot of the Southern rock-n-roll, and Charlie Daniels, it was really a melting pot of a lot of different styles of music. I loved all styles of music, so I wanted to make all styles of music and I still use all of those influences to this day.

The album I did called, The Other Side, was at a time when I was in the midst of doing my first [television] series; it was called Doc. It was on PAX television and I played a doctor that was sort of a fish-out-of-water working in New York City. The show was about hope, and faith, and love… a bit of Touched by an Angel meets Highway to Heaven. It was during that time period that musically I thought it would be a great time to reach back into my roots and say thank you to the Almighty God for so many of my blessings and allowing me to take this journey in his name.

RM: What does a relationship with God look like to you? How do you communicate with him, or hear his direction for your life? risenmagazine.com 23

BRC: I wish I had a really methodical answer for you. I have to be honest and say, I play everything in life by ear, by feel. I play music by ear. As an actor, I take the stage just trying to keep it real. As an actor, singer-songwriter, that is where I’m at. I go with what I feel inside and just try to be honest. I do the same thing in life, I pray about it. I’ll pray for the wisdom and vision

to do the things I’m supposed to do, be the person I’m supposed to be, sing the songs I’m supposed to sing, and act in the shows where I feel like I’m supposed to be an actor. Early in my career one of the first things I did was Mulholland Drive with David Lynch and it was after doing that film that I felt like I had one of those one-on-one prayers with God and said, “If you want me to be an actor, then send me what you want me to act in.” Then the script of Doc came, which represented faith, hope, believing in more, and that you could reach your dreams; and I just loved that aspect of it.

Until the very last moment, I debated should I go to this audition, should I not, and as I said those prayers, it was always the same answer, “Go to the audition. If you get it, then yes, you’re supposed to do it. And if you don’t, then you’re not. You’re not taking the decision out of God’s hands. Go to the audition.” I did and they hired me. Four years and 88 episodes later, I found myself spending more time as an actor than a singer-songwriter, which for me blurred the lines a little bit because I’m a singer-songwriter at heart first and foremost. Acting became a passion and something that I loved as it grew and the projects that I took. [For example] Like a Country Song; I read the script and it was just in my heart and mind that this was something that could be part of my purpose, the story of redemption and someone rising above adversity. In life we’re all dealt a certain hand to play, and sometimes you get dealt some bad cards and sometimes you might make a bad move, but life is a series of adjustments and in this story Bo, the character I play, had gone through some hard times and maybe made some bad decisions, but he didn’t give up believing. As a matter of fact, when the chips were down he said, “I’m going to give it to God.” That’s what I loved about this script. From the time I read it there was never a doubt that I’m supposed to do this movie.

RM: Like A Country Song deals with a family structure not turning out as one might have thought it would with situations everyone can relate to on one level or another. When it comes to missed expectations, how do you handle them?

BRC: I do the same thing in my personal life that I do in my professional 24 Risen Magazine

life; I play it by ear, knowing that life is a series of adjustments and you make some good calls and some bad calls. It’s kind of like if you pull your car up to a parking space that you may have to back into, it’s a little bit tight, and sometimes you may have to pull up a little bit, crank the wheel to the right, crank it to the left, back up, go forward, but if you take your time, barring an unforeseen catastrophe, you’ll get in there. That’s kind of life. The Bible says, where the people have no vision, they shall perish. I find that, in life, vision is very important. That is what I pray for, that God will give me the wisdom and the vision to do the things that I am supposed to do, and be the person I am supposed to be. It’s that vision of when you chart a course to get from Point A to Point B, staying focused and knowing that for 99.9 percent of most journeys, you can’t see the finish line until you get there. But you know if you do things certain ways, with that vision, keeping faith, you are going to get there. Keep putting one step in front of the other and believe.

RM: Navigating success, fame, wealth and power is no easy feat. How did you know how to tackle it all?

BRC: Luckily for me, my dad was also my best friend. He was also my counsel at times. He was just a good ole boy from Kentucky that had a great deal of common sense. I would talk to my dad about everything I would go through in life. Having someone like him in my life that I could really believe in, and I had a great deal of faith knowing that he wasn’t my manager who made 10 percent, and though he would give me his opinion on whatever he was thinking, if I were to ask him a question, I could always count on him to be honest. He was my dad and my best friend, but unfortunately he passed away about six years ago of mesothelioma, he had worked in the steel mills up in Kentucky. We got to go through a lot of this journey together.

His whole life was based on the faith and belief that the Bible is the Living Word and the truth; knowing that Almighty God sent his son to this earth to live and to die for sinners like me. I’m a very, very imperfect man. I’m the first guy to admit I’m very, very imperfect. I’m actually good at making mistakes. But one thing I have to say is that I’m also pretty good at realizing when the train is off the track; I can make adjustments.

RM: Like a Country Song combines your talents of singing and acting, and while it’s entertaining, there is still meaning and encouragement. What drew you to the project?

BRC: One of the things that turned me on to the film was the song Like a Country Song. I had already read the script and I loved the story of redemption. To this day to a fault, I will root for the underdog. If I turn on a football game and the team is down 40-0, I start rooting for the team with nothing. I love a good comeback. After liking the script, the next question for me was, “What’s the song?” As soon as I heard it, I thought, “that is a brilliant, really well-written song.” I was turned on by the whole score of songs selected for this movie.

RM: I think you are great at adaptability. I remember growing up with Achy Breaky Heart. There’s your music career, television shows and then as your family grows and expands; you do Disney Channel and Hannah Montana with your daughter Miley. You did Dancing with the Stars and even Broadway. When you think about the variety of your career what stands out, what’s most memorable?

BRC: With my dad being my mentor, my dad in the mid-90s said something very profound, that I say to young people when I talk about reaching your goals or your dreams. He said something simple; “Son, it looks like you’ve got all your eggs in one basket.” I said, “How do you mean that Dad?” He

Photo: Brian Lowe

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the quote, “Persistence is to the quality of the character of man what carbon is to steel.” That’s true in life. It’s about keepin’ on, keepin’ on, even when times are tough. Persistence is the key to your dream. Just don’t give up until you get there, and believe you can do it.

I was born a dreamer and I think without a dream, without hope, there’s something missing. I look back at everything I went through in my life and I really do thank God that I played baseball because everything in life can relate to that on some parallel. You never would get a hit in baseball if you never got up to the plate. If you get up to the plate and you keep swinging, you’re bound to get a hit. You get knocked down in baseball and you can either lay there or get back up. Sometimes in baseball you strike out, but hey, you shake it off, you might throw a bad pitch, but you shake it off, rock back and get ready to throw another one. That’s the same in life.

Photo: Henry Ortlip

said, “Well you’re always living and dying by music, and the radio, and what songs get played. I think you ought to branch out. I always thought you could have one of those Dolly Parton-Kenny Rogers-kind-of-careers.” I said, “I’d love that, but what’s the key?” He said, “It’s easy. You just have to branch out into acting.”

And I said, “But Dad, I’m not an actor.” And he said, “It’s just like everything – you just start.” At that time I guess I must’ve been 36 or 37 years old and had really never taken acting seriously at all, never even dreamed I’d be an actor.

But that made sense because with everything I ever did or accomplished, I never would have got there if I hadn’t started. I took that first step and the David Lynch movie came up, and then Doc, and then one thing led to another; more films and I started realizing that I really loved acting and that acting was a lot like making music with the most common denominator being about telling the truth, being honest, and taking a moment and making it real. That’s what a great song does for me, and that’s what a good acting role or film does. I started realizing it’s the same. A scene is like a song. It has a rhythm, emotions, and words.

I’ll tell kids to this day that regardless of what you do in life, there are two things to remember; always believe that you can be, have, or do anything that you believe or want in life as long as you are willing to pay the price to get there. And be willing to put in the work, nothing in life comes easy. The best things I’ve always found are the things you have to work the hardest for. And then second of all, there is a word that is not very glorified, it’s not even a very pretty word, but persistence is an important word. Somewhere along the line of my dad working in the steel mills I had memorized 26 Risen Magazine

RM: You’ve accomplished a lot of your dreams, so are you still dreaming?

What are you reaching, or seeking after now?

BRC: I’m still a dreamer, but for me now it’s more about finding my purpose. I don’t think God is done with me yet. By all means I believe that we are put here for a reason. It’s about giving back and again, I am a very, very imperfect man and that’s why you’ll never see me standing on the pulpit. I’m an excellent sinner. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’m sure I’ll make more.

But what I do believe is that I was put here for a reason, and maybe part of my reason, and part of the story of my journey is to show that it is about overcoming trials. It’s about not giving up. I’m searching for purpose at this point in my life. One of the reasons I liked talking to Risen is I like the fact that you give people hope. Sometimes I’ll look at my life and I might complain about this, or complain about that, and then when I really look at the big picture of life, and the things some people are dealing with in this country, and worldwide, my problems become very minute. There are a lot of people dealing with really tough times and I like to think that maybe a kid somewhere that might be going through some of the things I went through in my life and as a kid, they might look at my life and think, “He said keep believing and keep persistence and keep dreaming and have faith.”

RM: I think fame is such an interesting beast. Where it was, where it is now, and who knows how much further it can go. A positive side of fame is that people care about you enough to listen to what you have to say and thus gives you a platform to encourage and speak truth. The flip side is that people focus on the negative and jealousy or envy breed and they like gossiping or seeing a life derailed because it makes them feel better about themselves.

Is fame what you expected? Do you look at it as destructive or a blessing?

BRC: For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Fame is a great example of that. The higher you rise, the further you have to fall. It would be easier if everything just stayed in the middle and it was vanilla.

But I’ve never known that in my life. I’ve either had red hot, or ice cold.

There was never anything in between. I would say to my dad, “Why is my life so crazy? Why can’t it just be normal?” And he had this line, he’d say, “ You know there are only two things in the middle of the road: yellow lines and dead possums.” And ya know, it’s pretty accurate. In life, you’ve got to swing for the fences, but at the same time you’ve got to enjoy the game. That being said, fame is a dangerous, dangerous animal. Sometimes people get spinning so far, and fast in fame that they just fall off the planet. Unfortunately, I’ve know too many, and we’ve all seen too many. For me in particular, Kurt Cobain, who I admired a great deal, knew him a bit as a friend, and the day that he died I was devastated thinking how I was just getting to know him. Fame is dangerous so you have to approach it with respect and much is expected

© 2013 Like A Country Song

from whom much is given. And the much that is given usually requires quite a bit of work to get to that given. I think that there is a responsibility that comes with it for yourself and for others. Fame is dangerous.

RM: Your memoir Hillbilly Heart came out this year. Was it always something you wanted to do; did you find it therapeutic? Do you wish you had included or omitted aspects? What were your feelings as you finished the book?

BRC: I have mixed emotions. I think it could’ve been better on a few things that got rushed towards the end. Like anything, there is always a deadline.

It was considerably therapeutic, and there were things I realized about my life – like I didn’t realize my life was as crazy as it is until I started writing it down. “A problem clearly defined is half solved…” and when I wrote it down, it was like, “Cyrus, you have lived a crazy life.” Just being able to speak that and see it in black and white was one thing, but there were some things that could’ve been a little more accurate had there not been such a tight deadline. Throughout that deadline, I had a pilot I was filming; an album I was finishing; I was going to Broadway - 2012 was one of the craziest years of my life for sure. And I’ve had a bunch of crazy stuff happen in my life, but in 2012, there was no middle ground for me, it had to get completely insane as I’m writing the story of my life. Not much has changed. There is still no middle ground for me and I’ll leave you with this, when I say one side or the other, I believe that it is a battle in our lives to live for the light to represent God’s love, and God’s hope, faith and belief. At the same time, for every

action there is an opposite and equal reaction and for me at least, although I think it’s true for all of us, the harder you reach for that light, you will find darkness tries to counteract that, if not overpower it. When you are riding a bicycle it is so much easier to go downhill than uphill. But you can only coast one direction, and that’s down. It’s kind of that way in life. It’s easy to say, “Okay I’ll just go to the dark side and not feel that responsibility.” But to me life never was about taking that easy path, it’s about purpose. I’ve always felt there is no way a kid from Kentucky goes through this journey, and gets to this point, just to give up and say, “Okay darkness, you win.” I still pray to this day, to this second, that God is using my life at this moment. I know it sounds cliché, but I don’t do what I do now for money, or for fame, I do it for the art and the purpose of [answering the question], what am I supposed to do with my life? I’m not getting any younger and I’m striving for purpose.

