Facing the Canon with Phil Cooke

[Music] well an absolute pleasure to have you on facing the Canon I'm very honoured I'm quite terrified facing the Canon you have your own carpet that's pretty remarkable absolutely this is a classy joint yeah and you've heard of Angie white I have well he's the big canon and I'm the little Canon nothing to do well so let's start at the beginning where were you born Charlotte North Carolina I know father was a pasta it was a pastor yes oh we come from a family that worked in cotton mills for generations and literally my dad went to fight the Japanese in the Pacific during World War two had he not been drafted and gone to the marine corps I would be folding sheets and towels today probably because that got us out of the mill town and after the war he went to college got his graduate degrees became a pastor and here we are now he went to Oral Roberts University well he got a he got a Master of Divinity there but he went he was in college long before oru was ever found it so what was it like for you growing up that you grew up with a firm faith oh yeah I did I was I didn't go through a rebellious time partly because I think it leads to what I do for a living I've been behind the scenes in the church for my whole life and when I was a little kid we had a cemetery behind our church that was more than 100 years old which was a big deal for us for you guys that would be nothing but but for us a hundred years old and in those days I mowed the grass for the cemetery and as you know you know they buried people in wooden boxes back then and it was not unusual for me to be mowing over a grave and over the years it would Rock and kalaiy fell into a couple graves and you just see things you don't really want to see my dad panicked and said Phil just fill it up with the family can't know about this fill it up and covered over so I threw in concrete blocks old chairs junk trash leaves whatever I could find covered it over nicely and it looked fantastic and the family doesn't know until somewhat later I realized when the rapture happens those people are never getting out of there so when you left school you went off to college with the college and you're a music major I started as a music major because in those days if you were a pastor's kid you had to play the piano I was terrible at it but I'd know well what else to do in college so I started as a music major until I met the faculty realized they were serious so I got out of there fast and I stumbled into the film department which pretty much changed my life and then I I read of a story that you showed a film that you had made at school yeah friends at college well I've made movies in high school and I stole my dad's super 8 movie camera that's how old I am and we made our me movies and mafia movies and war movies all kind of little super 8 movies and I took him to college not thinking I'd do it for a living but I thought maybe I'll find somebody who'd like to make these movies in a friend across the hall saw a couple of them follow my suitcase on the first day of school took me to class he said let me show you I can show you how to edit these films and we're working on him one night in the film department the professor was there came up to us later and said you know I've been looking at your little movie and I've got kids that have been taking classes for three years that still don't do this well would you mind if I showed the film in my class so I said well I can sit on the back row and so I set on the back road the next day he showed my film and it was terrible believe me but when the film was over they talked about it and this thought hit me like a ton of bricks I think it was probably the most crystal-clear moment I've ever had of God really speaking to me and this thought occurred to me that if I can do something with a camera that makes people talk like this that's what I'm supposed to do with my life and so I changed my major that day and I've never looked back and you switch to film and television yeah started doing immediately so that was your first area of study exam we went on and did a PhD in theology I know that's weird that's weird I did my you know I just most of the clients we work with today as well you know I'm sure they've come out in our conversation our churches or ministry organizations because I have a real passion to help Christians engage the culture through media and so I didn't want to get a PhD in film I've been doing it for years and so I thought let me do theology I want to speak the language of pastors and my dad had been one so I always had a real interest in theology so I went for it I did my doctoral dissertation on the movie The Shawshank Redemption which kind of freaked my professors out but it turned out to be good was good what prompted you to do your doctorate on that film well you know III decided I was thinking that Christians need a better way to evaluate movies than the number of you know profanity cuss words the scenes of violence or the occult or whatever I think we there are great movies out there that in great works of art I mean if we evaluated Christian art the way we about you evaluate movies we'd have to throw out most of Michelangelo we'd have to throw out most great artists and so I think that you know the Bible I've always thought if you film the Bible accurately it would be r-rated maybe x-rated in some scenes because it can work you know God tells the truth it doesn't hide things and it doesn't mean we need to be explicit and go there for no reason but I just feel like there are great movies out there that we haven't seen because we're not open to those possibilities so I wrote it on that movie and it was I got an a so something worked so can you what was your conclusion having you know really studied that movie well the movie is a powerful powerful movie about redemption and I think there's many great films Schindler's List would be another great movie that has nudity in it but it was about the Holocaust and about the horrible things and I think one of the great mistakes that Christians make is they try to make movies about people but and they show how God changes them but they don't show them where they came from they don't show just how bad their life was and I think to win over audiences to really get the culture to pay attention we need to show the whole story doesn't mean we have to be terribly explicit with sex and violence and all those things but I do think we need to be more real about life I think one of the reasons the culture marginalizes Christians is because we're just not real we have a saying in Hollywood that Hollywood is great at making fake things look real but Christians are great at making real things look fake yeah and how horrible is that how sad is that sorry and so I think part of it is because the way we engage the media and the media that we produce now a college you met your wife have a little wine I went to a Vesper server it was a Sunday night on campus and I sat next to this the most beautiful woman I've ever seen she had a pink corduroy pants suit white patent leather platform shoes this was 73 keep in mind yeah and I was just stunned and it took me three months to get up the courage to ask her out and a guy