What does it look like to be salt and light in Hollywood and the world of filmmaking at large? Today we are joined by actors and producers Lucas Behnken and Katherine Boecher, who have dedicated their lives to turning film into a mission field for the gospel—creating movies and documentaries emphasizing compassion, forgiveness, justice, and generosity. We discuss the rapidly changing landscape of Christain film and how to disciple views after powerful stories grip them. And focus on their upcoming documentary, “I Hate You But It’s Killing Me,” and discuss the only solution to the rising epidemic of hatred.
What does it look like to be salt and light in Hollywood and the world of filmmaking at large? Today we are joined by actors and producers Lucas Behnken and Katherine Boecher, who have dedicated their lives to turning film into a mission field for the gospel—creating movies and documentaries emphasizing compassion, forgiveness, justice, and generosity. We discuss the rapidly changing landscape of Christain film and how to disciple views after powerful stories grip them. And focus on their upcoming documentary, “I Hate You But It’s Killing Me,” and discuss the only solution to the rising epidemic of hatred.
For a long time in Christian content, I think people were afraid of being too raw. There was almost this idea that it's not acceptable or appropriate to show the difficulties that everyday people go through that are Christian or everyday people go through that have an encounter with Christ, that it isn't this beautiful Easter Egg kind of situation. And now, what I'm noticing is there is this huge tide turning, where people that are making Christian content, not only do they want it to be Christian, but they want it to be honest and authentic, and people are hungry for faith that is authentic right now.
Luke:Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, a show where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but to also transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness, and beauty, of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of her mission, and today, Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott:Well, hello again, my name is Scott Allen, and Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm joined today by friends and coworkers, Luke Allen and Dwight Vogt. And we have some very special guests with us today, all the way from Georgia, Lukas Behnken, and his wife, Katherine, and they are founders and producers of Sterling Light Production, their documentary filmmakers, and they are Christians who are very intentional about living out their faith in that way. Guys, welcome. Great to have you, thanks so much for being with us.
Katherine Boecher:It's a pleasure.
Lukas Behnken:Glad to be here. Thank you for having us.
Scott:Yeah, no, we're thrilled. I just wanted to read from your website, sterlinglightproductions.com, encourage people to check that out. I just want to read the the opening sentence that you had to describe what you're doing, creating film content with social action campaigns for the global community, that provoke deep questions about why we are who we are, addressing the nature of the human heart, with an emphasis on compassion, forgiveness, justice, and generosity. Wow. That's a great vision. I love that.
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, we spend a lot of time shaping that and writing that.
Scott:I can tell, that's really powerful. Well, we want to get into that. And today, we're going to talk about a couple of things if that's okay with you guys. I'd like to explore, just, first of all, who you are, your background, and what led you to do to be doing what you're doing right now as filmmakers, and particularly with this current endeavor with Sterling Light Productions, and then you have a new documentary that's going to be released here in March I believe, is that correct?
Lukas Behnken:That's correct.
Scott:Yeah. And the title of that documentary is, I Hate You, But It's Killing Me. And we had a chance to screen that, and we're just really moved by that. I want to get into that as well and just what led you to to that particular subject. And so anyways, yeah, if you guys could just tell us, Lukas and Katherine a little bit about yourselves, your background, that'd be great.
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, I'm going to start.
Katherine Boecher:Go ahead.
Lukas Behnken:Would you would like to start?
Katherine Boecher:No, go ahead, go ahead!
Lukas Behnken:My background, to keep it short, because I really like talking and telling stories. But I'm a missionaries child. My parents were both Youth With A Mission missionaries in Germany. I had an older sister, and I was born there at one of their mission bases called Herlot Castle. So growing up, I always painted the story that I was adopted by this family, but I'm actually the Prince Frederick the Third from this castle in Herlot Germany. Come to find out years later I met the actual Prince of Bavaria, who then dethroned me pretty much. But that aside, I'm really this missionaries child, and my father and mother moved back to the United States, and he joined the Army and became an Army Chaplain and went to seminary in Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. And then grew up moving around the world with my family, four children. And now a chaplain in the Army. So a lot of Army bases In Europe, about nine different states, mostly on the East Coast and Midwest, ended up in Missouri for a few years and then moved down to Panama to graduate from high school. And about 12 years old, my father filmed a lot with video cameras, and I always took them and started making content and filming things, and convincing teachers to let me turn in movies instead of papers, and had a deep passion for filming stories, and one of the things that I noticed was, I was less moved by TV and film as much as I was amazed by how much people were moved that were watching movies, they were moved a lot more than me, but I noticed that, and I grew up in a house, but we didn't watch a lot of content. So it's not like I saw a lot of movies or grew up going to the movies. I think I went to one movie with a cousin when I was a teenager. But prior to that I hadn't, our family didn't go. So it wasn't a major influence in that way, it was more the storytelling component. And my Dad being a preacher, preaching from the pulpit every week, stories. And I felt called at 12 years old when my mother took me to a play, to move, that I felt like I was going to move to LA when I turned 18. To bring light into the world through storytelling, through acting, and at a play that my mother brought me to that was of a family friends, there was a gentleman there in the program that in the back of his description said that he lived in LA and that he was doing TV and film. And I was able to talk to him after the play. And I asked him if I could come and live with him when I was 18. And he said, "Sure kid!" and this was in Missouri. And there was an ice cream shop next door, and this was in an ice cream shop. And I got his phone number. And I called them every year at 13."I said five more years. This is Lucas from Rolla, you said I could come live with you. Still there?" he said, "Who is this?""Lucas at the ice cream shop, I'm 13 now you said I could come live with you." He'd tell me about the movies. So every year I'd call them. And when I was 16, I moved to Panama. And I started doing theater throughout this whole time. So I was still very passionate doing debate club and doing duet acting and learning that and tried to get into anything I could that was close to California and doing art and movies. And I moved down to Panama and do theater there, and get to meet up with this gentleman again in Missouri. My parents let me fly there to a family friend's house and meet up with my list of 100 questions of what I needed to know to move to LA, to start pursuing this passion to go and tell stories to the world forever, to bring light into the world. And I met with him and then I had to wait till I was 18 but graduated high school to Panama went back to Missouri till I was 18, and drove out and called this man, Ed, and from an hour or two away and said I'm a couple hours away, can I stay at your house tonight? And come on down man! And I ended up staying with him for six months while he showed me the ropes of the industry, of what background acting was, of what TV, versus commercial, versus feature film, versus big budget, and low budget. And through extra work and background work, that was my study of the movie sets and at the same time I joined an Acting Conservatory. And so my my first many years was very focused. I didn't know even what a producer was or what the categories were. But at 18 to 23, Five year Conservatory in Santa Monica deeply committed to pursuing acting and only acting at that time, although I started to notice that while on sets, it wasn't these actors when I would book a show and see these producers who were making all the decisions about what lines of dialogue are there, what story are being told, I started to understand that there's this other level of individuals. It wasn't the actors, the things, the people that I saw telling the stories. They were just playing another person whose story. So that's where I started to get insight into that. And around that time, I met Katherine, and she was also an actress. And how'd you end up in LA, this was all in LA. And we met between a bunch of Hollywood actor friends.