I want my life to mean something. We all are here for a reason and I think it’s to represent God’s love, and to try to make the world a little better place for our fellow man.

In his upcoming film, Billy Ray Cyrus stars as the father of an out-of-control country singer, who has actually been told his dad is dead. An encounter between the two sets off a chain of events which will hopefully lead to reconciliation of the family. Like A Country Song is a story of humility, redemption, forgiveness, faith and love.

Learn more about the movie: www.LikeACountrySong.com risenmagazine.com 27

Alex Kendrick as Coach Taylor in Facing The Giants.

28 Risen Magazine

Season of Prayer Guides Filmmaker to Tell the Story

Alex Kendrick Writer: Kelli Gillespie

any are cautioned about the potential pitfalls of mixing family with business, but this warning didn’t seem to faze the Kendricks as together these brothers have defied all odds and grossed more than $75 million dollars in their first four films. Add their bestselling books with millions in print and Alex and Stephen Kendrick become a force to reckon with.

The power behind this creative duo; they credit their faith in God. From Flywheel, to Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous, these filmmakers tackle topics ranging from strengthening a marriage to becoming a better father. Still serving on the pastoral staff at Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia, the brothers are expanding their movie production outside of Albany with a special resolve to equip and encourage the next generation of Christian filmmakers. Alex Kendrick sat down with Risen to talk spiritual warfare, seasons of prayer, his new challenge to parents, and why life in the desert may be hard, but not bad.

Interviewed Exclusively for Risen Magazine in San Diego, California

Risen Magazine: You and your brother Stephen work together on most of your projects. What was your household like growing up and were movies a part of it?

Alex Kendrick: We were a low-income family; our father was is in ministry so we learned to be creative because we didn’t have a lot of the “toys” that our friends did. As a matter of fact, we didn’t have a television until I was almost a teenager. In many respects I am grateful for those days because I think it helped set the stage for the right priorities and we didn’t get oversaturated with entertainment. As we got older, my brother and I went into ministry, but never lost the love of telling stories, which we did growing up.

When we eventually did get a video camera we used it very little for home movies, but more often used it to tell our little adventure stories we’d shoot in our neighborhood. By the time we were in seminary, we developed a real thirst for wanting to use that platform of telling stories of God’s goodness to draw people into a relationship with him and that led to our first movie Flywheel in 2003.

Flywheel was meant to be a very local outreach in Albany, Georgia, in our one theatre, and it turned out to sell almost one million DVDs, which led to Facing the Giants hitting theatres, followed by Fireproof, and Courageous. So we learned to pray through these ideas until the Lord told us what to do. It was amazing how when he did tell us what to do, he would line up everything to help us with that theme, if you will. And as a part of that we learned to write. Because we would always ask ourselves the question, “What if somebody went to see Fireproof or Courageous and they left the movie theatre saying, ‘I want to take the next step.’ What would we give them? What would we say to them?” And that ended up being the drive behind the books, The Love Dare, The Resolution for Men, and now The Love Dare for Parents. We are trying to give them as much ammunition as we can to encourage seeking of the Lord and to apply biblical truth to their lives.

RM: When it comes to inspiration for the stories you choose in your films and books, how do you hear what God wants you to do next?

AK: We go through what we call a season of prayer first, and that season may last six months, nine months, or even a year in some cases. And as we pray, it’s interesting that near the end of that season, the Lord tends to turn our hearts towards a direction – marriage, fatherhood, prayer, faith, whatever it is – and he gives us a direction and turns our hearts into speaking into that theme. We look around at what culture is doing, and yes, we tend to write things that we know. In our world, small town world, we write from a fire department, police department, or a local football team’s standpoint because we interact with those types of things and our church members do those types of things, so that maybe gives us a flavor – but the theme and direction definitely comes after a season of prayer. We then also do lots of scriptural research, lots of interviews and after several months, we start developing a story. Our hope is to tell stories that people can relate to; issues that men and women deal with on a regular basis. If we can do that in a very personal way, and hopefully a very engaging, entertaining way, where people want to make a change in their life, or seek the Lord in a certain area, then that is success for us.

RM: Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Courageous… as success and wealth comes, because it’s such a prayerful process, I’m sure many more doors open, but I also have to believe the spiritual warfare side is stronger too. In your opinion does the road get easier or harder? And how do you balance this schedule with your own family and personal life?

AK: Every project we have done has stretched us a little bit more. Nothing has ever been as easy as we hoped it would be or within our realm of confidence. It has always been just higher than we feel like we can handle.

The scale of every movie, the lessons we speak into every movie, are always things that stretch us a little more than we want to be stretched. I also think risenmagazine.com 29

Before the fruitful days come, the Lord will allow you to go through that season in the desert and those are not bad days. they are hard days, but it doesn’t mean they are bad days. the Lord allows a certain amount of spiritual warfare, because fortunately when there is a strain or uncomfortableness from time to time, it makes us seek him more, it makes us pray more. It’s not always something easily understood, or something we can grasp on the front side. God shows us the next three steps and then we don’t know what to do after that. When he takes us through those seasons, that’s when we grow. It’s like working out. You have to do 10 more sit-ups or push-ups than you really want to do. And it’s by doing 10 more this time, and 10 more next time that you start building your physical man. And that same thing is true spiritually. The Lord gives us a little more than we think we can handle, but that causes us to depend on him more. So yes, spiritual stretching, and attacks from the enemy as well. It’s interesting that whatever we are focusing on tends to be where we are attacked the most – whether it’s family, fatherhood, or faith – those tend to be the areas. So it’s obvious to us when we are obeying the Lord, especially when the enemy attacks, we know we are on to something.

RM: Talk about creating additional material like The Love Dare book to strengthen marriages, which sold six million copies, and now you have The Love Dare for Parents. How can this help moms and dads with their relationship with their kids?

AK: The Love Dare for Parents is different in the fact that we talk about winning the love of your child. There is some overlap in the way we love other people no matter who they are, but there are some strong differences in a marital type of love and a parental type of love. We start off the book talking about how can you win the heart of your child. Because if their heart is closed to you, it doesn’t matter what you are going to say, because it’s going to deflect off of them and they are going to believe who loves them the most.

But if their heart is open to you, they will then receive what you have to say.

The first thing is making sure you know how to win the heart and keep the heart of your child, whether they are in their formative years, teenage years, or even as young adults. We talk about ways to do that and once their heart is open to you, then you want to invest in who God made them to be.

God has given all of us a personality and a certain bent to have interest in certain things. I have six children and all of them are extremely different.

It’s amazing to me, and evidence that there is a God, because they are growing up in the same house, same atmosphere, same parents, and yet they are all very different. As I discover what makes each of them tick – some are more athletic, some are more social, some are more given to academics, some are more into the arts and creative things – I want to help them blossom in the areas that God has given them a bent. I want them to blossom in their areas of strength. Then once I do that, how can I impart the love God has for me into them, where they know not only mom and dad love them, but God loves them. I know investing in my children is going to carry on to 30 Risen Magazine

their children; it’s not just this generation I’m considering, it’s the next one, and the next. That’s how the The Love Dare for Parents lays the strategy out from winning the hearts of your children, to discovering what their natural abilities and bents are, and then loving them in a way that means the most to them with the love God has for us. If you make it through these 40 dares, I promise it’s going to make a major impact on your kid.

RM: I think a top concern for parents is making sure their children love and follow the Lord, because they have that relationship and not because they are being told to go to church or read scripture. As you mentioned having six children of your own, what have you found to be the most effective way for parents to instill core values and biblical truths within their kids?

AK: Absolutely. One strategy is to do it as the spiritual leader of my home where they see that my wife and I are on the same page and that we both love our kids and want the best for them. We do family devotions every night. I read a chapter of scripture and we talk and catch up as a family.

But I also have time with each individual child, and each of them receives love in different ways. One of my kids just loves quality time… “Dad will you come play a game with me? Dad will you come read a book with me?” And he’s always asking for time. Another one of my kids wants a gift. Every time I come in from work, or from a trip, “Dad did you bring me anything?”

When I do a creative gift that is specifically geared towards him, it means so much to him and he knows, Dad loves me. Another one of my kids is very affectionate. They’re the first one to run up and give me a hug every day. And so I know to hold them, to tell them “I love you. You’re God’s gift to me and I want what’s best for you.” I can speak into their lives that way and then they hear me when I talk about life lessons and things they need to apply to their lives. I do it collectively in one regard, and then individually in another way. But you know, God loves us that way too. God does things in my life that minister to me, that help me, that show me things, especially when I’m seeking and listening to him. He does other things for my wife in a different way; how he ministers to her. God does love us collectively and loves us uniquely. As I see the way God ministers to me, I want to do the same thing for my kids.

RM: What is something your parents did really well that you wanted to make sure to replicate within your family structure?

AK: When we would go on family trips, I remember my dad sharing with us humorous stories and embarrassing stories from when he was growing up. And sometimes in the evenings, my brothers and I shared a room, he would come in and sit on the end of the bed and give us opportunities to ask whatever we wanted to ask. The older we got, we asked about relationships, or jobs, or his first fight with somebody else, and I remember Dad sharing all those things and then asking us not just, “How was your day?” But, “What are you the most afraid of ? What gets you the most excited?” Things like that [helped] to really learn who we were as people, and for us learn him.

My dad wasn’t the dad that always spent time throwing a football and [playing] basketball with me, because he wasn’t able to, he had health issues.

But I remember him demonstrating love to me by taking an interest in who I was, giving me an opportunity to ask him anything, talking to me, being honest with me, and I want to be able to do that same thing for my kids because it meant so much to me. He was faithful to my mom, faithful to the Lord, and I want to do the same thing for my kids.

RM: As you mention your brothers, there were three boys growing up, but I only hear about you and Stephen when it comes to all the movie-making.

Photo: Travis Hatfield

Alex Kendrick speaking at Sherwwood Baptist Church. risenmagazine.com 31

Courageous © 2011 Provident Films

I wanted to make movies when I was 23 years old, and God made me wait until I was 33, and those 10 years felt like forever.

Alex Kendrick as Deputy Sheriff Adam Mitchell in Courageous.

Was your other brother not passionate about the same things you two were, or did he just take a different career path?

AK: Our older brother Shannon – and I hate to admit this – but academically, was by far the smartest. He had straight A’s and made the Dean’s List in college. He loves computer work and he went to work with IBM for 20 years. Today, he has joined Stephen and me in making films and writing books. For the past year-and-a-half, all three brothers have been together.

We’re very excited to have all three of us on this adventure and he’s brought his wealth of computer and internet information to our world and helped us create KendrickBrothers.com. We love him being a part of it. He’s the quiet one, he doesn’t like being in front of the camera, but we love his intellect and what he brings to the table.

RM: As the three of you team together I see you’re launching your own production company. Is this still with the vision of changing America through movies? What are you most excited about moving forward with this venture?

AK: Our goals are exactly the same and you’ll see the same types of movies.

There are two reasons that we made this shift. Number one, the first four movies we made all had to be modern day Albany, Georgia. The reason for that is that our church members made up the workforce. They all volunteered for each of our movies; 1700 of them helped us make Courageous, and hundreds before that with our first three films. As wonderful as that has been, we realized that if we were gong to grow, we had to have the freedom to go wherever we needed to go to make that next film. It’s hard to take 1700 volunteers with you, especially when they have day jobs in Albany. So two years ago we began talking about this [shift] with our pastor and leadership team and they gave us their blessing saying, “Well, we’ve loved doing it at Sherwood [Church], we certainly understand. You have our blessing, go where God takes you.”