talked me into it and I called her up and asked her out and I discovered later that the only reason she said yes is because she thought I was somebody else and different feel cook apparently a different Phil and you know you know it's like when you show up at the door him and yeah she has this look of oh wait wait it's that guy and so we started off kind of a negative territory but it worked out well and you'd be married how long 39 years congratulations yeah absolutely yeah I think she would agree with Billy Graham's wife Ruth who said that divorce never came across my mind murder yes yeah yeah I'll put it to try no yeah and then you know how many children and grand you have two daughters I would like I would have liked a son but the risk of three daughters was too great so we quit and they turned out wonderfully now wish we'd had more and one lives in New York ones in LA one's a musician one's an actress yeah which means I'll be poor for the rest of my life yeah and but they're absolutely wonderful we have a two-year-old granddaughter and so that's good now it's been said that you're a media guru I've read that in several different places how would you describe yourself I'm a translator I think I'm a translator I help the church speak the language of the culture and I think that's so important because most churches and pastors and leaders feel like to engage the culture we have to water down our message we have to make you know make our doctrine a lot less powerful and strict and I think the truth is we don't we just need to understand the language and style of the culture that we live in and so I think most of my job is to come along leaders and to really help them engage the culture more effectively you know we live in a media driven culture a British researchers indicate that the average person here and in the United States both seas about 5000 media messages every single day so some statistics came out recently that 14 year olds check their social media pages about a hundred times a day the typical adult male checks their their phone about 85 to 90 times a day and so I just believe that if the church doesn't learn to communicate in that world we're just never going to get our message across and we'll continue to yes so over the years yeah you've studied both culture and the chart absolutely okay so if if we just look at the church at the moment having observed the church for several decades yeah what is your critique and analysis of it this is an only an hour of press is only an hour program so we might need more time in there no no I love the church you know Jesus wept over Jerusalem not because he was critical of it he would wept over because he loved it and I feel the same way about the church today I think that we could be so much more effective we could have such a greater impacted the culture if we really learn how to speak that language and you know the world has changed dramatically just in the last five to ten years literally the electronic age the digital revolution has not just changed the way we talk on phones of the way we use our computer it's changed the way we communicate and I think that's really really critical in fact some research recently just came out a few months ago indicates that when you meet someone for the first time you decide what you think of that person within the first four to eight seconds so I tell pastors I don't care how anointed your messages I don't care wonderful your music is and your worship is what is your lobby look like because the minute that person walks in the door they start deciding what they think about this church what when you drive in the parking lot what's the experience I know pastors in the u.s. that have taken this to heart and they've identified seven touch points where they can engage a new visitor before they actually get to their seat in the sanctuary so those initial perceptions are critical are really really important it isn't that doesn't make the message any less important or the worship any less important but it does mean we have to think what happens in first few seconds because that's the culture we live in today and it's that's that's absolutely critically important so do you think generally we we don't take into consideration those those issues oh yeah absolutely we don't at all I walked into a church the other day and you know in the u.s. there's some concern in some areas about safety particularly for kids but I walked in this one church and there were seven armed police officers standing in the lobby and then there was a giant security desk there and I felt like I was going to through airport security not walking into a church and so I sat down with a leadership team and I just talked about that initial perception when you walk in and so I went to a church a few months ago that advertised itself as a family church there advertised in the newspaper on their side we're a family church for a family church you walk in the lobby there's a big sign that says children not allowed in the sexual although so just the message the messages that we share I think we need to rethink how people perceive this sometimes we get so used to it we don't think about it but to someone who's a complete you know not in a complete visitor and in fact I often tell pastors that if a new visitor walks in and meets a grumpy uh sure that's the perception they have of what your church is going to be like so those messages those moments are critically important when it comes to reaching your community my life killing are we invited to friends of ours who are not yet Christians to church because they want their child baptized their baby baptized and so we encourage them go to church and so they did the other Sunday that but when they left home the the baby was sick that they had to go back put a new outfit on and they got to church five minutes late and the doors were bolted and they couldn't get in they went to the side of the church and they were waving for people and people saw them but they still didn't open the doors what advice would you give to that church oh man you know I sometimes I feel like the Lord's called me to a Ministry of beating people up yeah I think sometimes you've got to do that no no I you know that's a church where everything is viewed from the pastor's perspective yes and I often invite pastors to go sit in the lobby go sit like three or four rows back in the congregation experience what it's like to be someone coming for the first time that can change everything for a pastor and so you know you just have to broaden your perspective a little bit because we've experienced that thing to where we weren't led into a church in the u.s. one time because we were a few minutes late and so yeah it's and we have to remind ourselves it's not because anybody's a jerk not because they're they're not good people they mean welder and have great intentions they just don't think from the perspective of what a new visitor is like and that's so important but you think though it's because people don't have a heart for the people who don't come they just focus on the people that do con salutely absolutely so focused on the people that do come in that that pervades every aspect of the church even you know Jesus spent here