Katherine Boecher:My story was very different, actually, I am from Southeast Texas, but at 10 years old, I was scouted by a modeling agent in Kansas City. And I started modeling, I started professionally modeling at 10. And very quickly started traveling for jobs throughout the US. By the time I was 14, I was traveling internationally, and living in Europe. And then at 18, I moved to Los Angeles. And I was like "Purpose? I'm just trying to buy a horse." I had no clue. And I had to actually I had grown up in church. My godmother was in the Catholic Church, actually, for over 50 years, she was a Dominican Nun. My close family was Protestant, but I knew God my whole life, but had no idea about really following a purpose or having this drive to have a strong impact on the world. And it actually wasn't until I met Lukas on a crazy road trip with a bunch of friends that he started asking me very deep questions about Jesus and about if I had a personal relationship, and what I was doing in Los Angeles, that I started to actually think about the stuff that I was being hired to do and the roles I was playing and the content I was putting out there. And then fast forward five years later, we got married. And we helped build a theater from the ground up in North Hollywood, California, and Luke, was the managing director of that theater for the next 10 years, and really honed a lot of his early production skills there while we were still acting and doing our young life as a married couple. And then when we got pregnant with our first son, we started our production company, we started Sterling Light Productions. And then our first stock, that one was Mulli. And that was Lukas went to Africa right after our son was born actually, for the filming of that.
Scott:I'm sorry, what was the name of that film?
Katherine Boecher:That was Mulli, Mulli Children's Family, a man named Charles Mulli. And he was a man in Kenya, who rescues children in Kenya, and to date has rescued what, over 13,000 children now?
Luke:Yeah, I watched part of that. And that is a powerful story. That was amazing.That's one of those stories that seems too amazing to be a true story. One of those ones, is this is really a true story? Yeah.
Lukas Behnken:Yeah. Dwight and Scott, you'll be fascinated with that film. It's so in alignment with everything that you guys are about and do, and that became the next seven years of our life, and then other projects would get piled on top, but that was consistently there in a number of ways. And that is a whole story unto itself. But that was the shaping of it. We had done a couple of short films. We had started a film festival at that theater. We really curated it into a center for the arts. We started an acting school. And, excuse me, we found that through the shaping of the stories and putting up plays, and then starting the festival that we really wanted to get into the production side.
Dwight:Where was that in California.
Lukas Behnken:It's in North Hollywood, and it's still there. It's on Magnolia Boulevard between Lankershim and Vineland in the Noho Arts District.
Dwight:Okay. Wow, that's something.
Katherine Boecher:It's called the Sherry Theatre, and it actually came out of a Bible study that Lucas was doing with a lot of, there were like 10 or 11 of you guys weren't there?
Lukas Behnken:Yeah.
Katherine Boecher:Young actor guys.
Lukas Behnken:We started a Bible study called God Fellas. And then we would look from the balcony down on this old electronic store that was shut down. And my buddy who's an actor, his name is Scott Hayes. He had this vision to turn that into a theater and his mom funded it, which is why it's called the Sherry. And she financed the building, that's her name. And a lot of us actors, there's a singer named Mark Foster, who has a band called Foster The People
Katherine Boecher:He was in the group.
Lukas Behnken:But there was like 10, or 11 of us that all did, you know, have gone up and down in acting and production and music. The neat part of the early years of spending a long time in LA is you see just the creation of cool careers over a long period of time.
Luke:Hi, friends, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you are enjoying this discussion with Lukas Behnken and Katherine Boecher. If you'd like to attend the live virtual premiere of this powerful new documentary, I Hate You, But It's Killing Me. Just go to Ihateyoubut.com. And right away, you'll see a button that says buy film pack, which takes you to a quick and easy 30 second signup page, where you can purchase as many tickets as you'd like. Each ticket comes with two free premiere tickets to give away, as well as lifetime access to the movie, the eight week guided online course that we talked about in the episode, as well as more. To find that page and more information on Lukas and Katherine visit this episode's landing page, which is linked in the description below. Thanks again for joining us for this episode of ideas have consequences.
Scott:Yeah, we'd love to explore a little bit more about that. I think it's interesting, Lukas, that you have that YWAM background, YWAM has been really instrumental in the history of the Disciple Nations Alliance as well, YWAM Publishing has published almost all of our books, a great many of them. And a lot of the bases around the world really adapted our teaching early on and help to spread it. And so we have a lot of friends and YWAM we go to the University of Nations quite often and Darrow our founder knows Loren Cunningham. Well, are you connected to his son? I know he's a filmmaker as well.
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, Dave, I know him a little bit. But for
Dwight:Yes.
Scott:Yeah. some reason, we've never ended up fully connecting, which I
Lukas Behnken:So my dad and Tom are like best best buddies. Oh, no kidding. Okay. We have a mutual friend because Tom is a still see the horizon even recently. There's a project that I'm a executive producer on called David about King David as a boy, but David Cunningham has a feature film that he's written that's a David story. And I have my investing partner brought up and he's always come through my life, him and the the Boyds. Aaron Boyd and David Boyd. They're another kind of group of founders part of the Lauren Cunningham team. But Do you know Tom Bragg? friend. So that's good. So ask Tom about Mulli, he published so there Then and Now series?
Katherine Boecher:YWAM put out a book on Mulli after Lukas filmed the movie.