And the second reason is, for years now, we’ve been approached by Christian film students from various universities all over the United States, saying, “We would love to mentor under you and be interns on your crew.” And Stephen and I have wanted to give them an opportunity to do that and invest in the next generation of filmmakers. One day we are going to have to pass this torch. The next movie will be made, wherever it needs to be made, we’re not locked into Albany. And we’re gong to use primarily really 32 Risen Magazine

gifted Christian film students as the crew. Everybody knows we are still at Sherwood Baptist Church, we still are ministers on staff, that is our home base, and we haven’t left the church; it’s just that the movies are now free to be shot wherever they need to be shot.

RM: For someone who may be frustrated with God’s timing, or questioning if he is even there, what encouragement can you give and what are a couple of the most significant ways you’ve seen the Lord work in your life?

AK: This is what I’ve learned about the Lord; if you go through scripture, most of the time, the men that God used from Abraham, to Moses, to Joseph, even Jesus, when it came time for them to launch into their ministry they first went through a desert time. Jesus went into the desert 40 days fasting and seeking the Lord, and was being tempted. Even the apostle Paul, before he started his ministry went to Arabia and spent years in the desert reading, training, praying. We know Joseph was in prison before he eventually became a leader in Egypt. Moses went to the desert as a shepherd before he came back to help release the people of Israel.

This theme that we studied, that God sometimes will allow you to go through a time that you may feel like you’re in the desert and you say, “Where’s God? I’m just waiting,” he does that to help season and mature you, and build your desire to seek him. And that struggle has great value. But in our culture we hate it. We hate waiting, we hate not knowing, we hate struggling and asking, “Where is God?” The Lord has not left you. He is allowing you to go through this season to help prepare you and mature you and build your understanding. Before the fruitful days come, the Lord will allow you to go through that season in the desert and those are not bad days. They are hard days, but it doesn’t mean they are bad days. Let the Lord do what he wants to do. One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29:13, “If you seek me, you’ll find me if you seek me with all your heart.” So part of that waiting is seeking the Lord. You have to chase after him, and he loves to be sought. And when we do that, it prepares us for greater things down the road. Most of us can’t handle great fruit until the time we are ready for it. And I learned that. I wanted to make movies when I was 23 years old, and God made me wait until I was 33, and those 10 years felt like forever. But when the Lord prepared me and opened the door to do it, he then gave more fruit than I could have possibly imagined in every possible way, and I’m so grateful today for those 10 years of having to wait.

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Jay Alabamy Haizlip Writer: Chris Ahrens

he smell of marijuana was as common to Jay Haizlip in his childhood as car exhaust to a kid living in the inner city. His first experience of getting stoned was at five years old. By the age of eight, he was getting high regularly. At twelve he was selling weed and it only took a few more years to graduate to cocaine. Even his first love, skateboarding, couldn’t save him from the death spiral he was in.

In spite of his generally inebriated state, young Haizlip was a remarkable pro skateboarder, helping pioneer ramp and pool skating while hanging out with some of the top skaters in the world. During his mid-teens, he hitchhiked from his home state of Alabama to Southern California. There he found shelter beneath the roof of legendary Dogtown skateboarder, Tony Alva.

Drifting south to Newport Beach, Haizlip soon traded his daily weed habit for cocaine. For a time he continued to skate while high, but like most addicts, his priorities shifted until drugs were his main source of entertainment, obliterating all other ambitions.

Nobody remembered his covers on Thrasher Magazine, or the famed centerspread of him flying out of an empty pool, upside down, chugging a beer. Life had been a fast, fun ride until he went too high, fell too far and crashed so hard the wheels came off.

Anyone who knew him would not have been surprised to hear he had died of a drug overdose. What is surprising is how things actually turned out. And nobody was more surprised than Haizlip himself. Now a pastor, he founded The Sanctuary church in Orange County, California about ten years ago where his talents have shifted from skating to spreading the hope of Jesus Christ.

Interview Exclusively for Risen Magazine in Southern California Risen Magazine: How did you get involved in skateboarding?

Jay Haizlip: I got a skateboard when I was 10 years old and that little plastic skateboard with ball bearings changed my life. Everything that’s ever come out of my life was a result of that Christmas present.

RM: How do you remain fearless in an extreme sport?

JH: I grew up skating pools, grinding coping, going over the “death box.”

The adrenaline you get from that helps overcome the fear.

JH: I was never part of the Dogtown group, even though those guys are my friends, especially Tony [Alva] and Jay [Adams.] They try to get the message out. I try to use any influence I have to warn people not to go where I went.

Most people who go there do not make it back. You couldn’t get any closer to death and still be alive than I was.

RM: Stacy Peralta [Director and former pro-skateboarder] recently told me: “Skateboarding gets you high; why would you get high while skateboarding?”

Why did you get high and skate?

JH: I agree with that, but I grew up in an environment of dope smoking hippies where drugs were a part of my lifestyle. I started out smoking weed and went on to harder things.

RM: How close did you get to death?

JH: Once after three days doing meth, I fell on the floor and overdosed.

Everybody thought I was dead, and they left me lying there, unconscious. I don’t know how long I laid there, but when I saw everyone again they said, “Dude, we can’t believe you’re alive!” Another time, I was about ten feet from a guy who pulled out two pistols and started shooting at me. I dove through the screen door while he kept shooting at me. Later, when I got sentenced to two years in prison, I was so empty, dying seemed like a relief. I thought of ending my life many times.

RM: Most skaters who emulated the Dogtown guys don’t realize most of the surviving members of that crew are clean and sober.

RM: Do you think there’s a spiritual component to drug use and addiction?

JH: Drugs are a counterfeit for God’s presence. When you get into the pres-

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ence of God, it literally brings you into a state of ecstasy that’s not chemically induced. In Acts, chapter 2, everybody in the city thought the apostles were drunk that day.

Peter stood up and said, “These men are not drunk like you think they are.” He didn’t say they weren’t drunk, just not in the way they thought.

saved.” In praying that prayer something in the deepest part of my being, everything I’d ever done, all the hurt I’d ever experienced lifted off of me and I was changed. I have never done drugs since. That was on a Friday night in September of 1990 or ’91.

Everything, from smoking weed, getting drunk, doing heroin, or smoking crack or crystal meth opens you up to the spiritual realm.

ment forward, I just had a hunger to go after him. Nobody has done for me and nobody is capable of doing for me, what God has done for me.

I so appreciate God and so love him. It’s not some dreadful duty that I live out. It’s with delight that I’ve given him my life. The more I go after him, the more I get of him and the more I get of him, the more I want to go after him. It’s like this incredible love relationship. When God got ahold of me it felt so good, I thought, “This is why I was created; this is what life’s all about!” It was through him and I really began to live for a purpose other than myself. I could go on and on telling you why I’m serving God all these years later.

h wife

Jay wit

Christy

RM: Do you think marijuana is very harmful?

JH: There are so many chemicals in marijuana people haven’t even identified them all. I hear people say that God created marijuana. Well, God created poison ivy, but you don’t smoke it. I’ll tell you from personal experience, marijuana took me to the verge of being a burnout. You could ask me a question and it would take lots of time to respond, because my processing was so slow because of getting high. I asked a guy recently that said he didn’t think marijuana was harmful, if he’d ever hidden his dope and forgotten where he hid it? He said, “ Yeah, I never thought about that.”

Some people look at me and think, “ You made it back, so can I.” The only way I’m here today is by the grace of God. If Jesus Christ had not delivered me and put me back in my right mind, I would not be here today.

I know that.

I tried as hard as I could for two years to change my life. I worked the program and put myself in treatment centers. My lifestyle was hurting me so much, and I wanted to get free. I once came right out of a drug treatment center and went out partying on cocaine that same weekend. I came home Sunday morning at nine o’clock and sat on the edge of my bed. Then, for the fist time, I saw what my drug use was doing to me, my wife, my son, and everyone who loved me. I had destroyed everything.

I wasn’t a God hater, or anti-God. I just didn’t think about God. Sitting there that morning I started crying and said, “God, if you’re real, please help me?” That prayer began a process that led me to the point where Jesus came into my life. Not long after that I was on my way to do a drug deal, and God put this guy in my path that talked to me about Jesus in a way I had never heard before. I asked him, “How do I get saved?” I had no idea what the word saved meant in Christian terms. I remember thinking, “I’ll get saved and then go out and then go do my drug deal.”

He opened up his Bible to Romans 10:9-10, which says, “If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, you will be 36 Risen Magazine

RM: Some people would say it’s understandable that a drug addict would turn to God. But what keeps you there?

JH: When I gave my life to Jesus Christ, I literally connected to the living God. As a result of meeting God personally; the Bible says we love God because He first loved us. When Jesus came into my heart that night, and the shackles of my addictions fell off, that was an encounter with God’s love.

There was a genuine manifestation of God’s presence in my life. When I experienced it, I couldn’t help but respond to it. It so changed my life; I didn’t want to lose it. From that mo

RM: As an extreme skateboarder and drug addict you were used to high doses of adrenaline all the time. Were you able to get that adrenaline going again?

JH: I think that drive toward adrenaline was God-given, but was misdirected, and Satan took advantage of it. Now that my life’s in God’s hands, God hasn’t taken that drive away; I just use it for the right thing. Cocaine, ecstasy, sex with every girl you can find… nothing compares to the thrill of helping people encounter Jesus, overcome their issues, their addictions, their hurts and watching God touch them. It never gets old. Last night when I finished preaching and I gave the invitation for those to come forward that wanted to accept Jesus, the whole altar filled up with people saying yes to Jesus. I felt so satisfied, but at the same time I thought, “I wanna do that again.”

RM: How did your transition into ministry begin?

JH: The last few years before I was a Christian, I was going into hardcore neighborhoods, smoking crack and meth. When I gave my life to Jesus, I wanted to go back into that environment and tell those people what Jesus had done in my life. I got a Realistic amp from Radio Shack and adapted it to work off the car lighter. I went down there one Friday night at about 11 o’clock, put those wooden speakers on the sidewalk, stood on the sidewalk and my first message was, “Hey, you know me. I was down here getting’ high, scoring dope. Jesus came into my life and changed me, and he can change you too.”

That’s all I knew to say; that’s where it started.

RM: Was there a response?

JH: At first people thought, “This guy is crazy.” But over a short period of time they realized I had really changed. I was consistent and kept reaching out and loving on them. They started to respond and within a short period of time, I had probably over a hundred people going to church with me.

Soon people said, “ You’re called into the ministry.” A short time later I was in a service, standing there with my eyes closed and I felt like God said, “I have called you into the ministry.” My response was, “ Yes God, whatever you want me to do; I want to serve you with my whole life.”

RM: As a pastor, how do you balance ministry, family and fun?

JH: As a minister, it’s like I’m aiming at a target that keeps moving. It would be nice if I could set everything in its place and have it stay there, but every day I wake up and somebody’s rearranged it. When it comes to my family, I date my own wife every Monday. Every so often I have to give that day up for something, but I never do that without first discussing it with her.

RM: It seems your staff consists mainly of pro skateboarders.

JH: When you look at our church, you would almost think the prerequisite would have been to be a skater and to go to prison. That didn’t happen intentionally, it just happened.

RM: How would you describe your church, The Sanctuary?

JH: We have a unique niche and I’m cool with who we are and I don’t try to be something different. I love who we are actually. We reach a lot of people who, if you want to get really honest, some churches wouldn’t want to reach.

Our church is very diverse [in regards to] where people come from economically and socially. The common thread in our church though is that we are very youthful. We have pro skaters and other athletes, former gang members, former strippers, and professional people here. Once we had a Bentley in our church parking lot next to three shopping carts containing homeless people’s belongings in them. I remember thinking how beautiful that was.

One of the great stories at The Sanctuary concerns Aaron Murray. He was a top pro who became a hardcore drug addict. Last night he and his wife were standing on a platform greeting our visitors and guests. God has used them.

I remember the day he was standing in front of our church and he had been up doing drugs. You could see the rage in his face. He looked like if you got next to him, he would have cut your head off. He had been arrested for attempted murder and had a major drug and alcohol problem.

Christian [Hosoi, Sanctuary Outreach Pastor & pro skater] grew up with Aaron. We walked up to him and hugged him and said he loved him.