if you look at the New Testament Jesus spent his life where the people are in those days it was the marketplace it was social gatherings like shavings or it was in the temple score yeah guess what today the people are on Facebook they're on Twitter they're on Pinterest they're on Instagram so what about that you know it's interesting most people don't think of in these terms but by population today Facebook is the largest country on the planet the most populated country on the planet so I always ask pastors who's sending missionaries to that country who's planning churches in that country you know I would like for people to stop thinking about missions just in geographical terms and start thinking about missions in digital terms sure how we going to reach that country because it's so influential it's so big and people there desperately need Christ so we just have to change the way we think and most of my work is getting people to change the way they said how how do you change the thinking within the church well if that was an easy answer I'd be a billionaire now it's very it's very very difficult and the truth is it's difficult everywhere I read a statistic the other day that the vast majority of open-heart surgery patients within two years they've gone back to the same lifestyle that got them there in the first place yeah so if the threat of death doesn't make you change what the world will so what you have to do is just make the posture and the leadership team understand the potential of what this means and the most pastors desperately want to reach their community they just really really don't know how it's funny my dad was a pastor as you mentioned and when I was a kid back in the 50s and 60s pastors would do really off-the-wall things to try to get people to come here we have one pastor that said if we can get you know a certain number of people to come to Sunday school I'll shave my head and another guy said I'm going to sit on a pole until we get so many people to come to church on Sunday and I would actually get kids coming up to me in school saying you know Phil why is Pastor so-and-so's doing such stupid things yeah and I realize as a kid that this is not the perception we want to have out there in the culture that we're crazy and so most of my life I've been thinking about how you know what do we look like what's our perception to the culture out there and I think pastors just they have a bit I mean I love pastors and they're busy busy busy busy as you know and I just think they don't take the time to really look at the perspective of how people in the outside culture view the church view their message view the experience of worship on a Sunday because it's dramatically different than what we think so would it be dramatically negative very often it is very often it is if you interview people I give you a great example in America we the church with in general we criticize a lot of stuff we boycott you know organizations that don't say Merry Christmas and we boycott the gay community or we criticize this group or whatever I was talking to a studio executive not long ago and I and I said ask him about Christians I said they've ever been a church you know and he said Oh Christians they're those people that are against everything yeah and that was his perception of the major Hollywood studio executive that's all he knows and so from that perspective it made me realize that we need to change the way we engage because that changes their perception so you know instead of saying that's what Christians stand for oh yeah this negative negative negative negative and it's just it's not full you know if cheers the boycotts worked why don't missionaries do it let's go to a third-world country surround the village hold up signs criticize them call them names or that'll win them to Christ huh missionaries no that doesn't work so why do we think it works anywhere else you know and the truth is I understand we're angry I understand the world has changed we're not you know that we see our rights as Christians we see the culture degrading we see things everywhere that are not going in a positive direction so I understand the frustration however you don't get somebody to win over you don't win over somebody by yelling at them you don't win over somebody by criticizing them you went over by you win them over by winning their trust yes by reaching out and becoming like them and so I think to a great degree if we just reach out to people it makes a huge difference so would you is your assessment of the world of culture that it is quite toxic it's quite polluted oh there's no question I mean yeah absolutely trust me I'm not one to say embrace the culture but I do believe we have to understand the culture and speak their language but absolutely the culture is going you know Christianity's continue to be marginalized I mean I see it when I come here I see it when I go back home and I think we have to learn to live in a world okay a good example I just wrote a book it's coming out in about a year yes and not to be same shamelessly self-promotional or anything oh wait I wrote a book and we were thinking about this very issue a co-writer and I and we started thinking the things that we've done major campaigns in the Christian world the last 30 years really haven't moved the dial very much when it comes to social issues when it comes to spiritual issues and the culture we really haven't made a lot of advances in fact we've lost ground in most cases so we thought what if the early church do I mean how did they go from being this ragtag group of nobodies no money no power no influence persecuted for the most part how did they become the dominant religious force in the Western world in a remarkably short time research the issue and discovered that one of the key things was they did things that Daanish the culture for instance the Romans had no thought of life they didn't have any any context for human life they could have bored a child when they won't think of how brutal that would be in ancient Rome when a child was born if they didn't want it and it usually happened with girls they would put it on the wall the infant on the wall to die of exposure the city wall and they just had no life meant nothing to them and so these Christians these crazy Christians would go out under cover of night and take these newborn infants off the city wall take them into their family and raise them as their own and other members of that community would help pitch in money to help pay for the child the Romans had no concept for why anybody would do that why do these people do that and time and time again they did things like this that just baffled the Romans and after a while it forced the Romans to reevaluate who these people are and who is this God that they worship sure and historians will tell us today that that was a significant factor in shifting the tide in the Roman Empire so my question in the book was one of the things we could do today it would so baffle the culture so amazing astonish the culture that they'd be forced to rethink who we are and who is this God that we serve a friend of ours who is a very successful businessman decided to become a janitor and a gay bar yeah and on weekends he became