Lukas Behnken:And they sell the movie, the high school guide, the study guide that my father wrote that's attached to the film, because we ran it through an eight week study guide through the prisons or the chaplains in the prison ministries. So yeah, but that's really neat. Yeah, I have the deep kinship to YWAM, and I have a sticker on my wall from when I went and visited the castle that I was born in a couple to two years ago during this production because I passed by in Austria doing an interview. And I got to say, Hello, and walk the grounds and they're still there, doing deep missions in Herlot Castle.
Scott:That's great. Well, one of the things that we are all about discipling nations, which is about bringing the truth and the goodness and the beauty of God's kingdom into our nations,
in the way you put it:Bringing light into this world. And I think one of the big barriers that a lot of Christians have in terms of doing that is they tend to have a sacred-secular divide. And so they they put their work, their vocation on the secular side of things, and they go about doing their work in the same way that everyone else and whatever that culture happens to be as doing their work. And then their spirituality sits in another box of their life. But we really try to teach that now you've got to your vocation is the way through which you bring the truth of God into the world. And then there is no separation between your faith and your vocation. And so I'm really interested in you guys's vocation as filmmakers in Hollywood. That's not an easy place to be a Christian. But it sounds like you're very intentional about being Christians in that environment. You've started Bible studies. And, Katherine, you were talking before we started recording about the way you're very intentional in the process of making your films, in terms of the way you treat your people, your employees and things like that. Talk a little bit about that. What is it? How did you get that vision to live out your faith fully in the line of work that you've chosen there?
Katherine Boecher:Well, I actually think that a huge part of it comes from who Lukas is, and the way that Lukas's parents raised him to be honest, Lukas is the type of person that that sees everyone. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how low on the totem pole your job is, it doesn't matter how other people view your value at the current moment, Lukas, for as long as I have known him, will stop and look into someone's eyes and see how they're doing, and check in with them, and make them feel valuable.
Scott:Wow, that's beautiful.
Katherine Boecher:And that was a huge part of really everything that we have always created, is making sure that every single person on the team feels valued and valuable. It informed our early marriage and it informed the way that we parent our children, and has had a massive influence on me and my growth as a human being, and then on our production company, we want people to know that they matter. We have had in our own life walks and in our own journeys, we've had a lot of people who have had a lot of difficulties, and we've lost quite a few people that we know to addiction and to suicide and life is hard. For us, it's very important that we take every moment and make sure that the people around us feel loved and valued and worthy. Because you never know what the next moment is going to bring in their life. And you may be the influential one that brings the light of God to them.
Scott:Yeah. Francis Schaeffer talked about how there's no little people, I love that. And CS Lewis, in a similar way, said, you've never met an ordinary person, there's no such thing as an ordinary person.
Katherine Boecher:I completely agree with that, and I know that Lukas does too. And so that has really been our heart from before we started the production company we were involved in quite a few different homeless ministries in Los Angeles, and involved through some friends of ours with different organizations that served the former community, and the community of people that are living in prison in Los Angeles and around the Southern California area. And that really became a part of our mission as a company. So all of our things that we do, all of our films, we provide opportunities for people who are not getting opportunities because of their past. And allowing people to be unshakably good in the way that God created them to be, and giving them giving them an opportunity to see themselves as worthy as they are. And so we hire formers a lot in our productions. We hire former foster kids, we hire former convicts, we hire people who have pasts, and we train them up and then onset I'll let Lukas talk a little bit about the actual onset experience because often he's the one, boots on the ground, actually onset and so I'll let him talk a little bit about how he creates that environment of peace on a set.
Scott:That's really beautiful. I love that. No, I love the way you guys are so intentional. And you really have to go against the grain because I mean, there is a way that things are done and I'm sure there's a way things are done in the film industry as well, and to push against that, to push in a different direction, takes a lot of vision and intentionality. So, yeah, go ahead, Lucas.
Lukas Behnken:And I would say, there is something that I hope to reshape over time. And there's good reason for it, I think, especially from the outside, but often there's a stigma around Hollywood, either being potentially a little more evil than other places, or more cutthroat, or harder. My experience I feel like it's more, I guess noticed, it's more talked about, it's a place that's famous to talk about, or, the things that happen are mentioned more.
Katherine Boecher:We see it because it's in the news.
Scott:It's hugely influential.
Katherine Boecher:But the thing is that Hollywood is just like
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, it's just a representation, like, when I go everywhere else. It's interesting you say this, because I'm listening to you to other cities in all over the world, often I feel that they're going, "Yeah, but the industry itself is more evil," and then a lot more dangerous, or a lot more potential criminal I'm going "No it isn't! there's car manufacturers that probably activity, or more anger, or more violence going on there. Just to point out how sometimes it's thought that it's more there, right? That it's more difficult, whereas like a missionary in Sao Paulo, Brazil might be having a much more difficult time with evil or trafficking or danger or drugs, then what I'm dealing with in Hollywood, have as much evil going on in the production floor as in the theater!" Why do we think that?
Scott:I think we think that because we are also shaped by the films that come out of Hollywood. So we're all in tune to the industry and its products.
Lukas Behnken:Maybe, here's the bigger point of that. Mostly they're just making things that people want to watch. So it's the people. Like, if I put out something, and seven people watch it, and it's a bad, dirty, nasty thing. And then you put out this and 14 million people watch it, they would stop producing the one that seven people watched, and continue to produce the thing that 14 million people watch. So it's visibly feeding the world. And so it's the world that is the representation of this thing that's being created. But really, that's like 30 people making that piece of content. And it's like, "Oh, that's disturbing." But often I'll find that things that I would never even watch people are watching that I am too sensitive to watch that are pastors, leaders, they'll watch intense things that just out of preference, I'm like, "Oh, that's too violent for me." Like I just shut my eyes. And I don't have a judgment on it, just pointing out that the draw is what gets funded. People bought it, people want more of it, people requesting it, writing in, saying, "Make a part two, make a part three."
Katherine Boecher:The citizens who are not living in Hollywood, who are not making the content are spending their dollars on film and television and DVDs.
Lukas Behnken:It's just a representation of the heart of man saying, and so really, that then is the point, right? Then the mission work is just everywhere, to bring hope to the people. And then if their heart shift to like, "Oh, I don't do that anymore," or "Oh, I'm not interested in that anymore." That was slow.