We invited him inside. Once he began hanging around with Christians again, he began to have longer periods of sobriety. He went with Christian to a baptism. Before we had our own church building we had an eight-foot stainless steel horse trough. We were baptizing people in it, and there was risenmagazine.com 37

Murray, about eighteen feet away, crouched down in a sort of vato stance.

The last guy had just been baptized and was out of the water. Christian and I weren’t looking and we turned to hear someone jumping into the water.

We looked and it’s Murray standing there with all of his clothes on. He said, “I want to get baptized.” Christian said, “Don’t you want to take your shoes off ?” He said, “No, I want everything baptized!” It was beautiful to see the transformation, the way he and his wife Melissa live now. Their kids will never know the pain Aaron and Melissa experienced; they broke the curse.

RM: Do you think anyone is beyond help?

JH: Because of what God delivered me from, I know God can deliver anyone from anything. We started a campus in downtown L.A. where there are a lot of homeless people. Some of them are so far out of their minds; you can’t even engage them in conversation. In a sense, I feel helpless in my ability to do something for them that could change them. I could give them a coat or a meal, but to change their lives or their future I feel helpless. Still, I know that with God all things are possible.

It reminds me of the story in the Bible about the demonic of Gadara.

When you look at that story, everyone had tried to change this person’s life.

They even chained him up, but he was so demonically crazy, he would always break out of the chains. He ran around tormented and afflicting terror on everybody. When Jesus came to town, the man came running to him, fell at his feet, and Jesus set him free. When they saw the man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind, they couldn’t believe it. This guy had a legion of demons and nobody could help him. When he came in contact with Jesus, he changed everything about him.

RM: You’ve had lots of celebrity visits at your church. Anyone you can talk about?

JH: I don’t usually like to use people’s names, but I can tell you about some of them who wouldn’t mind me telling you. Brian “Head” Welch from Korn comes to our church periodically. Actor Steven Baldwin comes from time to time. There’s a real well known English actress named Danniella Westbrook.

She and her husband are great friends with my wife Christy and I. They got saved here in our church. She had a really well-known cocaine problem. She came to our church, gave her life to Jesus and it’s beautiful to see how God is changing their lives. She has brought all kinds of English celebrities here.

Along with celebrities, we’ve had the mayor of our city and various council members visit. I love that I have an opportunity to influence them and that they have a major platform of influence.

RM: How did you start The Sanctuary?

JH: When I left California and cocaine took over my life, I went back to Alabama, and that’s where I became a Christian. God began to deal with me about coming back to California and starting a church. When we first 38 Risen Magazine

came to Huntington Beach to plant a church, nobody wanted to come here to plant a church. It was almost considered like the graveyard for church planters. I didn’t read a lot of “how to” books on church planting. The way I started our church, it wasn’t even the way I wanted to start it. I started with a handful of broken, struggling people, the last people you’d normally want to start a church with.

We started the church in November of 2002. The first five years we were in six different locations. Setting up, tearing down, setting up, and tearing down. I got tired and it got old. We grew little by little, but when we bought our building four-and-a-half years ago, it was like the lid blew off in

terms of growth. The church grew about 500 percent in three years.

We’re now in the 2,000ish range, and have eight services a week. We’re in the process of working with an architect to develop our current church to double the seating capacity. We’ve also started a second facility in downtown L.A. RM: I hear you’re involved in a new TV show?

JH: It’s called Preacher’s of L.A. It will air in the fall on the Oxygen Network.

It stars Bishop Noel Jones, Grace Jones’ brother, Gospel singer Deitrick Haddon, Bishop Clarence McClendon, Pastor Wayne Chaney, Bishop Ron Gibson, Christy and me.

RM: What’s next for you?

JH: Our goal is to plant churches in major cities. We want to plant a church in Long Beach and we hope to plant a church in London, England. I want some on-fire people that want to serve Jesus the way I do. Look at what Jesus did with 12 people, and 120 in Acts chapter 2. The book of Acts is the blueprint of how church should be done. When you look at Acts, you can see we’ve deviated from the blueprint. There may be elements of it there, but the details may not always be there. It says in Acts, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” I think we can do that again.

Wouldn’t you want someone to say that about you and your friends?

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Photo: JP Yim 40 Risen Magazine

Writer: Mei Ling Starkey Photographer: Roadside Attractions

manda Joy “AJ” Michalka is best known as half of the duo 78violet (formerly Aly & AJ) with her older sister Aly. The singing-songwriting sisters are also actresses and have been performing since a young age. They’ve done church play productions, shows on the Disney Channel, movies and eventually a reality show together on MTV called Aly & AJ: Sister Act. Recently, AJ issued a single and video from her upcoming film Grace Unplugged, called All I Ever Wanted, and Risen caught up with the now 22-year-old to talk about tough conversations with friends, not conforming, and making faith your own.

Interview Exclusively for Risen Magazine in Southern California

Risen Magazine: What did your faith journey look like growing up?

AJ Michalka: I grew up in a strong Christian family with a very good background. It was amazing and I wouldn’t change it in a million years. When I got older and I was more in tune with who I was, and more knowledgeable about the Lord, and who I wanted to be as an adult, I started getting more involved on my own. I developed my own convictions. It wasn’t because of my mom or dad or traditions of going to church. It was my own personal conviction. Each person really has to search for that inside. We have so many opportunities. The Lord gives us so many chances and you either find it, or you don’t. I grew up in a church in Seattle, Washington, that was amazing.

There were 3,000 people and I would perform there. My sister and I would sing duets when we were younger and that’s how we grew up. I will never forget those moments. But then I made it my own choice and personal conviction. It is really important when you are growing up to make sure you are not doing something just because your parents have taught you that it’s the right thing, but that you actually want to start a relationship with God. RM: When it comes to keeping a strong faith in Hollywood, what does that look like for you?

AJM: It is hard no matter what you do. Hollywood is often portrayed as this incredibly crazy, sinful wasteland. I think it is filled with temptation and sin, but it is also similar to the world we live in. That’s everywhere. Whether you are in this industry or not, it is so important to surround yourself with people that are going to help you stay on the right track and not lead you down a road of destruction and sin. [In my movie, Grace Unplugged,] Gracie abandoned what she grew up with because she was so confined and needed

to develop who she was and figure things out. That’s okay that she did that.

She’s human and she grew up in a world where she felt like she didn’t belong. She needed to forge her own path and I just appreciated the fact that she came back around. I have so much respect for her as a young girl that at 16 years old, she is able to rise and fall at the same time. She really does make it back home. Her vulnerability in that scene where she is apologizing to her family and her friends is really what made me want to do the film. I feel like it is really hard whether you are in this industry or not. You have got to surround yourself with people who are going to steer you in the right direction and to put God first. Staying in the word [the Bible] is so important. Every year, I start a new devotional and I read it every day. It is really what keeps me grounded in my faith. You have to put God first and then center him in it all.

RM: You mentioned how you have to surround yourself with friends that are headed in the right direction. What advice do you have for those that have some friends that have wandered away from God? AJM: I think we are all nervous to be upfront or real with people. We often walk on eggshells because we don’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

But I really think that we are on this earth to be messengers. I feel like you can approach friends or even people that you don’t know that well without pushing yourself on them. There is a fine line that you have to find. But if you pray about reaching out to a friend that has gone astray, in the long run, it will be better the situation, not worsen it. It does depend on your relationship with that person and how you approach it. But if you come from a good place and your intentions are pure, you can’t lose. If it’s a friend that risenmagazine.com 41

you love and care for, even if it takes them a while to come around, they will be able to look back and see that your intentions were pure. They will make it around. It just might take some time. I think it is important to speak up.

You can be loud about your faith without pushing anything down people’s throats. We are here to love everyone. It’s important to share especially with a friend that has gone astray.

RM: In the film, when Gracie lands her contract, she is forced by her agent to change her image; from the clothes that she wears to the boy she dates.

What words do you have for our readers who feel pressured by others to be something they are not?

AJM: I think that so many of us are constantly seeking the approval of parents, co-workers, or friends and really there is only one opinion at the end of the day that matters and that is the Lord’s. I feel like instead of acting differently or pretending to be something that we are not, let’s spend this time on earth – since it’s so quick – actually loving who we are and knowing that the only person we need to please is the Lord. Even he will love us no matter what. I think it’s important to not conform. We need to be the messengers we were sent here to be and not worry about having to prove ourselves to another person just so we can be called popular. I think it’s really important for us to remember that we are soldiers for Christ and we need to witness to people and not try to see who has the best outfit, or the better job. At the end of the day, we don’t need to prove ourselves to anyone.

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RM: A lot of young people aspire to be actors or singers, what is the one thing you wish someone would have told you?

AJM: I wish someone would have told me the amount of times you’ll hear “No,” before you hear, “ Yes.” I feel like that is the trend with everything you do. Sometimes we are expecting it to be easier. We work hard at our craft and we don’t necessarily reap the benefits. We assume they will come. The biggest thing I have learned is that it’s not about the yes or the no, it’s about where we are going to end up. The one thing I would have loved to hear before going into this industry is to be prepared for a lot of denial before it’s a yes. I’m actually okay with that because the only yes I need is from him [the Lord]. The process has made me who I am, a strong, confidant person.

RM: You have an older sister [Aly] who you sing with and have starred together in a number of projects. How do you keep that balance between working together and having fun together as sisters?

AJM: The balance really comes naturally. It is always something you can work on with siblings. You should always be real with each other if something hurts. You should be communicative and conversational with your siblings rather than get upset about something, letting it fester and then explode. My sister and I have always been really good at staying in constant communication. We go to church together, we pray together and the Lord has really been our center. My sister and I don’t ever feel like we are a burden to each other or we’re sick of each other. Even though we are work-

ing together and do much of our personal lives together, we still have our individual outlets. We have our own friends and our own activities. We have things that separate us, but we have the Lord that connects us and because that bond is so strong, it doesn’t ever really affect us in a negative way.

RM: In what other ways do you both use your gifts and talents to give back to others and why is this important to you?

AJM: It’s really important because people need love and people need to be acknowledged and nurtured. Whether it’s a charity you are involved in or something you want to donate time to, lend your name or money to, it’s important to find something that convicts you personally. It shouldn’t be something you feel obligated to do. Aly and I love to work with groups that are serving children. It may be visiting a hospital or putting on a concert for a group of kids, but we have had that same mentality. I love children and I can’t wait to have children of my own when I’m older. I feel like it’s important to connect with your audience, whether they’re your fans or not.

It’s important whether you’re a celebrity or not to give back. It’s great to have that feeling of satisfaction of helping someone else and that’s hard to find elsewhere.

RM: You have a new album out. Where do you get your inspiration from for your music?

AJM: A lot of it is personal experience. Some of the music from experiences that our friends have gone through that we have gone through with them. A friend will come to me with something and I am automatically put into a certain mood. I feel like the deeper your moods are the better it is to write. We’re never specific with whom the song is about or who it is aimed towards, but a lot of it is a personal diary to who we are and who our friends are. There are some other world issues that we are moved and inspired to write about. A lot of it is relationship based though things that Aly and I have experienced. Whatever motivates us is what we write about.

If it pushes that trigger, we know it is time to get out the piano or the guitar and start writing some lyrics.

RM: You girls are so musically talented! You started your career at the young age of four and have had to make some sacrifices along the way. Looking back on your childhood, is there anything you regret or feel like you missed out on?

AJM: I’m sure there is something that I will think of later, but there isn’t anything that sticks out to me. I guess the most obvious thing was that my sister and I were home-schooled for high school and I didn’t get to experience real high school. That is probably not something I will look back and get upset about. We lived such an interesting life and were so blessed to go on the road and be on tour. We met people from all different walks of life.

We learned about other people, so I don’t feel like I really missed out on a lot because I got to experience so much that I wouldn’t trade. I wouldn’t ever want to replace that life and start over. The cool thing is we started singing so young, but when we actually started performing professionally, we were older. It was cool falling into the business knowing it was something we wanted to do. Aly and I started a band when we were younger. We never thought anything would come of it. We knew we loved performing, playing instruments and singing and that was it. When it became professional, we were excited because we realized we would be able to reach people in a deeper way than just playing in our living room. To me the biggest blessing is how our career just developed in a natural way.