a janitor in a gay bar and didn't tell anybody what he does didn't tell anybody why did it just became a janitor and it was a rough bar and after a couple months somebody started a conversation with him and they discovered who he was and they said why are you doing this he said I just wanted to help I just wanted to contribute I just wanted to reach out to a community I didn't know and I didn't really understand and the impact he made on those people's lives he didn't criticize them didn't rip them just wanted to help and it had a huge impact on the guys in that bar so there's a lot of things we could do I think that would you know the Salvation Army is doing much work in this area this is some example well my wife is on the national board of The Salvation Army in the US and they're very very evangelistic and but they lead with social service I mean they want to help in fact they go so far we were talking today about an advertising campaign they've just launched in the US we're on public trashcans they put a sticker that said are you hungry here's where you can get a meal and they have a little map that shows you how to find a local Salvation Army outreach they put on park benches if you need a place to sleep here's where to go and there's a map there and so they're really serious about reaching out and guess what that advertising campaign has been covered in major newspapers across America it's gotten the attention of the culture and so they see because the incredible work they're doing people are paying attention so I mean Salvation Army would onto number one it they have the most successful alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs in the world I guess what they're Christian based and so you gain the respect by proving to non-believers that it works period and then they ask why it works yeah sure so there are some foraging exam there are absolutely but in the world it feels like oh well you know we live in a world today and my lifetime in your lifetime we've gone from a world that was largely governed by Christian values when I grew up it was perfectly normal to pray in school why not particularly an exam time praying in school is no big deal abortion was was wrong abortion to the life with all these things were just normal but in our lifetime these and other things have completely flipped and we've seen that so I understand the frustration that that Christians have the question is what do we do about it yeah it's not a matter of just lashing out it's a matter of trying to be strategic and have an impact now one of the words that you use frequently both in what you've written and spoken is the word branding what do you know about that you know a brand is simply a a compelling story that surrounds a product or a person or an organization you know Nike has a brand what's that story about Nike is so compelling Starbucks or Nero's coffee has a brand j-john has a brand I have a brand essentially think of it this way what do people think of when they think of you yeah that's what a brand is what a people's perception of you what do they think of it they think about you and so it's interesting that with Nike they strive for a brand statement about being the spirit of the athlete it's interesting with Nike yeah you don't ever see a commercial about the quality of rubber in their shoes or how easily are to put on or how good they are how well they're made when you see commercials for Nike it's about how you feel when you put them on their aspirational and so because of that compelling story last last November when in the US when they released the latest set of air jordan shoes young boys teenage boys stood in line for two weeks in blizzards in freezing cold weather in November in cities like Chicago in New York and Philadelphia just to get their hands on those shoes not all about here but if it rains in America people won't come to church but there will it but teenagers are willing to stand in line for weeks and the snow just to get their hands on a new set of Nikes so that compelling story becomes critical it becomes really important so one of the key things we work with is helping change the story the culture has about how about what do they think of when they think of the church what do they think of when they get my outreach like yours yes what do they think of when they think of a ministry and so I think that's it we live in a we live in a culture where there so it's so competitive so cluttered some research like I said we see an average of 5,000 media messages every day so why should a church's message stand out why should a pastor's sermon get noticed in that world there's too many choices so it's not the best message that gets hurt anymore it's the message that knows how to cut through and make an impact and that is I'm trying to help the church some how does the church sharpen and shape its branding well in a lot of ways in a lot of ways I think that in many ways churches do a lot of things we need to focus on that thing we do really really well and not every church is the same that's and that's one of our big things most churches want to copy somebody they've seen it successful but you know what I've discovered every church has its own unique DNA I've discovered that every church has something different that they do extraordinarily well and if they focus on that it can have a huge impact in the community I have a church that we've worked with in San Francisco and the pastor just said you know I don't know what our people do for a living it took a little survey now found out he had 14 dentists in his church 14 so I got him over his house one night and said guys what could we do what can we do so they set up a free dental clinic once a month in the San Francisco Bay Area it's become the largest free dental clinic in the entire San Francisco Bay Area it's got massive newspaper and media coverage thousands of people have been helped through it and that's what that church on the map it's completely changed the perception of people in San Francisco about this church so finding that thing you do well is really critical and then focusing on that I like what you told me about a dentist who lived in your area that during Halloween when kids knock on his door he gives he gives out toothbrushes some are guys oh my people remember yeah because some of those were so kind of like what do we give you feel like I need to give them something sure Danny what yeah early when I started talking about these things churches were nervous pastors we have branding that's what businesses do is that what I do but the truth is they started to realize that every there's a story about everybody every has if everybody has a perception and so once they started thinking okay what are people's perception of our church what are their perceptions of the way I preach or the message that I preach suddenly that starts connecting and people realize we live in a world where people you know that perception issue I talked about earlier people are only giving you four to eight seconds to decide what they think about you you better get your message out there quick you better make it easy to understand and if you can do that suddenly you will capture the imagination of the culture and that would