Dwight:Okay, I'm gonna interrupt you. So you have to make a living.
Lukas Behnken:Yes.
Dwight:So how do you deal with that reality as storymakers?
Lukas Behnken:What reality?
Dwight:The reality that the world would 14 million people buy this and 14 people buy this. You want to produce light. How do you deal with that reality?
Lukas Behnken:No, there's also people that love that as well. But that's my point.
Katherine Boecher:Let me answer that. So it is challenging, and it was challenging for us as actors, which is why we started a production company. Both Lucas and I would be considered successful as actors. We both worked in film and television for many years. But there does come a point when your agents get upset with you because you turn down a lot of things. And there does come a point when for the majority of actors, if you're turning things down, your career is going to start to stall out.
Lukas Behnken:That's very true.
Katherine Boecher:So for us, we got to a point where we were just so frustrated with the opportunities that were coming our way. And there is good stuff being made, most of the major film companies now, most of the major studios do have a faith based arm. And so they are creating faith based content, because it has been found that there is money in it for them, but not as much as the other content. So there's not as much opportunity for actors. So for us, we both got to a point where we were frustrated with the lack of opportunities to tell good stories, and we no longer wanted to be a part of stuff that wasn't necessarily horrible, but it didn't have a purpose, it wasn't going to move the person who watched it to want to make a difference in their community, with their neighbors on their street. And so. So that's what happened for us. We it is a struggle, it was financially difficult for us as actors, even though we were considered working actors, it was difficult for us to wait for the good content.
Lukas Behnken:That's true. And most actors that are top level, they are also hoping for those amazing roles that are positive and uplifting. So when those did come out, they're often the highest of the actors are taking those roles as well, and for good reason.
Scott:As an outsider looking in, I've kind of wondered if the kind of Christian influence in the film industry, is following a similar trajectory to the way that we've seen music really change the industry over the last 30 years. So it started out Christian music started out kind of hokey and corny, but it got better, and that it really had its influence, and I feel like film is kind of following. This is just my outsider's perspective, but there seems to be a kind of a similar trajectory with Christian film. And by Christian film, too, I know that there's this, like you say, faith based genre that I tend not to be a big fan of, because some of it's just not very good film. But then there's this kind of new generation of really great Christian filmmakers that seem to be coming in, young coming in. What's your perspective on all that? What do you see? What are the trends with Christians in Hollywood living out their faith in that industry? Is it something that encourages you, we see things like The Chosen, that's a new thing that seems really exciting. And many other things as well. But yeah, what's your take on what's happening right now?
Katherine Boecher:I think initially when making Christian film and Christian television first started to become popular again in the early 2000s, it wasn't the most skilled artists and creators in the industry that were doing it, it was people that really were hungry for that kind of content. And so they just jumped in and said,"We're going to make it." And as time has gone on, people who are more skilled who have just, I don't want to badmouth the people that make the content that is hokey and corny. But people who are looking for a different level of excellence, shall we say, have become more committed to putting their neck on the line and saying, "No, I want to make this kind of content. And not only do I want to make this kind of content, but it has to be excellent, or I'm not going to do it."
Scott:That's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing more of that, I think I go back to maybe where I started seeing that was with The Passion of The Christ, Mel Gibson's film, which is really an excellent film. And just recently, the film I watched last year that really impacted me was Father Stew. You guys probably have seen that one too. And it's an excellent film. I mean, there was just a quality to that. So yeah, continue. I'm sorry, Katherine.
Katherine Boecher:No, no. The other thing I would say that is sort of on a different aspect of that, is for a long time in Christian content, I think people were afraid of being too raw. There was almost this idea that it's not acceptable or appropriate to show the real side of what life is like, to show the difficulties that everyday people go through that are Christian, or everyday people go through that have an encounter with Christ, that it isn't this beautiful Easter Egg kind of situation. And now, what I'm noticing is there is this huge tide turning, where people that are making Christian content, not only do they want it to be Christian or be faith based content, but they want it to be honest and authentic. And people are hungry for faith that is authentic right now.
Scott:Amen. I agree with that. Yeah.
Lukas Behnken:And to just add on to that component, I think, as you were mentioning, that if there's this group of people that make content and it's feeding this certain machine, you do have to just start generating and creating content, you just have to, whether it's the individuals that started doing that, like she said, they were often these pastors or individuals who were about the story and just going to make movies, and now it has created a new lane, which then proved that the audience was interested. And I think that saying that goes,"The only thing that evil needs to prevail is for good people to sit back and do nothing", that there is this challenge and call to investment, for money, and for money to be poured in by the individuals that have money in the faith community, to pour in, to match, and invest just as much as the ones who are out to draw people into sin. And then that commitment to excellence that she was talking about, it's often there isn't as strong of a commitment sometimes to the ones that are out there to do good, why would it be someone that doesn't have necessarily a faith line, but yet everyone absolutely agrees that they're the best at this, why? Why are they more dedicated? And I think, it's a big question to ask as well, where's the commitment level?
Katherine Boecher:From Christians you mean?
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, to excellence? And it is there, by the way, I'm just saying that's the large good question to stand
Dwight:On that, I want to highlight Lukas, I was impressed on. with your earlier comments about your university experience wasn't a university, it was actually going into the vocational field that you wanted to pursue, and really, really studying that for five years, I was like, wow, that's a pathway for a lot of people. If they want to pursue excellence, it's like, find your craft and go for it. And really, really focus on development. And so many times we want to start doing really quick, and it sounds like you really plowed the necessary ground. So it's a good model. Thank you.
Katherine Boecher:Education is going that way these days. I can't speak to what education was 50 years ago. But as for us as parents of young children who homeschool our kids, and have seen other parents of young children and all the different lanes of education, it seems like there really is a push to very individualized training for kids starting young with what are you being called to do? Well, let's get you involved in that now and connect you with the people who can help you to learn that now. So that it's not an after high school and after college thing, but it's how can we plug you into that space young?