RM: Ten years from now, what do you hope to be doing?

AJM: I wish for many things when it comes to my career. But first and foremost, it would definitely be being happily married and having healthy children. I would love to grow a rock solid family similar to what my parents have done.

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44 Risen Magazine

Dept: Miracle

DeMartino climbing in Eldorado Canyon State Park, Colorado

Writer: Nikki Jimenez Photographer: Craig DeMartino Collection

or many people, a 100-foot fall onto pure rock would mean absolute death, but for Craig DeMartino, his story unfolds quite differently. This avid rock climber thought for sure he would die in the outskirts of Rocky Mountain National after a climbing accident. Defying all odds, DeMartino didn’t die, or wind up a quadriplegic. He did however, have his right leg amputated below the knee. But after an intensive and painful road to recovery, this walking miracle is back scaling rocks. Risen talks to DeMartino as he recounts the details of his accident and how his journey back to health rocked his faith in God, yet opened the doors to share that faith.

Interviewed Exclusively for Risen Magazine

Risen Magazine: There are some pretty amazing pictures of you rock climbing in beautiful places. How did you get into rock climbing?

Craig DeMartino: Oddly enough, at a bachelor party. I grew up in Pennsylvania and went to this party, but instead of going to the regular bars, this guy said that we’re going rock climbing. I’d heard of it, but never had an interest in it. It wasn’t in my world. So we went climbing and it was something that immediately clicked with me. I loved it. I felt like, “Ahhhh.” I wasn’t really in sports in high school, but I thought rock climbing was such a cool, different sport. That was 23 years ago and I’ve been climbing ever since. It’s just been a passion in life.

RM: Fast forward to 13 years after you were introduced. You become a seasoned rock climber. I know this is a big question, but what did you experience that day at Rocky Mountain National that changed your life forever?

CD: [ July 21, 2002] was just a regular day for my friend and me to go up climbing. My wife was staying home with the kids. We traded off since they were so young at that time. We climbers have a certain amount of terminology we always use. One of those things is top roping. Top roping means we attach the rope at the top of the climb and then lower it back to the ground. He [friend] and I never really solidified that [meaning]. We never said, “Hey, this is what I think that means. What do you think?” Because he and I climbed together all the time, we were pretty used to each other and comfortable. I led the climb up.

When I got to the ledge 100 feet up, I clipped into the anchor and then rigged it so I could be lowered to the ground. Once I did that, I was ready

for him to take me back and lower me. I yelled down to him and said, “Okay!

I’m ready!” But he thought that meant he was to come up to the ledge with me. I heard that he yelled up, “Okay, good!”

I unclipped everything and then sat back. I just started to fall the entire 100 feet, which is basically like a 10-story office building. When you first start to fall, you don’t know you’re falling. You think there’s just slack and think it’s going to catch sooner or later. But then probably, I don’t know, 20 feet into it, I started to realize, “Oh, I’m going far.” I pushed off the rock and that pushed me away to see where I was falling. It tipped me backwards, and about 20 feet from the ground, I hit a tree. I had actually walked around that tree to go to the climb. But that hit [of the tree] stood me back up and I landed standing on my feet.

RM: Oh my goodness! What a fall! 100 feet? And you’re still alive?!

CD: Good news is that I landed standing on my feet. Bad thing is my feet just took a grunt of everything. I had compound fractures on both legs and ankles. I broke my back, neck, ribs, and shoulder. I just basically crumpled down into the rocks. It ended up that I was still awake. I was very aware of what was going on. My friend started to assess me, and what we needed to do. We were so far in the backcountry we had to figure out how to start this rescue attempt.

RM: Recalling that story, how do you perceive it now? Does it still give you chills thinking about it?

CD: It doesn’t give me chills. What it gives me is this amazing perspective of, “Wow, I was so wrecked after it.” I mean, literally they gave me an hour to risenmagazine.com 45

Dept: Miracle

live when they took me to the hospital. But I forget how far I’ve come when I’m in it everyday. I’m just there and doing my thing and living my life. Then all of a sudden there’s an anniversary. It causes me to reflect and think how far I’ve come. It’s a neat perspective for me. It doesn’t give me chills anymore. I saw a reenactment once for the Discovery Channel and that gave me chills; that actually made me nauseous. But now, I talk about it a lot with the book and speaking. I’m able to process it a lot.

RM: Prior to your accident, what would’ve been your definition of a miracle?

CD: Prior to my accident, I probably would’ve said the birth of my kids.

When I saw my kids being born, I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s what a text-

I had compound fractures on both legs and ankles. I broke my back, neck, ribs, and shoulder. I just basically crumpled down into the rocks.

book miracle would be. Holy cow, that’s insane.” I can’t believe this actually happens on a daily basis. That was my world. That was the only thing I can really equate that to. I read about miracles in the Bible. Not that the kids weren’t [a miracle], but you don’t have anything else to base it on.

RM: Since your accident, what do you think of miracles? Has your definition changed?

CD: Now as I look back, still the birth of my kids. But I’m amazed by what God is able to line up in the bigger picture. For me, I’m not a quadriplegic, or a paraplegic, or dead! All three are huge miracles to me. The fact that I’m able to even get around, walk, eat, be aware and know what’s going on is amazing. I had so much heavy trauma happen to me and to be able to bounce back to do what I do, that is such a miracle.

But also, I used to think that miracles were these huge, huge things like a birth of a child. Now what I see is that there are all these small everyday things that typically I wouldn’t have paid attention to. I do now because I’ve realized that just the fact that I could sit up in bed, that I can go climb, I can play with my kids, I can do my thing everyday… to me those are miracles.

RM: In your book, you say you don’t agree with the statement: “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” In light of being in so much pain, what do you mean?

CD: I’ve gotten so much grief for saying that! It’s just that I believe that you can be given so much, that you have no concept that you can process it. When I was in the hospital right before my leg was amputated, I kept thinking, “Okay, this is all going to stop. I’m going to get to a level of this and it will plateau. I’m going to be okay.” I never got there. I thought it was getting worse and I couldn’t handle it anymore. My wife Cindy and I both felt like we were at the end of the rope. People would say that [phrase] to me, God’s only going to give you what you can handle. I kept thinking, “I can’t. You’re not in my head and I can’t handle what’s going on.” I got to the end so many times. Now in retrospect, I know that God made me and he kept putting people in my path that were integral to my healing. But I didn’t know that was happening at the time.

46 Risen Magazine

DeMartino recovering with his son, Will.

RM: How about your wife Cindy, how did she feel?

CD: When I developed a nerve disorder, she got to a point where she said she couldn’t do it anymore. She thought we could handle this as a couple, but she got to a point that made her go, “God, I can’t do it anymore. This is all on you. If you want to make it better, do it. But I can’t.” She realized she was just treading water. It was actually empowering for her because she was able to step back and say she doesn’t have to do all of this. God will take care of this and he did. It was an amazing process, but not an enjoyable process.

RM: For the time that you were in the hospital, slowly recovering, you mention you rarely thought of God and didn’t pray. But there was a time when God spoke to you the loudest. What was that like?

CD: [The nurses] would lift me on a crane and put me in bed. I couldn’t move. I had casts on my legs and a brace on my back and neck. I wasn’t allowed to roll. I was only able to move my arms to the sides. I could reach out to a bedside table where I had some magazines and books people brought me. The only thing I could literally reach that day was this daily devotional book and I hated it. I thought those books were the silliest things in the world. But the only one I could reach was a Max Lucado daily devotional.

Just for riddance I decided that I would look at what happened on the day I got hurt. I opened it to July 21st.

Up until that point in my life, I was probably a textbook Christian, going to church. It wasn’t always the most important thing in my life. I only had God around when I needed him. That day I opened it up to July 21st and the chapter heading was, How Far Does God Have to Go to Get Your Attention. There was some scriptural background and what it came down to was where is God in your life on a daily basis? Where is he in your prerogatives? It was so clear to me that God was speaking to me though this silly little book that, like I said, I hated. I thought it was stupid. I set the book down and thought, “God, I’m in a ton of pain. What am I supposed to do with this?” It was clear that I had no control. I was thinking, “Make me better, make

Dept: Miracle

DeMartino back climbing after accident.

me better.” But I had this peace that I might get better, but I might not get better. Either way it was going to be fine. I needed to let God do his thing.

RM: A lot of other people have experienced traumatic injuries, accidents if you say, that do take a toll on their spiritual life. What spiritual attributes did you hold on to that helped you through the recovery period?

CD: I think the biggest thing for me was praying for patience. I learned that’s a terrible thing to pray for because I ended up getting that lesson. I want patience, but I definitely don’t need to do it this way again! I also think praying for reflection. I treated God like a vending machine. Here’s what I need; I’m going to put in my quarters, that would be my prayers, and this is what I need back from God. Sometimes that would work and sometimes that wouldn’t work. What I learned was that my conversation with God changed. The way I prayed changed. The way I connected to God began this very different personal thing that I don’t know I would ever have gotten were I not hurt. I went from the vending machine approach, to patience from prayer, and then trusting. Once I understood how big God is, there was this amazing feeling of trust and love that I didn’t have before.

DeMartino climbing in Ten Sleep, Wyoming

RM: Sometimes people like to portray God as a crutch; in your instance, the visual of you leaning on God. But God is so much more, what are your thoughts on that?

CD: I’ve heard that same thing. People just say, “Oh, you’re leaning on God. You’re not strong enough to pull out of it on your own.” To that, I would answer, “ You’re right. I’m not strong enough to pull it out on my own.” I would go and speak at various places and people would tell me that it’s amazing that I can overcome what I have and bounce back to climbing. I don’t feel like I’ve risenmagazine.com 47

Dept: Miracle

DeMartino facing fears and continuing his passion to climb.

I treated God like a vending machine. Here’s what I need; I’m going to put in my quarters, that would be my prayers, and this is what I need back from God. done anything. I feel God is just directing me down these paths with recovery and climbing. I don’t see God as a crutch, I see him as a bridge to new life.

I’ve talked to doctors, physical therapists, and neurosurgeons. They look at my X-Rays, CAT scans and MRIs, and they tell me that I should be dead or at the very least a quadriplegic. Yet, here I am. I never wanted to do the things I’m doing now with sharing my story. I never said I’d like to be a speaker. In fact, talking about my faith was incredibly uncomfortable for me before I got hurt. I think that’s God’s amazing sense of humor.

RM: It’s amazing that you are still a climber! What does climbing mean to you now?

CD: Climbing has always been something that resonated with my soul. It 48 Risen Magazine

always clicked with me and made perfect sense for me. When I went back to it after the accident, it was one of those things that I told myself if I wasn’t going to be a climber, it’d be fine. But I wanted to decide that. I didn’t want the accident to take it from me. When I went back, it terrified me. But over the course of two years, the fear got lower and lower. I realized that climbing is something that I still really love doing. I appreciate it more now. Before, I wanted to be good at climbing so that people would say, “Craig is good at climbing.” Now I don’t need to be good at it, just climbing itself is a gift. It’s so fun and freeing.

RM: Talk about your ministry and the opportunity to speak to so many people about your accident and recovery.

CD: I never had any intention of ministry. God kept putting the stuff in play and I couldn’t ignore it. The first time I spoke it was a train-wreck. I just blabbered on and I don’t even know what I said. But God was totally in control of it, I wasn’t. It was at a men’s group and some guys came up to me after and said it was an amazing testimony. I thought, “What did they hear?!” I told my wife and she said, “God is going to get out what he wants to get out… stop putting so much pressure on yourself.” So I’m just telling the truth and people are hearing what God needs them to hear. The cool thing about my story is that no matter how I tell it, God comes out. So I can be in a completely secular venue and God still comes out. I love that part of the ministry.

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50 Risen Magazine

Dept: Outreach

Heart of Submission Led to the Start of an Overseas School: Speaks to the Lost Writer: Kelli Gillespie

ith a childhood that ranged from abuse and bullying, to choosing Christ and answering a calling to teach, Larry Brown was an unlikely candidate to become the first man to preach the Gospel to a bunch of Muslim children in rural Ethiopia.