be to then fill so we are all of us absolutely wherever we're working oh yeah and wherever we live that would be the trait the same thing neighbors and colleagues are judging us oh absolutely I trust me what people see is much more powerful than what they hear so no matter what you tell them but I don't care how great your testimony is if you're a jerk they're not going to respond out so the way you live your life is absolutely important so that perception becomes really critical even if it's your neighbor it's you know your kids it's your relatives whoever it is we live in a culture where it matters it's been said that people don't care how much we know until they know how much we care true absolutely true very true so how do you get the balance between the verbal and the visual I don't know that there is a balance oddly because the visual is so powerful in this culture and it goes back to that perception issue what they what we see we register right away and so many times we make a perception from what we see first and before we even hear I mean if for think 48 seconds if I'm just meeting you I don't have much time to hear what you have to say so I'm starting to think about the way you look you know I tell pastors but my experience indicates that virtually 100% of new visitors will check you out online before they come to visit they will check the church out on the website before they come to visit so why is your website so lame why do you have such a terrible website in the digital age a website should be one of the key things a church does well because that's what determines where whether or not most people actually come and visit the church and that's why the easy thing to do oh it is it is 90 jen has spent a lot of money to do not anymore now not and yet it has such a huge impact on people's decision to come visit so little things like that make a huge impact on people's decisions to come and visit tell us about social media social media it's not going away it's going to be around and what I try to encourage Christians to think of social media is you know it's not just about telling people you're at Nero's coffee or Starbucks it's you know stop showing pictures of your lunch to everybody on Facebook they don't care yeah but when you have people who follow you they want to know something about you so the single greatest way to increase your followers in social media is to give them an inside look at what your life is like I don't care if you're a housewife or if you're a Salesman or a pastor whoever give them an insight into what it's like to be you yes and people love that because social media is social they want to know what's going on in your life so if and I have fun with my social media followers we do we do fun stuff but I also want to share my frustrations I want to share the obstacles I'm encountering and my work the victories that countering and I discovered those things get a far bigger response than anything else so I think if we can learn to harness social media for the gospel it can have a huge impact because it is so large I mean think about Facebook being the largest country on the plan that's significant and but you have to understand that every social media platform is a little bit different you know Twitter leaders pastors executives businesspeople Instagram 20-somethings you know it not the only way we can contact our 20-something daughters is through Instagram and I know what they do and know what they're doing where they are oh yeah Facebook you know it's funny I'll say something on Twitter and it's a and I get responsible serious answers back because I think it's profound and if I said the same thing on Facebook it's like college dormitory humor it's like all my old high school buddies making fun of me so understand who's on each of these platforms and tailor your message that way and and and don't just throw out Bible verses I mean that's okay but don't just throw out Bible verses share a little bit about what it means to you share a little bit about what God is doing in your life a little bit about what's meant something to you this week and you'd be amazed and so I'm a big advocate of looking at your social media followers is a congregation you know I've got like 30 mm phone so in a weird sort of way I'm one of the pastor's of the largest churches in the world and you know it's thirty thirty two thousand people for some reason have signed up to hear what I have to say yeah I take that seriously and while we have fun I still want to help them and feed them and inspire them and I think that that's that's why it's growing how do I do is okay am i doing all right you know this is a good meeting Phil so you know we often see this you know you go to a restaurant yeah and you just look over and there's a couple hold and a wife and they're both on their phones and obviously maybe having a romantic meal and they're texting so what's happening there insanity no I you know I was I was traveling on business the other day and I went down to breakfast at the hotel sat down to have my breakfast in this young couple probably eight years old came down said at the table first thing they did was the guy set up his phone in between them up against the salt and pepper shakers turn on a music video quite loud and they both sat at the table having breakfast singing to that music video there you go the Lord spoke to me about beating people up or man no it's just yes they were completely devoid of other people the restaurant was really isn't anyone oblivious yeah and they were tuned into that thing and I'll tell you what's really interesting is on YouTube you can go on YouTube and see hundreds of videos of people getting hit by cars walking into ditches falling down following in the fountains just because they're texting while they're walking in New Jersey in the United States they're debating whether to outlaw texting while walking yeah becomes so dangerous yeah there I was going to obviously I laugh but this got us that I was in an office building it oh they had a meeting with a client walk to the elevator and I'm above the elevator is printed out a sign that says make sure that car is in position before you step into the elevator and I thought it was a joke so I took a picture and post it on my Facebook page well a girl from my high school days so a message could be in sedessa a joke she said her best friend just a few years before had finished work in her building walked to the elevator was texting a friend on her phone elevators door doors open she stepped in and there was no car there she fell seven stories to her death and that's the world we live in I'm a kid you not some cities are debating whether to have padded utility poles keep people keep smacking into them when they're walking down the street that's the world we live in today in that strange but yeah I know so are there any kind of safety rules that you would recommend wear a helmet right helmet who taught you know no because you you're a great encourage er yeah of social media I am but there are dangers well there are dangers here's a couple thoughts to think about first of all let's go to computers for one when you have kids never ever ever ever let them have kids and there have computers in their