Scott:Yeah, I agree with that. You know, I'd love to shift our conversation towards your your documentary soon to be released. I Hate You, But It's Killing Me. We had a chance to view that and, boy, that commitment to quality or excellence really comes through it was just, I would say beautifully produced. Very powerful documentary. I want to encourage all of our listeners to go to Sterlinglightproductions.com And you can get links to to that and other documentaries that Lukas and Katherine have been involved in. But yeah, tell us about the this is this is a die Documentary about hate about what it is. And about it the antidote antidote, if you will, for hate, which is forgiveness. Very, these are very biblical ideas. But I'd love to hear how did you how did you come to this? What tell us a little about what led you to this particular topic?
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the encouragement. And I was at a screening of a film for Mulli. And gentlemen, after the film, came up to me after and said, Can you make me one, and he said, I have the rights to this book called Conquest Over Hatred. And I've got money. And I'd like to make a documentary on this guy story. And that's pretty much what I had described happened with Mulli. So there was a gentleman with money and the rights to a book called father to the fatherless, and asked us to share the story and make it into a documentary story. Gotcha. And I love how your mission statement has the word ideas in it. If you see at the header of my website, it says, you know, producing ideas into reality. And that really, is it how do you turn an idea that we just say out loud into content and something that can be touched and seen and discussed. And I was already I was finishing my campaign for a few months. But I said, Let's talk in three or four months about looking to see if we can make this an upcoming project. And I'm, and we did that. And we agreed to do that. So I met with this man read this book, and set up a 12, about a 16 week research period, I have a deep interest in making sure that I can do something unique with a topic. And in and he hired me to research and then present to him the way that I would do this documentary. And if we were interested in moving forward. So in watching a number of documentaries out there on the topic of hate and reading this book conquest over hatred, which was more specifically race related hate. The thing that I found that there was the nuance in the book, which wasn't a focus in the book that he knew, or that the gentleman who wrote it highlighted was that I found a lot of content on hate between ideas, hate between religions, hate between tribes, and cultures, and concepts in the documentary world, but I did not, I don't even think I really found one documentary on hate between people that knew each other. So I, you know, I hate my brother, I hate my mother, I hate my sister, I hate the way, my neighbor is and I want to destroy him and slash his tires like this revenge slash knowing Egypt, or hating yourself, you know, there, there was some content out there on specific, you know, suicidal, and content like that, but never really pointing out that that hate might be a part of it. And so, I presented gentlemen, you know, this book, conquest over hatred. The man, you know, is a is a world champion, karate Grandmaster, and he'd won 300 titles in karate.
Scott:And he's one of the stories of course, in the film. Yeah.
Lukas Behnken:Yeah. Donnie Williams, very powerful. Yeah, extremely, you know, incredible guy dedicated to excellence. But what drove him was his ability to through karate, kick white people's butts. But be legally, you know,
Scott:break their teeth out. I think he said, Yeah,
Lukas Behnken:you know, but, and then he found a way to conquer his hatred. But what I pointed out to him and highlighted in the film, is that it actually, it can't start with just, there has to be a root that the core core injury or the writing of the wrong, what was that for each individual person, even if it is a general thing, then it has to be something that someone told you specifically about a single thing. And so for Donnie, you know, hit, there was a white man who came in, took his mother and left him abandoned. So that that's where that core and then obviously, we know at that time, he's around, you know, 70-78 years old now. So we know his era was riddled with the racial conflict, but specifically for him. When a white man comes and takes your father, you know, whether the whole takes your mother or the whole world at odds with each other. That's the incident that sparked this for him. And so I presented to Derek Warfel, who financed this documentary, he had the vision for it and asked me to make it for him. He has a company called Winter Star productions. And he has a heart for empowering artists to tell good stories. And he had founded an organization called the 168 Hour Film Festival. And he had, he was in real estate and finance. And he loved putting additional resources into filmmakers and storytellers.
Katherine Boecher:And specifically Christian filmmakers, storytellers. And so
Lukas Behnken:he said, I'd like to do a number of interviews and find, as many as you know, narrowed down and tell a lot of stories of individuals that have dealt with hate toward a family member, and then how they made their way through it, and potentially include some individuals that haven't yet. And then talk with different leaders from different fields. And my interest in you know, in my heart at the mission field is really representing the world as in representing the people we meet, and not having a fear about, if I include someone in this film that has a different worldview. Everyone's used to that, I mean, I go down to the coffee shop and talk with this guy that I don't, and should I not talk to that guy, because he has a different worldview, I don't even know what his worldview is. So to filter that out, consciously is, is what starts to make these seminars, films that that a are only for a certain group of people, or feel, you know, propaganda ish, in that the filmmaker is trying to force the viewer to do something, you know, that's can that it's, it's too forced, you know, and, and it's not authentic to say it's not authentic to life. So, so my, my passion is wanting to hear from different voices while at the same time. The same for the Christian, letting him completely be in a film and say, I love Jesus. And here's why. And you know, like just being himself, if it's, if we let people be people, the audience will accept that they welcome people being authentic. No one's judging Donnie, for after being a crime, and then becoming a pastor and wanting to dedicate his life to saving people and loving people now, and being a hardcore Christian guy. I don't think many people will judge him. If I try and curate and only show you only people that did that, then automatically, that's the only only people that are going to care to view this thing, and then just be encouraged that there's some people out there that got over their hate and found the Lord, but how do we how do we represent our experience, which, for me, I film 64 interviews of people and their ways through this who are all on their journey, and God's got them all, I met him for a day for hours. So, you know, to encounter them and be a witness, and then continue to encourage them and have them see this film and see everyone that's included in it. God, God knows how to do his part, you know? And, yeah,
Luke:I love that part. So
Lukas Behnken:that, that's where I try to be and at the same time, you know, I'm all you know, I'm a person trying to tell a story. And I do have a message and a purpose and a meaning. So I am trying to point out the ways that seemed to work and I have an opinion about it. But that's where my heart is in telling the diverse stories.