But five campuses in five cities later, this comfort-providing preacher shares a powerful message of submission and surrendering life to something greater than oneself.

Interviewed Exclusively for Risen Magazine in San Diego, California

Risen Magazine: Growing up your father was an Atheist and your mother had some Christian background, but what made you want faith in your life and when was that decision made?

Larry Brown: My mom has two sisters that have been ministers for a long time so they were always that spiritual force within the family. My mom is the oldest of 15 kids. Two of her younger sisters were these little fireball evangelistic-type ministers and that seemed to irk my dad a lot because he was trying to live one way, and they were living this other way, and that offended him. He used to say, “Anyone who believes in God is weak mentally and emotionally. Christianity or any religion is for the weak.” And in my mind, he seemed to be more successful than my mom’s side of the family. He had bachelor and master degrees in engineering; he was a career naval officer, a boxer, and part of an undefeated navy basketball team. He had to work his way through the ranks from enlisted to officer because he grew up on a farm plowing fields and slopping hogs. He really made something out of himself according to the world’s standards. I really respected that and looked up to him in that way, but he was not this warm, loving kind of guy.

I graduated from high school and that summer from June to about mid-August it seemed that every single week, while in Maryland, somebody would witness to me. Whether it was in a mall, at the swimming pool, the bowling alley, or a convenience store, even a fast-food place, someone was witnessing to me, it was different people every time. I was like, “What is going on?” I would go to Sunday school occasionally as a kid and in junior high, but by the time I got to high school my mom had to work a job so she couldn’t take us to church at all. By the time I graduated from high school, my mind was focused on college and the party life. But all of sudden God was confronting me every single week. Then I got to the prep school and after we had a couple of weeks of basic training – learning how to march and physical fitness – the academic year started. This guy, Allan Camaisa, came by my room every Friday and Saturday night before I could catch the taxi to go out to the clubs and disco, and would talk to me, and somehow the conversation always ended up about God. I became accustomed to it and was beginning to enjoy it. He was a friend helping me think about life and my values, and what direction I was heading. It was good.

[Another influence] was a navy captain, two ranks higher than my dad,

who was a lieutenant commander in the navy. This guy and his family loved God. They went to church and did things together. And I remembered my dad saying, “Anyone who believes in God is weak.” And then thinking that, “This guy is two ranks higher than you Dad. And probably more educated, more successful at this point, and he believes in God.” So that started changing my belief system.

Finally by Easter, my heart was softened to the point I agreed to go to a retreat. One of the leaders of the group sat me down in the first thirty minutes I was there, and the next thing I knew was that had I accepted Christ. I made a decision that has lasted from March 24, 1978. I never turned back.

RM: How did your life look different after you made that decision?

LB: When I was seven years old I was sexually molested by somebody and I went from being an outgoing kid where my mom said, “you would be the type to get in front of the family and the company and you would rhyme, sing, rap, dance… you were just really friendly, outgoing, and loving, ” to that same year flunking the second grade because of the trauma. They [my family] didn’t know what happened to me until I was an adult and began to share my testimony about how God set me free from all the pain and fear. My mom said, “We always wondered what happened to you because it was like a switch flipped and a part of you died.”

I went to 11 schools between kindergarten through high school. I had to go to the same school to repeat second grade and see all the kids I knew from previous year. That humiliated and crushed myself self-esteem. I was already very fearful of what happened because the person that molested me threatened me by saying, “If you ever tell anybody you’re going to get in trouble because it’s your fault and I’m going to find you and get you.” And when you are a seven-year-old, what do you do with that? How can you cope with that?

Back then you think you’re the only one experiencing this.

So I lived with that fear driving me and I began to isolate myself; I was a loner with no friends and thought about suicide at the end of elementary school. I remember moving from California to Maryland and I thought, “I can’t live like this anymore. If I go to junior high and have another year like I’ve had, then I’m just going to end it.” No matter what school I went to the bullies would find me within the first week. The fear in me was like a magnet to risenmagazine.com 51

Dept: Outreach

them. I had big eyes and they would call me “bubble eyes,” and that hurt. Or they would tell me I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I can’t do anything athletically, and since I didn’t live in a family that believed in God I just thought, “What’s the point? I’ll just end it and my misery will be over.”

I remember in junior high, when my parents separated and eventually divorced, my mom decided to go back to church and I went with her. I cried out, “God if you are real, I need help. I can’t live life like this anymore.” And like in Romans 2:4 where it says, “…God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance,” I think God reached down and knew what I was going through and how desperate I was, and he helped me.

That year I made Honor Roll two out of four quarters, and that gave

teach, and preach the Word. It was a secular college, in fact a party campus, but it seemed like there was grace and favor to everything we did. If I would’ve stayed where I was at, I would’ve missed out on all of this.

RM: When you talk about hearing God speak to you and he tells you where to go and how to navigate your life, how would you describe that to someone who doesn’t have that as their routine?

LB: When I accepted Christ on the retreat they really emphasized not only prayer, but while in prayer, a quiet time with God. It needed to be a daily discipline. They really encouraged me to give 30 minutes to an hour of my day to prayer. And out of that quiet time, to cultivate a lifestyle where I could be quiet inside even through the midst of my working and talking day.

1 Peter 3:4 says we should develop a “gentle and quiet spirit.” Which tell us even you when are born-again, not everyone has a quiet spirit, and it’s more difficult for them to receive communication from God. Sometimes God will speak in a very authoritative voice on the inside, and that’s the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and sometimes it’s a still, small voice, and if you’re not quiet you will miss it. So the more you develop that inward spirit, the more you are able to perceive that guidance, and you always want to judge what you perceive on the inside, by the Word of God.

No matter what school I went to the

bullies would find me within the first week. The fear in me was like a magnet to them. me hope. Then I went out for the track team and I made it, which gave me more confidence and hope. I thought that maybe the rest of my life wouldn’t be that bad. So even though my parents divorced, seventh grade gave me some hope.

By the ninth grade I was on the high school state championship track team, undefeated in wrestling, and National Honor Society, but in the midst of all that I never had a relationship with God. Even though I prayed for God to help me, it still wasn’t until the summer when people were witnessing to me, and Allan [talking to me], and the retreat, that I actually accepted Christ.

When I headed to the Naval Academy I thought, “Now life will be perfect because I’m a Christian, I’m at my dream school, and my dad is proud of me.”

Everything seemed to start going wrong, so I began to seek the Lord and he began to show me from his Word [the Bible], “I have a plan for your life, and this is not my plan for you.” I said, “But God what about my dad? He lives in Annapolis; this is his dream school for me, and I’ve always wanted to please him.”

And God said, “Well who you are going to stand before when you’re judged one day…your earthly father or heavenly father?” I said, “Well, that’s a no-brainer.

You Lord.” And in Ephesians 2:10 it says, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” This is not what he had planned for me and he needed me to leave.

I didn’t know where to go, but he just said, “Trust me and leave.” That’s the life of faith.

After I left the Naval Academy that summer, I had to live with my dad.

I asked, “God, what are you doing to me?!” By the middle of the summer I accepted an academic scholarship to Louisiana, and back in 1979, Louisiana was not a place a black man wanted to go. All I saw was Mississippi burning in the news. But the more I prayed, I finally discerned if there is a desire inside and you know it’s not natural, but it’s on your heat, then more than likely that is God.

The Bible says in Proverbs 3: 5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Sometimes we reject what God is putting in our heart because we don’t understand it all, but God got his point across to me and I went to Louisiana.

I got involved with the campus ministry and fell in love with the place.

I began to discover there was an anointing on my life to minister the people,

RM: Tell me how you ended up founding Turning Point Ministries?

LB: One day when I was in the Navy, I heard the founder of Rhema Bible Training College on the radio station saying, “God gave me a mandate to teach my people faith.” And I said, “Lord, you are telling me to leave the Navy, go to Bible College, and become a minister… well what’s my mandate? What’s my assignment or my call?” And he said, “Comfort. Comfort my people.” Isaiah 40:1.

He said, “It’s something I spoke to you in college. You will develop in teaching and I’m really going to expand that comfort ministry that I’m giving you.” And he said, “You’ll go into mission field and I’ll give you a burden for them.” And so out of that he began to saturate and soften my heart, giving me compassion for the grieving, the hurting, the wounded, and the crushed.

And of course with what I went through, I could relate to that very much.

In the mid ‘90s when the Lord said to get my ministry incorporated and become a nonprofit, I said, “What name should I have?” And he said, “It is going to be, not just Larry Brown Ministries, but Turning Point Ministries.”

And I asked, “Why?” And he said, “Because you are going to turn people cries to Christ. You will go to churches, and on the mission field and the things I will have you share or supply – whether its material things or spiritual things – it’s going to be a turning point for people’s lives. Sick being healed, the lame walking, or somebody delivered from demonic possession; it will be a turning point in their life.”

RM: What types of modern-day miracles do you see when ministering overseas?

LB: One recent miracle was a little boy that had a learning disability. He came to me for prayer at the end of a church service in Ethiopia, he was seven years old and I asked him, “What can I pray for you for?” He said, “Will you pray for me that I can learn better in school?” I said, “Do you believe God can do anything?” And he said, “ Yes, yes I do.” He was part of a church where he had seen the Lord heal people from other things and his faith was definitely

Larry Brown in Ethiopia

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Dept: Outreach

Victory Bible College Ethiopia students - Africa

there. And I said, “We’re going to pray right now to Jesus, who is the healer, to improve your ability to learn.” That was in October 2011, and then in June 2012, this little boy was tugging on me at a ceremony where his pastor was graduating from Bible school. He said, “Do you remember me?” His eyes were all lit up and he said, “ You prayed for me to learn better and I’m the top second grader in all the school, and in every subject.”

There are a lot of miracles. I’ve seen people come up that could not hear, and instantly their ears pop open and they can hear after not being able to for years. There have been a number of women who have been barren for years. And in just about every African country I’ve been to if you’re married and not having a child with in the first two years there is great social shame and pressure. I remember one lady in particular, I was in Kenya, she was a hotel clerk and she called my room and said, “Are you a missionary?

Can you come down to the front desk? Please sir. I’ll tell you when you get down here.” I felt a peace that I should go, so I went down and she said, “Would you pray for me for God to bring my husband back and for us to have children?”

She continued to say, “We’ve been married five years and no children. We moved from the city we were living in to the city we’re at now because the pressure from our family, church, and community was so bad. Once the pressure here got bad, my husband left working at the hotel here with me and moved to Nyrobi, which is like 6-8 hours away by car, running from the shame of not having kids.” I said, “Sounds like we need to pray for him to come back first, because you can’t get pregnant without him.” I asked her a few questions to see where she was at in her faith. I felt good in my heart she was ready for me to pray for her. So I laid hands on her and prayed for her. One year later I was in that same 54 Risen Magazine

hotel and I asked her, “How are you doing?” And she said, “Well, not only is my husband back, but we’ve had our baby!” It’s fun going back to places a year later, because that has happened numerous times.

RM: Obviously miracles can happen anywhere, even in the United States.

Do you think we hear about them less here or is there a higher percentage of miracles occurring in other countries?

LB: I think the percentage is higher overseas in these third world nations because they don’t have the luxury, option, or opportunity to go to the pharmacy, or the doctor or access the better medical treatment like we have here in the States. The people overseas are almost forced to depend on God. Sometimes they are traveling three or four days to come to a crusade or church service where they hear someone can pray for them to be healed.

These people are putting their faith, hope, and being, into trusting God. RM: What happens if the miracle they are asking for doesn’t occur?

LB: I’m big on teaching and preaching the Bible, so one thing we explain to people is that with Jesus’ healing ministry, there were many instant healings and there were others where it was a gradual process. In Mark 16:18 the Bible says, “ You shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” In the Greek, recover means, well shall they be. That can be instant or that can be gradual, and I’ve seen it happen both ways. What I like is going back a year later and the people that didn’t have the instant manifestation, are now totally healed.

RM: You’ve been to 20 different nations, but most recently you’ve been focused on Ethiopia. Why has this country been placed on your heart?