room never under any circumstances when our daughters were growing up the computers were out in the open where everybody could see what you were doing on them then have filters on and that's really really important yeah when it comes to phones and issues like that we do have to learn to take an electronic fast everyone so you know there's something to what the Bible talks about about a Sabbath you know taking that day off a day away from everything it's really critical I know people that actually you put their phone away for a movie and they start getting the shakes no no they just they get so used to it we've developed we've learned to have this thing and so I think it's good to have that fast because I'll tell you something weird when you read my books yes you can barely go through a page of my books without there being a section break or a quote or what we call a call out some point bit and with big letters because my publishers tell me that an email generation and a social media generation cannot read a full-page anymore without a break so we break it almost every page online book I hate it but I want people to read my book cool so that's the world we live in that when it's people just can't even stay focused for very long anymore so we have to consider all those things and and really think about taking time off from social media from our phone from our email because it does matter it does sink in it affects the way we think the way we create the way we live our lives so you're suggesting or you're actually saying that people don't can't concentrate for very long no no they care so what does that mean we're preaching what you know it's interesting we're seeing a little bit of a backlash a lot of pastors and and we know that research indicates that after about 20 to 25 minutes people start really fidgeting I'm when I have meetings with my creative team at my office I do not want a meeting to go more than 30 minutes because you know people start getting bored they start checking their email they start talking to the guy next to them and so I think that's important for pastors to think about however I'm seeing a trend on early but growing trend in churches where pastors are preaching longer and people are really getting into it I have two or three churches that we've worked with with a master is literally a verse by verse Bible teacher yeah he's not a motivational speaker he's a burst by verse Bible teacher and each one of them have three to five thousand members of their church and they're growing like crazy and so we have a church in Hollywood has a young pastor he preaches an hour and a half every Sunday he's got three thousand 20-somethings come to church so I think we might be seeing a shift out there in the culture and things may be changing in a good way which is very interesting although I have a DD a little bit so yeah an hour and a half message maybe I know for me cuz we G six foot five men I agree need I agree and distilling it will be even better well they asked your guy Alfred Hitchcock how what's the perfect length for a movie he said as long as the seat of your pants can hold out and I kind of agree about messages yeah sermons could be the same as you just can't take it forever but but no and for me it's not the length of a message it's the power that means at the pound how really is conveyed in community Mark Twain they asked he said one time if you want me to speak for an hour I can do it right now if you only speak for ten minutes it'll take me two weeks to prepare yeah so I think for a great speaker to understand you can say a lot in 10 or 20 minutes and these make it right no doubt you're a culture Church analyst you're a writer thinker you're a film producer what are you currently working on at the moment we just finished a movie yeah a documentary on Hillsong UNITED you know the worship band some of you may have heard of them we just shot their world tour and that'll be coming out in about thousand theaters in the fall and so it will be opening here as well and so very excited about that that's and really not to talk commentry it's a documentary a feature documentary really well shot about their world tour and their couple of major concerts a number of major concerts and we interviewed them behind the scenes I mean this is one of the most popular bands not Church bands but ban period in the world and yet they're Church employees they're just regular guys yeah and so we interviewed them and talked to about what drives them what makes them tick and I did it because it's the kind of movie that you feel comfortable taking a non-believer yeah and taking them out for coffee later and talking about it and I think that's so incredibly important I want to do a film you know research indicates this is interesting remember Mel Gibson's movie Passion of the Christ follow-up research indicated only an incredibly fraction of a percentage of people who saw that movie actually accepted Christ and that's about as explicit as you get as far as the Christian Laurie and yet very few people that watched it actually accepted Christ so that tells me a movie is not going to get somebody to accept Christ necessarily but it will maybe change the way they think about Christ and easy and so that's what I want to do I want to do movies that make people think whoa whoa I never thought about it that way and that starts that conversation that starts that journey that maybe leads to them actually encountering God and that's so important and the Hillsong UNITED yeah movie it's going to be released and it's going to be run out in the fall look for it the falls and all that home run on yeah it's called let hope rise it's a 90 minute feature documentary it's going to be quite good and so we're excited about that and we're working with a number of clients around the world the Museum of the Bible that two blocks from the Air and Space Museum two blocks from the Capitol right on the main mall in Washington DC they've already acquired the largest collection of ancient biblical artifacts a short of the Vatican Museum yeah and it is going to be absolutely breathtaking and the thing I love about it is it's not evangelistic it's not a Christian Protestant view or a Catholic view or Jewish view it's here's the Bible yeah the history here's the story and here's the impact it's had in civilization you decide you know what do you think and it's going to be quite remarkable so we're working with them doing the promotion and the documentary and the filming for that so it's very exciting when with it it'll open November of 2017 that's exciting and we're expecting millions of people will come and again it's one of those things that I want to I want to be involved in things that even non-believers might say well you know I'm not really into that Christian thing but boy that's an amazing experience that movie is powerful or that museum is really incredible I just think if we did things with more integrity with greater excellence it would at least get people to consider it and once they open that door God step in and take over from there now you've engaged and kind of communicated and worked with in 50 different countries yeah over the years and you've been shot at yeah what what happened that well