By the time we got to Courageous, we were bringing in more outsiders, so any time we would bring in outsiders, we would offer to pay them, and [as for volunteers from] the church, because they were getting the benefit of the income to all the ministries of the church and the mission, the building program and all those things, they knew up-front that they were volunteering and gladly did so.

But after about a year praying, there was just this clear direction. The leadership team believed that God was leading us to focus on fatherhood. If God is leading, then God will provide. So we begin to get storyline ideas that lined up with the subject of fatherhood that we're working on and fitting, and we were thinking, okay this is good. At the same time, as we are studying scriptures and we're on our journey as fathers, we are learning about fatherhood every day.

Alex [Kendrick] and I started out the whole film-making journey as a desire to reach people for Christ and try to impact their lives for him.

Well that's basically how we launched Sherwood Pictures, and with our films, we sat down and we had a long list of specific things that we were praying for God to provide, and then we would just deal with all those things in prayer first, and then when we went out and began knocking on doors and calling, it was clear that God was going before us and providing the way and sending the resources.

With every movie, we will spend a season of prayer just asking God what's on his heart, and we spent about a year, two years, in prayer, trying to figure out the direction for the next film.

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.

The only way love can last a lifetime is if it’s unconditional.