LB: I believe that for this season, if not longer, God has given me a burden to help rise up ministers to reach their nation of Ethiopia. In January 2006, I was speaking at a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a lady I have known [for about 12 years] came to the meeting. She is an Ethiopian lady who approached me and said, “I have been looking for teachers and my Ethiopian pastor in Washington, DC, has given me an assignment to go to our nation and start a Bible College.” She said, “Islam is very aggressive there; their agenda is to start a mosque every 25 kilometers throughout the country. And my pastor’s vision is to raise five thousand churches in the nation. But in order to do that, ministers need to be trained. Would you prayerfully consider going to Ethiopia to help me start this school?”

So I prayed about it. Ethiopia had been in my heart for several years so I went with her in September; God did a deeper work [for that nation] in my heart in terms of compassion and vision. Over time, it has developed more and more. I’ve probably preached in 50 different churches or ministries in the country. I’ve been to ten different cities, so God has really expanded my territory. In addition to teaching in the Bible School and helping administrate, I’m involved with some very solid outreaches to widows and orphans.

One of our Bible School graduates started a school for children in a Muslim community where they had rejected her when she was 12 because she accepted Christ. More than ten years later, God sent her back to start a school and to minister to the Muslim community in some practical ways. This is a rural area where kids have zero opportunities for education, so these families greatly appreciate that a school is there. We have been helping financially with that, which has opened the door to the families wanting to meet me. “This Christian foreigner; why is he helping us?” they ask. “Why are you doing this in a Muslim community?” She invited me and told me, “ You’ll be the first one to ever teach the Gospel in this rural area.” And I was like, “Really? Lord please help me not to mess this up. She started a good work here. She’s had the school going for two years, building up a report, trust, and relationships; I do not want to jeopardize that or damage it in any way.” So I was really seeking God for wisdom, “Lord, how do I do this? What do I say to them?” And he reminded me that his grace is sufficient and then reminded me of some things I learned about Islam a couple years before that – one being that one of the meanings of Islam is submission. Another is surrender. God said, “When you go there and speak to them, talk about a God that loves people.” That is not something that is said in Islam, that Allah loves you. They’re hopeful that he will be merciful. And God also told me to talk about Christian submission and

surrender to the cause of Christ. That even Jesus left all of what he had in heaven and summited to the will of the Father to be crucified for the very people who sinned against him.

Out of that the Lord told me to talk about my submission and where the Lord led me from to what I am doing now. The director of the school for kids said, “Brother Larry, all the parents that heard you the first time want their kids to grow up to be a Christian. They were touched by your testimony of

,,,he began to saturate and soften my heart, giving me compassion for the grieving, the hurting, the wounded, and the crushed.

Victory Bible College Ethiopia Graduations

submission to God.” Now that they trust and respect me, I have the ability to preach the full Gospel and over the last four years, we have seen between 200-300 of these villagers accept Christ.

RM: You are ministering in a region that is predominantly Muslim, so what are the biggest challenges you are seeing when it comes to sharing the love of Jesus in those areas?

LB: The challenge we are having with the Muslims is that they are very organized, very systematic, and very strategic. What I mean by that is they have short term, mid-range, and long term goals for infiltrating Islam throughout the entire country. Their plan is that if I were a Muslim mentor, if it takes my whole lifetime to strategically prepare and position a child to become a person of influence in that country, then I will do that. That’s how they operate. Then they have some rich Muslims, and radical Muslims from the Middle East that are financially supporting this. They will take poorer risenmagazine.com 55

people and say, “Here is a bunch of money if you will convert to Islam, and then this is what we need you to do.” They like to start grassroots.

So my challenge, and the challenge of the other Christians there, is to educate the church concerning this in Ethiopia. Make them aware of what is going on right underneath their noses. For example, the goal of the Muslims in Ethiopia is to set up a mosque every 25 kilometers in the country.

They want to establish their presence, even if they only have one family attending that mosque; whatever they can use to influence and promote the Islamic agenda.

living in this rural community and you have zero friends. And you’re a baby Christian; you barely know what it means, you just gave your heart to the Lord when he appeared to you in a vision. You don’t have a Bible, you don’t have a pastor, and you have nothing.

RM: What about loneliness from your perspective? You have a wife and family, so how do you balance all and have you thought about just moving permanently overseas?

LB: I’ve thought about moving there, but I know my wife is not up for that. She is fine with me going as often as I need, and as long as I need. She married me when I was in the Navy and I was deployed a lot. So yes, we might be apart; but at least she’s with family and friends. It was 10 years of me working at the Bible college [in the United States] before I finally got that release to go full time into ministry like I [currently] am. We struggled through that together and we both know and understand the investment of our life. For us, this is fulfillment of something that a good chunk of our life was poured in to. There is a lot of support.

His eyes were all lit up and he said, “You

prayed for me to learn better and I’m the top second grader in all the school, and in every subject.”

Orphanage Outreache - Ethiopia

RM: With the wealth and bribing of individuals to convert it Islam, how then do people receive Christianity? Do they ask, “What can you give, or offer me?”

LB: I can only speak of my experiences on that, but the places that I have gone to minister, the Christians have been persecuted, so the bribe-thing isn’t going to happen. They know if they accept Christ they are going to be social outcasts. And that’s mild compared what happens to people in other locations. Their houses are burned down, their own family has them arrested, sometimes they are beaten or even executed. I haven’t heard so much of that Ethiopia. It’s more loneliness from being socially ostracized. You’re 56 Risen Magazine

RM: On a daily basis, what are your biggest needs and how do you have the fortitude and strength to carry on?

LB: We rely a lot on donations so there are the ministry needs and the family needs, and those are connected in a lot of ways.

It’s not like your typical 9-to5 job and you have a paycheck.

Finances can really fluctuate, and needs can really fluctuate. God provides from big to little donations, even cars have been given to us over the years. Spiritually, this last trip I was teaching seven courses, Monday through Saturday, day and night. That’s the most I have ever done over an 11-week trip. I preached every Sunday in the church, some of that involved travelling and we did three big outreaches. So for the time, the energy, and the finances, I really just have to press in and believe God to provide for all that. I felt it physically and spiritually after that, more than I ever have; but God’s grace was sufficient. He helped us to do it and the results were outstanding.

Connect with Larry Brown: Website: http://www.turningpointmin.org

Rhema Global Outreach

Hosanna - Muslim Outreach

2013 Ethiopia Services risenmagazine.com 57

Š Summit Entertainment

Dept:Q-5

ENDER’S GAME

Hailee Steinfeld, Asa Butterfield & Gavin Hood Writer: Kelli Gillespie Photo: Richard Foreman Jr.

© Summit Entertainment

The 1980’s military science fiction novel Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, has been adapted into a feature film with the same name and is set to hit theatres November 1st. It’s about an unusually gifted child who is sent to a training center known as, Battle School, in anticipation of a third alien invasion. Due to the book’s themes, it became suggested reading for many military organizations, including the United States Marine Corps. Oscar-nominated Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Asa Butterfield (Hugo) are the young stars alongside veterans Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis.

Interviewed for Risen Magazine at The Hilotn Dayfront hotel in San Diego Ca

1 2

Risen Magazine: Since the characters in this film are all teens, and in real life you are 16 years old, what did you find yourself relating to most about the material?

Hailee Steinfeld: I feel like I can identify with my character a lot and relate to the story, because it’s a bunch of teenagers thrown into this world that’s questionable and they don’t know who to trust, and who not to trust. I feel like that’s very relevant today with anybody in any sort of world. And, I think it’s really true to the fact about everyone coming together as one and helping each other out.

RM: Speaking of trust, you were nominated for an Oscar before you could even drive, so as you navigate Hollywood what does your support system look like?

And because the books were so successful, how are you handling having such a passionate fan base already?

Hailee Steinfeld: I have a great team of people that surround me every day including my family and my friends that I feel safe around. [Regarding the fan base] I’ve never had this before. It’s unreal. I’ve never had people come up to me and say that they are so excited to see the movie. It’s just the coolest thing, because I can’t wait to see it, and I can’t wait to share it with people who are excited to see it. So it’s great!

3

RM: Asa, you play Ender, the title character. What drew you toward this project and I understand you actually went through a space camp?

Asa Butterfield: I’m a huge fan of science fiction so that was a huge part for me. And then when I heard who was attached I was like, “Wow! Harrison Ford is like the god of science fiction.” And the story as well; I loved the book and the character of Ender is so

4 5

interesting to me. He’s not just a hero; there is a darker side to him that makes him much more real. Space camp was awesome.

For both me, and the other guys, it was pretty much the first time we met and we all became really good friends. We learned how to march, and salute, and all the things you’d learn in a military establishment.

RM: You starred in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas at the young age of ten, so could you draw on the similarities of Ender having his talent groomed very early in life?

Asa Butterfield: I guess I hadn’t really looked at it like that. Fifty years in the future who knows what the world is going to look like. It wasn’t easy to relate to Ender because we are so different. I don’t get to fly around in zero gravity and shoot laser guns, but I had a great time developing the character with Gavin, the director.

RM: What were some of the areas you were gifted in early on, but they may not have been identified until later?

Gavin Hood: People come to books and identify with novels for very different reasons. In my case I was drafted at 17 years old into the Army, taken from my home, sent 5,500 miles away, sent to a boot camp, yelled at, screamed at, and I go, “What is this?” I actually read the novel much later and I said, “Oh my, this is exactly what happened to me in the real world and this is supposed to be some fantasy world.” But the emotions in the book are so honest and real that even though it’s set in a space station, it’s very powerful. The themes and ideas about identity, about how I feel, my tendency towards violence, and my tendency to compassion... these are things we struggle with as we search for our identity. I related to that. And then in addition, it’s set in this super cool, amazing space. risenmagazine.com 59

Š Summit Entertainment

60 Risen Magazine

Dept:Q-5

DIVERGENT Shailene Woodley, Mekhi Phifer, Maggie Q, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Christian Madsen Writer: Kelli Gillespie Photo: Jaap Buitendijk

© Summit Entertainment

New York Times Bestselling author Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy has been compared to similar young adult books such as The Hunger Games because of its themes and target audience. It’s set within a futuristic, dystopian version of Chicago where teenagers are divided into groups based on personality traits. The final book is scheduled for release in October, while the feature film based on the first book, Divergent, hits theatres in March 2014. Taking a break from production to attend Comic-Con International, the cast was eager to share thoughts about their upcoming film.

Interviewed for Risen Magazine at Comic-con international at San Diego Ca

1

Risen Magazine: Divergent has an interesting premise where teenagers get put into different factions (sectors) based on personality traits. Where would you have found yourself at that age?

2

RM: What does bravery look like or mean to you?

3

Mekhi Phifer: Yes. Society has broken up into factions and when you turn 16 you get to choose your faction, but once you choose it, you’re stuck with that faction. It kind of shows the theme how you can’t lock-in the human soul. Even though you’re in one faction you might have feelings of other factions, and then how are you going to deal with that? My character is Max and he plays the leader of the Dauntless faction, so if I had to choose at 16 years old, I would definitely go with Dauntless, which means bravery.

Ben Lloyd-Hughes: In the book, I think Will [the character he plays in the film] says something very poignant, and quite inspiring, he finds an original line from when the factions were first made and it says, “Dauntless believe in the courage for one man to stand up for another.” And reading it as an actor, I was very touched and I think that is what characterizes brave; standing up for another person, not being selfish and standing up for what you believe in.

4 5

RM: Christian, you have a pretty famous family (Dad is Michael Madsen, Aunt is Virginia Madsen) so how do they or your friends help you navigate the industry?

Christian Madsen: : I have a good core group of friends. I brought my best friend Taylor, and my brother Max, to ComicCon, which has been kind of a crazy experience. I’m good buddies with my manager too, so I think a close group like that can keep you grounded. It helps keep a foundation under you so you’re not like flying off saying, “Guys leave me alone, don’t call me...” I think you can stay yourself in this [acting/fame] situation if you surround yourself with people that are going to help you grow and love you.

RM: When was a time in your life that you felt like you maybe didn’t quite fit in, and you were searching for acceptance in some way?