you work for Christian organizations you go to pretty sketchy places yeah you know we filmed in Africa multiple multiple countries in Africa India Asia South America we filmed actually filmed in almost 60 countries around the world and I'm because of it I happen to be in a couple African countries during military cooze which is not a pleasant place to be and we had a crew arrested in one situation fell out of a helicopter in Kingston Jamaica filming an event there and but their lawful grandkids know about that helicopter well show you where we were shooting you know an evangelistic crusade a national stadium and this is early in my career years ago and about midway through the day I realized the place is going to be standing room only and if I could just show this from the air it would be amazing yeah but at the time the only helicopter in the country was owned by the beer company red stripe beer so I got in car raced across the country across the city to their brewery and I actually talked him into letting me have their helicopter for two hours and it wasn't rigged for filming so we took the door off i sat on the edge the side of the helicopter with my feet on the rails you know that the landing things and we got a rope and the pilot tied me in with a rope and I had the big camera on my shoulder he tied me in with a rope but neither of us noticed that there were a couple loops in the rope and so we went up he turned sharp to go out toward the stadium and what he did I just slid right out of the helicopter and fortunately I was dangling by the rope and that'll get you right with God let me just say that right there and but all I could think on was keep the shot in focus keep the shine focused and and but he saw it jerk the helicopter hard to the other side and it literally threw me back in and so after a few moments of thankfulness I retied the the rope and we went back and got some breathtaking shots and it was really an amazing experience but it's been an interesting journey yeah months to being in the oh yeah absolutely here I think God has seen fit to surround me with situations that forced me to remember he's in charge and that makes a big difference out of all the countries that you've been to and worked in is there a particular country or situation that stands out for you well memorable oh there have been many I've been to the headwaters of the Amazon River early in my career filming a mission outreach there where we had to take we flew in to Manaus which is a city about halfway up the Amazon chartered a light plane went to maybe four hours up into the jungle charter a freighter took another two days deeper then canoe the last day and then we went to a tribe where to take a bath in the river you had to slap the water with a boat paddle and scare the Piranha away so you could jump in long enough to lather up and then get out I learned to take really quick baths yeah and so it's you meet amazing people and and what was funny was at that village for instance when we got there we went to the village and there were eight huts there and it was completely empty completely empty and we didn't know what's going on and we heard that this tribe if you're not welcomed in you probably don't leave and so we went to one hut nobody was there another one we went to everyone and it was empty and till we got to the last hut and it was packed with people now keep in mind this is so far at the Amazon that if a nuclear bomb had gone off in America I would have never known and we go into this Hut everyone in the tribe is packed into the hut surrounded and watching a black-and-white TV set hooked up to a car battery and they're watching an episode of Dallas remember that show yeah and I thought boy are these people going to be screwed up but it's amazing what you encounter in places in the most remote places the by the way let me say this in the most remote place in the world today they have mobile phones you know there are more mobile phones in the world today than people now and we've discovered that better ones who have you know had anthropologists know that better ones that had the same you know they've journeyed the same journey for thousands of years a couple years ago we discovered that better words are starting to change their migration routes but couldn't figure out why and discovered that because they get better cellphone service so for thousands of years they've powdered their migration routes around where they get water now I guess you can call and have water sent to you so it's amazing how digital technology is changing the world really remarkable having studied the world studied the chart yeah has your perception of God changed over the years oh no question no question I wrote a blog post on my blog not long ago about the reason I'm not cynical and largely because I have every reason in the world to be cynical because trust me I've seen it all and particularly behind the scenes in the church as a kid and then growing up and working with so many large ministries around the world I've seen a lot of reasons to see why we screw things up but I've always believed that God was bigger than whatever idiot happened to be representing him in a given time and I just think that too many times we put our faith in a person and we don't put our faith in God and that's where we need to really to you know and we make we all make mistakes and I've been in a position in the last couple years where particularly in the last couple years where I've been called into a lot of churches that have had real crisis either the pastor's had a moral failure someone's run off with money there's a disaster of some kind and we've helped them navigate how to get through that because the last thing in the world you want is for the church to collapse or a ministry to fall and I've seen firsthand just how big a mistake people can make and I think I've grown a lot more aware of my own faults I've grown a lot more humble and I've gained a lot more respect that God pours out a lot of grace for us yeah you know because there's just so much that we don't see we don't understand and I've just learned that that we're just need to trust him he knows what's going on you know that's that's the important thing I mean how did what's happening for you for the future what would you like to do travel less I bet our clients are all over the world so I'm on a plane I walked up to the ticket counter at LAX that Los Angeles Airport for three the airport in the world the other day so I walk up to the ticket counter the lady said Oh mr. cook welcome back so nice to see you yeah I thought oh man if that lady knows my name I'm traveling too much yeah and but it's okay I used to frustrate me but I learned to embrace it and I know when people say to me how are you Jay John I I say well there's nothing wrong with the model is the mileage so true so what you know what I got really frustrated about that this is a word for you I got really frustrated about that a few years ago and I realized look I can either do this which I think God's calling it anew or I can sell shoes at the shopping mall because I don't know what else do and I wasn't a good piano player trust me and that wouldn't work and so I've learned to embrace it and I think no