Luke:Yeah, I gotta say, yeah, that was probably my favorite part of this film was, I mean, at the beginning of discussion, we were talking about Christian artists, essentially. And you know, to be a good Christian artist, you need to have a desire to make excellent content. First and foremost, really, you need to be vulnerable and real with people. And you need to actually meet people where they're at. And I think that's what you guys did so well on this. I mean, like you just said, we all interact with ideas all the time constantly. So this people catch on, when you're cherry picking ideas and putting it in front of them. It's almost like you're telling them what to think. And no one changes their opinions when they're told what to think they like to be a part of the journey of understanding and of making decisions for themselves. I mean, that's the way we really change at the end of the day. And what you guys did I mean, if God really is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE, and we actually trust that, we believe that, then presenting people with an array of ideas, we should trust that God will lead them through that process of finding the truth if they're actually honest and search for it. I think a lot of the testimonies in the film did that in a way is all these different situations, and eventually, some of them found a light. And I think for the viewer, those stories, at least to me, I don't know if I'm biased, but they seem like, oh, there's something there. That didn't come from that person. You know, that's an external force. That's true power that could move that person's life that dramatically in a one ad. So I love the honesty that you guys had an approaching that.
Scott:Yeah, I was kind of struck by what you're talking about. Well, as well, Lucas, because who's the gentleman? We were just talking about the opera donkey? Yeah. Yeah, he's, you know, he just is very open about his faith. You know, he says, I think at one point, it was God, right, who really had the power and it was his intervention, that that helped to turn that hatred that I had for white people into love into forgiveness. Whereas you had others that I was guessing they didn't talk about God, but they were dealing with the issue of how do you deal with hatred, you know, this hatred that's killing people, it's eating them up and destroying them. And they're kind of their solutions or their methods, whether they were Christian or not, what struck me about them was that they tended to be the way I would say it is rooted in kind of biblical principles, you know. And so it all kind of came back whether they were Christian or not, that kind of struck me but I was watching the documentary just having we homeschool our kids as well. And I just had finished reading to my my daughter, I teenage daughter, the book Unbroken, you know, the Louis Zamperini story. And that's very much the theme of that that book is well, you know, here, Louis Zamperini is in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and he's just brutalized, you know, by this Japanese prison guard, and he's just deeply wounded, you know, by that. And he comes home after the war with just a seething hatred and just use overwhelming desire to get revenge. You know, all night, he just is up dreaming of ways he can get back to Japan to murder, you know, the sky to kill him. And it shows to me the power, you know, that there's a satanic power behind this, right? It's a wait, it's like, it's, it's just so powerful. And for him, the, the turning point is when he goes to a Billy Graham crusade, and you know, he, his wife kind of drags him, he doesn't want to go, it's the First Crusade I think, in Los Angeles back in the 19, late 1940s, early 1950s, and he gives his life to Christ. And it was like an, it was a miracle, because that hatred immediately turned into forgiveness. And so he just now it was how do I get back to Japan to find this guy to forgive him? And it's so moving, it's so powerful, but and it's, again, this is such a deeply biblical idea. You know, this is the biblical revolution, whenever you see that, like, when I'm reading this to my daughter, I'm literally weeping because it's me, there's just nothing more powerful than this, this message of that, God, we're all messed up people, we've all done wrong. We've all heard other people and God Himself and He forgives us. And then he takes the penalty, right? Because, you know, there, there does need to be retribution. And he says, I'll take that retribution on myself. There's, it's so powerful, it's really, to me, it's revolutionary, and, but but it's also requires supernatural power in some way, you know, and it's kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, begins with you can't deal with this on your own, you're gonna need a higher power. I think there's something about that with this issue of hatred as well. So when when we've been so deeply wounded, you know, just such deep injustice is that people in your film, you know, have been, you know, so I just
Lukas Behnken:want to add in one thing, and then ask you to speak on a topic that in the time is such a component in all of this, right, like, I make a film, it's an hour and a half long someone watches it. And the, the large piece of my mission statement that says, you know, we make films with social action campaigns, like that's, that's an absolute requirement to making a film because for me for this production company, because of the time that it takes for people to change or, or heal or go through something. And so, once this film is watched, it's it's that it's a beginning tool. And that's an important part about if someone is going to analyze like, was a film good for this. Well, you If If someone signed up for a 22 week course, and that was course, one, maybe it would be viewed different, you know, if it was supposed to be the entirety of the course, in all, you know, of all 22 courses all in one hour and a half, and the person was supposed to leave that night forever a different human, that that part is impossible for a filmmaker to attain. But if I made a film, and during that, four to six minutes afterwards, you had one new thought that but then at that point, if I provide you a connection point, so it leads to what I'm what we filmed yesterday, which has been designed for for months, if not years, is that eight week, you know, video e course that we help point out because we broken down this film, these characters, their timelines for a very long time, and all the characters in it. So after the film, it's hopefully like, Hey, if you know, if you find this valuable, continue walking this journey with us. And then the, you know, there's this first week that says, let's break down that first 10 minutes. What What was the thing that Donnie did, like, let's talk. And so after about 12 hours, write these eight, you know, one hour courses of applying it to your life, you know, hey, what was your growing up like life? Like? did? Did your parents abandon you? Did you have a great life? But But did you have a great life, but you hated it? You know, let's talk about it and help help these individuals. Connect with the story, the tool part, it's just a talking bouncing board thing of remember, just like your book, hey, remember how he did this? It's it's a bunch of characters, and, and you're able to pause it, say, man, you know, how long did it take them between going to the event? You know, the, the Billy Graham event and going back there? How How long was the thought sometimes the thought is sudden, but did it take him four months to get the ticket back and go there? And? And during that time? Was he questioning? Should he go? Or should he not? Or did it rise back up and go down? You know, all of that stuff that connects it with the human experience? And and what we all deal with? Daily and and with them? Sometimes it does jump fast and are Molly Fong wants that something that seemed like a 45 minute thing was a three year you know, journey in the man's life, but leading to the course. Then it's broken down and Katherine spent maybe you could just talk about that for a moment of that. That's really the hope that that comes with the film. And so
Scott:you're what I'm hearing you guys what I'm hearing you say Lucas is you've got a vision beyond the film itself, the film is a piece of a larger teaching essentially, that you want to you want to provide to people that will help them is that is that what I'm hearing you say?
Lukas Behnken:Yeah, and all nighters. And that was always the sad part for me as an actor, when I was already being selective, to play a certain role, because it had a purpose and a meaning. And it had a message hoping that someone wrote that within one of the TV shows that I was doing or was available to audition for. So then you play a schizophrenic character in Criminal Minds. And you only took it because there's a value in talking about mental health and schizophrenia. And it was a father, family relationship. But it aired and set people said Cool. And then they watched another episode of something, right? It's like, man, that I wanted to talk to you guys about like mental health and schizophrenia and fatherhood. Do you know,
Katherine Boecher:not just that but hired to do it and you have so much desire to make a difference with this acting role that you got? And then you're on? You do it. And then here's your paycheck. Have a nice day.