Shailene Woodley: Probably around Tris’ [character she plays in film] age; in your teens you are figuring out who you want to be and who you are. So definitely during my high school years it was all about realizing who I am, what was important to me, what wasn’t important to me, and sort of going beyond the materialistic restraints of what high school can be.

RM: When you were a teenager who was your sounding board that really helped you to make concrete decisions?

Maggie Q: I think it was my friends. I have a lot of sisters, but when you’re younger you fight. So, at that time, I had really close friendships and girlfriends that I would turn to about decisions. risenmagazine.com 61

Founder

Dept: Expressions

i o t n a r F o e r Gene n e G A g r n o i s d ity a e million L Founder

nd how we can get there is the conversation ving as a team.

Sevenly

Writer: Samantha Baer

t started in a living room with a discussion about dreams and two years later, it’s creating quite a stir. An organization with a unique business model, Sevenly, was recently described by Forbes Magazine as “Changing the world $7 at a time.” Founder Dale Partridge had a vision to create a company based on the philosophy of “What if Jesus owned a business?” With a core business model of people matter, Risen sat down with Partridge to talk about how the company selects charities, its organizational obstacles, and their unique “complaining” room.

Interviewed exclusively for Risen Magazine

Risen Magazine: How did Sevenly come about?

Dale Partridge: Sevenly was a brainchild of my previous company. Because I’m a serial entrepreneur, I wanted to start something that incorporated my faith with business in a blend that functions well with the next generation.

I wanted to do it in a manner that the generation would sense is practical; where it is just a really authentic version and not “super Christian,” like if Jesus owned a business. We recognized that companies are shifting and offering emblems of truth to rebuild the trust that was lost. Companies are trying to prove to the world that they care about more than just profit. I’m actually in the middle of writing a book called, People Over Profit. I wanted to create a business that valued people over profit. Because there are so many charities out there and so many causes, we wanted to figure out a way to bring awareness and funding to what they are doing. We love how TOMS shoes started, but they have only done the same thing every week - they give shoes away, which is really great, because they conquered one cause, but we wanted to try to focus on multiple causes. We started a concept where every week we partner with a new charity and we create a limited-edition product line; every time someone buys a product we give that charity seven dollars.

It was me and my partner Aaron Chavez at the time, which started Sevenly. Aaron is now working on another company where he is a co-founder, but still a silent shareholder for us at this point. There was also our current COO (Chief Operating Officer), Brett Skinner, and a couple others that were just volunteering at the time who helped us launch. We really started with just three people. In our first week we ended up selling over 700 products. We literally went into business overnight! So we shifted all the priorities in our lives – Brett was finishing his degree in civil engineering and now he is COO with our company; I had another branding agency at the time, and now some of the staff from that company work here at Sevenly – because were growing pretty rapidly. Now we are at the point where we are currently a team of 50 employees, and have raised over $2.4 million in $7 donations.

RM: That is a unique business model. How does it work?

DP: We started with the motto: “Seven Days, Seven Dollars.” Now, I can see us shifting towards: “Every product you buy at Sevenly gives $7 to a cause.” That is really the bedrock foundation. Each week we partner with a new charity, and we give $7 from whatever products you buy at Sevenly that week, back to that same charity. We are trying to figure out a way to partner with more charities per week because we have a huge demand of charities, like 50 to 60 applications per week.

The reason why we chose to be clear about the $7, is because some companies say, “We give 10 percent,” or “We give away all of the profit,” but no one can tell you what that number is; I mean what does “giving away all of the profit” really mean? So $7 is a way that we can afford to give, but still stay in business. I would say that the core of our business is giving, and then there are two other things that drive our company. First, we believe that people matter. And that is literally the foundation and belief of our company; the employees and the people outside our office matter. Second, we are leading a generation for generosity. Now what does it mean to be a company that is trying to be a generous company? Well, last year we gave away five times more than our net profit. That is super rare and super crazy for a company.

When a company says, “Our net profit was $50,000 last year” and we ask, “How much did you give away to charity?” They say, “We gave away $5,000 to charity.” A company like ours would say, “We net profited $50,000 last year,” and when asked, “How much did you give away?” We’d say, “We gave away a quarter of a million dollars.” We are really trying to set the bar for companies to give more.

The name Sevenly really was driven from it being a play on the word “heavenly.” Heaven is really defined as a world without need, and the number seven has always been a Biblical representation of completion. So we tried to tie those together as completing a world without need. So there’s a little bit of history and story behind that name that brings a little more vibrant feel to this.

million

That is a big vision, and how we can get there is the conversation we are currently having as a team.

62 Risen Magazine

risenmagazine.com 63

i o t n a r F o e r Gene n e G A g r n o i s d ity a e L Founder

Dept: Expressions

Sevenly

million RM: Who designs your shirts and what does the process look like?

DP: We mostly do it all in-house. We are currently carrying around 60 products, with shirts making up about 70 percent. We are shifting away from that and are now carrying jewelry, bags, scarves, beanies, hats, and whatever else, even dog leashes, dog bowls, kids clothing, etc. The designs for our printed collections are created mostly in-house. We have a really great creative team, but we do outsource to a few freelancers that are retained by Sevenly, and those are some of the best artists in the world. Everything we do is hand-drawn.

ing a new product almost every day, so it’s less about the campaign art, and

it’s more aboutthere the story we tryingconversation to tell each week. Whatever product That is a big vision, and how we can get isarethe you buy is going to benefit that story. So there is a specific component every we are currently having as a team. week around a certain phrase, shirt, print, etc. I would say we are moving to

RM: How do you decide which charities to feature each week?

DP: We have a pretty extensive charity vetting procedure. The application process includes interviews, legal matters, financial analysis, as well as if they fit with our market, and also what kind of commitment will they bring to the campaign. We don’t work with just big charities; sometimes we work with the smallest charities in the world. We work with anything and everything as long as they fit the model: “We make a great impact on what we do.”

It’s really about impact. Sometimes the smallest charities can make impacts that the big ones can’t. They are agile, quick, passionate, and they haven’t gone to the bureaucratic level so they make great partners.

RM: Recently you were featured in Forbes being described as “changing the world $7 at a time.” How do you advertise for the newest T-shirt design of the week?

DP: We have been positioned mostly around our art, but now we are add64 Risen Magazine

being a socially good retailer in the sense that we carry products from other companies. Right now most of the products in our store that aren’t shirts, are not our products. We have become like a socially good retailer where whatever you buy gives $7 to the featured charity that week.

Anything that is “cause” specific or has a reference to that week’s charity is only there for a week. So there is a limited edition component to it and we have a quick-turn product cycle for the things that are on our website and we are always finding new products and curating new things that are coming out all the time. We are trying to figure out what the coolest things in the world are, and put them on our site, or things that you are already going to buy somewhere else, you might as well buy from us because you’re giving $7 to a charity. The margin that people are making elsewhere… we are giving part of that margin away and we are attracting customers because of it.

Our goal is to give away $1 million a week. That is a big vision, and how we can get there is the conversation we are currently having as a team.

RM: How open are you with Sevenly when it comes to being a faith-based company?

DP: Probably very similar to Chick-fil-A, or In-N-Out Burger, we are founded on Christian principles and we don’t work with any politically charged campaigns or charities. We try to do things everyone can agree on like, when

Dept: Expressions

million That is a big vision, and how we can get there is the conversation we are currently having as a team. people are hungry, we feed them. We are not going to fall under an abortion campaign even though the founder’s belief is that we don’t believe in abortion. So as a company, we stay away from politically charged campaigns and that allows us to say, “We aren’t here to argue with people, we are just here to change the world.” So internally, the way we treat people is that we value people over profit and that all people matter. Not all our staff members are Christians, we’re pretty diverse, but we are living out the gospel in the way that we treat people.

RM: What is this I’ve heard about your company having a “complaining room?”

DP: [Laughter] We had a complaining room, but we got so big we had to turn it into an office! When you are in Orange County, one of the wealthiest places in the world, surrounded by blessings, the idea of a complaint in the face of what we do is really weird, and I think selfish. We created a room that when we heard people complain, we would say something like, “ You know, I know traffic sucked this morning, but you can go in the complaining room and write it down in the book.” We had this room full of photos of children from other countries, and there was this book that people could write their complaints in. It was a room of perspective. And while it’s not here physically anymore, it’s still here in philosophy. We will be bringing it back next year when we move locations. But it became a joke, and a good reminder of first world problems. It helps to teach us to be grateful and thankful for what we have. A big philosophy of culture here in America is living out of abundance instead of scarcity; we recognize the abundance that we have

and we try not to complain about scarcity. The homeless person in America is five times richer than most upper-class citizens of foreign countries; the homeless [here] still have running water and they usually eat every day.

RM: What has been the biggest obstacle that has come your way since Sevenly began?

DP: Shifting from a small company to a big company. There is not much education on that, and it happens so rarely that there are not many books written on it. There are not many people that know how to do it and there is a lot of faith in it. You kind of have to trust that you are going the right way.

It’s like walking in the dark with a candle, you can see four feet in front of you; just enough light so you keep going that way. That was one obstacle, but the other is probably the idea that people matter and shifting that internally, “How do you fire someone when you believe people matter? What does that do to your processes? How do you pay people? How many benefits do you offer them?

How do you live when you’re not generous to your own staff ? How do you communicate with people in a company as you are trying to live out the philosophy that people matter?” Most companies have been built on profit over people, it’s hard to value people over profit. I have to stop and ask myself if we are valuing the person. We do a lot of things differently here which makes a very powerful team.

For more information visit: www.sevenly.org risenmagazine.com 65

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66 Risen Magazine

Dept:Sound

Writer: Henry Ortlip

The National - Trouble Will Find Me (alternative) It’s pretty typical for bands to enter the music scene with a commercial hit that boosts them to the top of the charts. The National is not one of those bands. Forming in 1999, The National has slowly gained momentum, one album at a time. The sad, melancholy sound isn’t one that radio stations are eager to play. Still, regardless of critics, The National has stayed true to its craft, gaining a loyal fan base. Trouble Will Find Me comes across sincere and there is an ongoing theme of taking responsibility for the people we are closest to. Lead singer Matt Berninger has a low baritone voice that is hypnotic and soothing. As a bandage needs a wound, this album needs a listener who is emotionally ready to take a turn. Trouble Will Find Me is a true work of art.

Grade: Recommend tracks: Don’t Swallow the Cap, Fireproof, Graceless, I Need My Girl

Empire of the Sun - Ice On the Dune (pop/electronic) From the artwork and wardrobe, to the unique music videos, Empire of the Sun is in a category of it’s own. In 2008 the band gained global recognition with the debut album Walking On a Dream. However, it lacked continuity. Half the songs were worthy of radio play, while the other half seemed like a musical experiment. Ice on the Dune has more consistency. The energetic, heavy synthesized, 80’s sound, is perfect for a summer road trip. Still, the album’s top tracks can’t compete with those from Walking On a Dream, but overall Ice On the Dune is a stronger compilation.

The mid-tempo ballad I’ll Be Around is the standout.

Grade: Recommend tracks: I’ll Be Around, DNA, Ice On the Dune, Old Flavours

Capital Cities - In a Tidal Wave of Mystery (pop) Earlier this year Capital Cities gained exposure with the single Safe and Sound. The track picked up momentum becoming one of the summer’s biggest hits. Still, just like the title, there was an element of mystery surrounding the direction of the band’s debut album. However, Capital Cities does not disappoint. The Los Angeles based duo has created a marketable product with no shortage of originality. The album’s songs are catchy, funky and leave you wanting more. For a band that got its start on Craigslist, In a Tidal Wave of Mystery is a lot of bang for your buck.

Grade: Recommend tracks: Safe and Sound, Kangaroo Court, I Sold My Bed But Not My Stereo, Origami

Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob (alternative) This is the seventh album from twin sisters Tegan and Sara. The Canadian duo has experienced steady growth since the late 90’s when they first started recording songs. Heartthrob kicks off a new era for Tegan and Sara. The album’s lead song, Closer, was used in an episode of Glee (FOX TV show) and helped the siblings gain exposure and grow their fan base. Overall this is solid album by two effortlessly talented musicians.

Grade: Recommend tracks: Closer, How Come You Don’t Want Me, Love They Say

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