matter how difficult your job is if you can see the side of it that God is using it opens up an amazing thing so I'm perfectly happy in a suitcase so if there's one thing that you could do and God said hey Phil you and your wife Kathleen you could do one thing in the future what would that be be on more episodes of facing the can and our video beyond there beyond that I want to do more mainstream entertainment projects well you know this dot this film of Hillsong a couple of the documentaries that we're developing right now I think Christians need to be in the mainstream it's one thing to make Christian movies and I'm okay with that I don't mind people who feel called to Matt Christian movie that's great but our I want to create entertainment and media projects that are playing on on the BBC ITV other channels and I want to be out there and because that's ultimately where we're going to change the thinking of the culture and do things in a way that are intriguing to them that they would watch and like I say maybe they're not going to accept Christ by the end but at the end I want them to say wow I never thought of it that way that's that's a remarkable thing and if I can do that I think my life will have been worth living how would you sum up what does Jesus mean to you you know it's interesting I've it's the only in a way I don't want this to sound crass it's the only life I really know never really thought of life without Jesus because I have we've done Super Bowl commercials we've done TV specials we've done all kind of secular entertainment projects and trust me you can make a lot more money doing secular projects but they have no interest in me for me if I did another ketchup commercial I would jump out a window yeah there's a lot of money out there and ketchup commercials but I just feel like I want to share Jesus with the culture and it's all about that ultimately what what else is there and so whatever you wants me to do I'm on board with it I think I do a poor job sometimes but at least my goal is right and what and what is it about Jesus that you'd love the world to know he explains the world I think is CS Lewis felt the same way that it was just Christianity is a way of explaining the world it just makes sense and I think people just don't know the story of Jesus they know what they've heard what they think they know that it's amazing how people just don't get it and so I think if we could simply tell the story the story is so powerful that it would have an impact in itself oh yeah in American TV we had a reporter a national network TV reporter not long ago who was reporting on one of the president's speeches and on camera he said well the president talked about the walls of Jericho and I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about but I'll research it and get back to you I thought that's the culture we live in he has no clue what the walls of Jericho are and so we need to tell that story it's so important that we tell the story of Jesus and get that biblical story out there and if we could do that that's what I'll change the world if someone's tuned into this program Phil they're not a Christian they wouldn't call themselves a Christian there is a dissolution with the church what would you say to them oh I would say that trust me you can be disillusioned with a lot of things I made me a political party that you're not this illusion about naming a football club you're not disillusioned about think me a think of a celebrity you're not disillusioned about I think so often we use I'm disillusioned or I got hurt as an excuse just not to engage and so I always tell people to take the time to really look at it and I mean certainly depending on where they are in the conversation sometimes it's a matter of just accepting Christ and asking them and let Christ come in your life but I always encourage people that the story makes remarkable sense and most of us just simply don't get it or haven't heard it correctly and so it's just it's not a theological issue it's just a relationship issue and that's all it's about if you could ask Jesus one question your questions are hard by the way can I just say this I'm going to drink here if you cannot eat with one question and you knew he'd answer it what would the question be uh man thanks a lot to that I was doing ok up until that there's a lot I would like to ask him about forgiveness not about forgiveness because he forgives a lot of things that I would struggle with and you know he there's a reason he loves us so much that he's willing to forgive a lot of stuff and I think that's a truly remarkable thing and I look at people who have been wronged one of the points I'm making my one big thing book is my father was fired from his church by by an elder who didn't like what he was preaching he was really my dad was a great preacher and was exploring the Holy Spirit and and this guy didn't like it and work for two years behind the scenes to get my dad fired my dad never forgot it and the first call I got for my parents when I went a thousand miles away to college was that they'd been fired from the church and my dad started the other churches and he moved forward but whenever I'd call him on the phone that's what he wanted to talk about he just dwelled on it and whenever I do visit that's what he'd want to talk about thirty years later he's laying in a hospital dying and my sister called and said serious you need to come we flew cross-country from LA to North Carolina and I walked in the room and guess what he wanted to talk about remember that God had fired me from the church and I noticed it because my dad never let go his ministry never grew beyond that he never had any more impact with his life in a big scale and I've learned that until we can let go and that's what God does when he forgives us he allows us to just let go that pass whatever it is however we been wronged whatever wrong we've done if you can let go of that God can do remarkable things with your life because my dad never let go I've never forgotten that and I never want to get to a place in my life where I'm hung up because yeah he did that to me if she did that to me how I just want to be able to let go and God and Jesus really allows us to do that absolutely that was so powerful powerful truth what would you like written on your epitaph on my unlike to my gravestone which greatly don't order it yet now I want my gravestone to say he helped change the cultures perception of the church that's what I want that be fine Phil I think you're doing that and it's wonderful what you and your wife Kathleen are doing she's the brains behind the operation for the church but you're a great couple who loved Jesus loved the church and trying to help the church engage with the world so you're doing good just keep on doing it thank you Thank You Phil cook thank you [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Facing the Canon

Views: 6,010

Rating: 4.6595745 out of 5

Keywords: facing the canon, j.john, interview, jjohn, j john, philo trust, philo, trust, christianity, Jesus, Lord, God, Holy Spirit, Phil Cooke, Hollywood, Cooke Pictures, Media, Director

Id: 1DBKCd6I8CM

Length: 57min 56sec (3476 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2017