Scott:So you guys are with your Sterling Light Productions are able to do these things that you've wanted to do, which is really great.
Lukas Behnken:Oh, yeah. And that's where the vision is become fulfilled. Right. But the thing that I saw
Katherine Boecher:at 1212, I planted on his Hiral making films
Lukas Behnken:that that so with, with the Mulli film, and we're not to talk on it long, but that was the shaping with a company called for good that that we built to distribute that film. We built an eight we study guide, and we built a major adoption and foster campaign that directly after the film caused in action hundreds and now 1000s of adoptions, fostering children in America designed to to have that occur with the film and there's so many opportunities for so many films and even still films that came out two years ago to revive it and repurpose it. That's what I think I see a lot in the people and in things is it's like a lot of the individuals that find trash and turn it into something or find a, you know, demolish town and hope to rebuild it and refurbish it. I see that in people and specifically films. And so that's where I feel called and want to thrive. Use concept
Katherine Boecher:meaning maker.
Scott:Oh, I love that. I love your vision. I mean, it's really it's kind of a discipleship, vision, you know, through using film. It's just sounds amazing. So, yeah. And on this particular subject, I mean, there's, it's such a need, you know, the, you know, people have been deeply wounded and deeply hurt, and they need to find a solution to that. So, yeah, just as crying out for you know, and that's why here's how you can go deeper, here's how you can make this person
Lukas Behnken:as they don't know how, and I say that in one of our breakdown videos, like, they don't know how, and it's like explaining something to someone that continues to not understand what you're saying. And you do have to say 11 to 15 times. And that's why what these are just to be long, so that we can repetitively navigate their own individual circumstances.
Katherine Boecher:Um, I was gonna say a lot, but all of these things can get in the way of our witness, right, as people who are believers, I think one of the things that Lucas and I have, have talked about on our own walk and our own ups and downs on our journey as, as people who who believe so deeply in our God is that oftentimes, we meet people who, or art or are in relationship with people who also believe deeply, yet their their life circumstances and their past traumas get in the way of that light that is trying and desperate to shine forth from them. And so I think, with this documentary, and with the video course, that as Luca said, we just finally filmed yesterday, working on it, and I wrote it, I've been writing it for a year and honing it and letting it grow and find its own path. And then we filmed it yesterday, with another amazing filmmaker who came and helped us with it, who blessed us, we were so surprised, he came in and witnessed to us, and it was so beautiful to have this experience. But what this is for is, is really to help people be able to face and process even a little bit of the things that are putting up walls around the light within them. And, you know, I'm a big you mentioned, aaa, I'm a big supporter of all of the 12 step programs, and, and their methods. And one of the things that in, in the 12 step program of Al Anon they they talk about attraction rather than promotion. And I think for me, personally, I get uncomfortable when people promote my faith, and it does not look attractive. And so I want to help people to be able to work through the pains in their life, so that the beauty that is within them is able to become attractive, at the light of God can can really shine forth and they cannot be so burdened by by what life can do to us because life is hard. It's hard for everyone. It doesn't matter what you you know where you live, what socio economic experience you have. It's hard. And we all need help. We all need to learn how to process these things. No shame in learning how to process these things.
Scott:Now we all we all have been wounded. We've been hurt. We need to learn how to forgive. I mean, you're right exactly. This is basic for everybody now the subjects of your film they've been wounded on a level I can't relate to but but we but it's true. We can all relate to it at some level. So
Katherine Boecher:yes, yeah, so that's what we did. We just filmed it and along with the along with the film when people when people buy tickets to the film, they also get access to This video course and, and it's available to them to use and go on that journey for themselves once they watch
Lukas Behnken:for our campaigns, it really is about I mean, it's, it's so driven by real desire to connect and build a community around this topic. And even you know, the title is it's a bit, you know, risky, but to the point, the audience that needs to see this are the people that are saying today, like, I hate my life. All right? This
Scott:this bitterness, this hatred is killing. Yeah. And so growing me often, like
Lukas Behnken:the title can be judged or been like, oh, wow, like, that's a intense, like title. Yeah, like, the only people we're going to talk to is the people in the most desperate positions that are either going to take their life or want to take somebody else's life. So whether it's violence, like beating someone up, or trying to figure out a way to smartly destroy someone, you know, revenge, and take their bank accounts down or hack their emails, or, you know, it doesn't have to be like, physically violent, it's like cancer, right? Yeah. And so, so the eye catching thing you have, you have a two seconds with a poster in a title to catch someone's eye, you know, Netflix, or Amazon is all just a bunch of squares with a title on it, you know, it's like foot, foot foot. And it's like, I Hate You, But It's Killing Me what, you know, and freeze for a moment, like maybe read a synopsis, or a trailer, and then, and then, you know, put, hopefully, drawing individuals, and I'm releasing three to four pieces of trailers of other people's stories all day long every day through all the social media spaces, because that's what people are doing. And that's where people are talking. And so how am I going to be accessing and available and in the conversation with all the kids that are dealing with it and all the adults and all the grandparents that are still hate their child because they didn't do what they thought they were going to do or hate their, you know, x this and are on their deathbeds and full of hate and going to die with it. You know, how do we go out to chase these individual individuals to hopefully, you know, help them it's definitely a rescue mission for us.
Katherine Boecher:I know I'm sure that I hate to presume but I on this one, I will double down and say I'm sure that you all have heard that there's just so much hatred being spewed on social media all the time. It's constantly being talked about, you know, that the hate talk and people being banned from here and banned from there, and it's touching everyone on all the different social media platforms. And so for us when we started this campaign, that was one of the decisions that we had to make, Lucas and I neither one of us had a Tiktok account of before this campaign, and we made the decision to go to dive into Tiktok on purpose because we were hearing so much about hate talk and the things that were going on within the community and on that social media platform specifically and other platforms about people hating people and people talking about their hatred for their family members and their and their friends. And so it really it for us it really is a mission field we are we are dying on that side that darkness and bringing the light with that
Lukas Behnken:you can communicate with them so different than if a newspaper spewing hate like I can't in the amount of time to try and talk to the publisher and talk to them and then engage with them and then have it do something I can't do that as easy as post made. I write to the user talk to him provide tool you know that that's that's what's dynamic, you know about the place including a lot of the other discord groups and the Reddit groups. There's there's a lot of ill will in all those places. So if there's not missionaries there as well. It will prevail.
Dwight:Well, I walked away with hope. I watched your movie and I thought I could I could relate I could I could see people that I knew that had experienced what what I was seeing, but and I can hear the truth of life being presented underneath it and clear and when I walked away I thought there's this movie says there's hope for your hatred. And it was I don't know if you plan I'm sure you plan this you plan everything. But I was watching the end credits where the people's faces are coming. And and all the therapists were kind of like looking like therapists. They just had a nice pleasant look, which is what they do. And all of all of the other people almost to a person would look Got you. And at some point their their, their mouth would break and they would start to smile. The one lady who's still struggling, that's right. And she stayed sober. And I thought that is so fitting, there's light breaking forth Sterling Light, and all these faces,
Scott:you can see it on the face. It was right there.
Dwight:These people have hope.
Scott:So what I love about this
Lukas Behnken:great, great catch to it and, and she's still suffering. And what I find really neat is after we release, it's going to be a live premiere. So she's going to all the four characters, you're gonna watch them be watching the movie with us, and I'll put them on the screen. So you're watching Donnie, watch himself and Adrian. And I already had connected a couple of the characters to Adrian after the filming of this, and I want to continue to track her journey. And we're going to actually, we were just talking about her filming her go through this ecourse. So she's gonna go through an ecourse if she's willing herself. Well, like, Oh, yeah. Go willing. And she's hoping to find a way but yeah, good.
Dwight:Totally shut down. She just hadn't got there.
Katherine Boecher:Yeah, she's a beautiful person, she
Dwight:really has, you
Katherine Boecher:know, a, a mom who is in the thick of motherhood and struggling with it like most parents are and, and yeah, she's on her journey, and her journey is not over.
Scott:Well, what I love about this subject is if you get if you get into it deeply, and you keep pushing in, it leads you right to the cross of Jesus. I mean, it leads you right to the Gospel, because that's at the center of this, you know, that when somebody's so deeply wounded you, you feel that need for justice, somebody's got to pay. And that's part of the gospel, that payment's been made through Christ on the cross, and then because of that forgiveness is offered. So you get both of these things, our need for justice and for forgiveness, and, you know, mercy, there's, there's nothing like the biblical message on this subject. There's just no other worldview or religion that has this kind of incredibly powerful message of justice and forgiveness. And so yeah, I love I love anything that leads people to that point, you know, to, to that central truth, because, because it's revolutionary, it'll literally it'll literally turn the world upside down. So
Lukas Behnken:it's so powerful, and to your point, there is nothing, there is nothing like it. And the response to it, there is there's nothing that affects humans more than knowing that they completely, you know, did a wrong and someone comes along and says, you know, I let it go, I let it go completely. You I forgive you wrong for you, you wronged me completely forgive you, the way the way that that crushes people, to soften people is it's, it is it's unparallel it's
Scott:revolutionary, it did literally, it literally begins to a ripple effect of upward change. A transformation. Yeah.
Lukas Behnken:And it is the way that's where that's why I'm I'm very passionate about describing my religion or my faith as really just following the way and fought find the way that Jesus treated people. And, and, and it was that at all times, you know, someone will either say, you know, hey, this wrong happened to this wrong, you know, what should we do? And it was, it was all about forgiveness. And, and, and then next time, be better, like, be a more gracious human and, and start with revenge and love God, you know, and follow your purpose. But his his way if we, if we live that we save the world.
Scott:It's not it's that's not an understatement. That's literally the revolution that Jesus came to, to, to, to lead us in you know, and I think of the story of Corrie Ten Boom, you know, who was held in that concentration camp and Nazi Germany and then afterwards, she was confronted by the Nazi prison camp person that had killed her sister, and he asked for forgiveness and when she forgave him, I mean, that's supernatural. Again, you don't I don't think people have that in themselves to do that. And whenever you see it, you're seeing the very power of God. And then you're seeing change you're seeing what would what would spiral into this downward ongoing, bitter hatred and violence begin to change and lead to reconciliation and lead to healing. And it's just amazing thing. So, guys, thank you so much for delving into this really critical topic in such a powerful way. I can't wait to see how God's gonna use the documentary and the curriculum that you developed. I'm sure it's going to touch a lot of lives. And so how can our listeners access your content? How can they How can I get to the documentary and the other things you've created? What's the best way?
Katherine Boecher:We have a website they can go to? wwwIhateyoubut.com i bought.com. Okay, that's right. I hate you. But.
Lukas Behnken:And a lot of that is despite that conversation, what would people fill fill in that right? I hate you, but I'm working on it. All right, I hate you. But I love you or hate you, but I'm gonna forgive you.
Scott:Right, very good.
Katherine Boecher:So if they go to that website, they'll find a way to access all of our social media, additional stories, they can purchase tickets and have access to the online course that will be made available right after the premiere, and have access to our growing community. And, and US
Scott:Awesome. Well, listen, we'll do our small part and trying to get the word out because it sounds like it's just going to be such a powerful resource for people. So thank you, guys. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for fulfilling. You know, God's calling your life together in your family and in three vocation. It's really wonderful.
Lukas Behnken:Thank you. And thank you for what you're doing and let us know if we can highlight your work in any way.
Scott:Well, we'll have a talk about how we might work together. That'd be fun. So anyways, thanks, you guys. Thanks, Lukas. Thanks, Katherine, for being with us today. It's been a real joy. Thank you for us as well. Yeah. God bless.
Luke:Thank you for listening to this episode of Ideas Have Consequences, a podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. You're not going to want to miss next week's episode with special guest, Dr. Oz Genis, for those of you who are not familiar with that name, Oz is an English author, speaker, social critic, and another disciple of Francis Schaeffer, who we have the honor of knowing and having on the podcast next week. You're not going to want to miss that episode, which comes out next Tuesday at 5pm Mountain Standard Time. Thanks again for listening to this episode of ideas have consequences.