FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

I think one of my favorite times on vacation is in the car road trip with all the kids. Listening to anything audio. Like you're creating the picture in your mind.

Speaker 2

Yep. Every time she does this, you do this. And often, if you don't do it, you'll read something audio.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's probably worse.

Speaker 2

I'm like, you can just read it to yourself. No, I'm gonna read it to the whole family. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 1

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us at Family Life Today dot com. This is Family Life Today.

Speaker 2

So I'm excited.

Speaker 1

I'm excited too, because we have something brand new launching something that has never.

Speaker 2

Happened before, never happened in the history of family life. A new project that's launching very, very soon.

You're going to be the first to hear about it. But before we even talk about it, we want you to hear it.

So here's a clip from what's soon to be released.

Speaker 3

Ready? Begin.

Speaker 4

Someone's been practicing.

Speaker 5

Hadn't notice.

Speaker 3

Reset.

Speaker 4

We've done axes all day, Master Armstrong.

Speaker 3

Well, that is correct, Oric. And we will continue with the regimen.

Speaker 6

Oric, you should know by now that a strong stance makes a strong fighter. Keep your knees bent and your shoulders loose.

Speaker 4

Good to see you too, Father. He never comes on sword fighting day or archery day or.

Speaker 6

Oric, the Kosan of our clan must be well versed in every weapon.

Speaker 5

For the record, you can have archery. You couldn't catch me dead with a bow in my hand. Oh, and I'm ahead in spears.

Speaker 3

That is correct.

Speaker 4

In the spear cabinet where were tied in spears.

Speaker 5

Not after tomorrow.

Speaker 4

Oh, oh, I forgot. I won't be at training tomorrow because you wanted me at the council meeting.

Speaker 7

Right, Father?

Speaker 6

Seems as though your time may be better spent here. However, as it is an important meeting, I suppose you could be in attendance.

Speaker 7

Really?

Speaker 6

It should be exciting. We will be discussing a new cattle tax.

Speaker 2

Ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 4

Very funny. Fine, we'll train.

Speaker 6

No, son. These are important skills to learn if you are to be chief one day.

Speaker 5

It's okay, Orek. I wouldn't want to keep you from cattle tax day.

Speaker 6

Come, son. No, let us be going.

Speaker 2

Okay. I can't wipe the smile off my face. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1

Just the music makes me happy. And this is our first. First audio drama coming out of crew and the Jesus film.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And Family Life. What are you talking about? It's from Family Life. Forget those other people. It's all family life.

No, the reason I'm smiling is because there's nothing like this anymore. Everything's visual, everything's, you know, I'm not seeing anything and my mind is creative.

Now we're laughing because we have the co-writers, the co-producers, the co-creators, you name it, you guys did it all. Perry Wilson, Landon, Holly are with us. Are you guys smiling as well?

Speaker 8

Every single time I was saying that as I was listening to that in this room, which also happens to be where we recorded everything. It just brings back a lot of memories. So much fun. We love this thing.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I'm totally smiling. I mean, we've been working on this project for close to three years now. Three years from when we first started iteration one of script one that's changed so much.

Speaker 8

But script zero.

Speaker 7

Yeah, it's fun to hear it.

Speaker 1

Interesting. Cause I asked you guys, did you listen to Adventures of Odyssey growing up from Focus on the Family? Because we did that a lot. And when we were on road trips, we were totally into all.

Speaker 2

It might have been a cassette or 8 track. I'm not sure what it was.

Speaker 1

I don't either.

Speaker 7

It was a cd.

Speaker 1

Did that. Did you do that? Did you remember that or listen to those?

Speaker 7

Oh, totally. So I actually had a rule. I was only allowed to listen to three episodes a day, except for Christmas morning.

Cause my parents would sleep in. And that was the one time I just listened to like eight episodes. I'd just be going, going, going, but.

Speaker 1

But it impacted totally.

Speaker 7

And we were like, man, we. We loved it. We grew up on this stuff and we want to do something like that. And crew needs something like that. And so we're excited to partner with.

Speaker 2

So what's the genius of this? What's your vision?

Speaker 8

Yeah, well, I mean, we really just wanted to write something creative that tells a compelling story that families can enjoy together.

Then they can unpack those deep, spiritual, relational, familial themes together. Some things that are hard to talk about, some things that kids are often feeling, but maybe parents don't know.

Opening those things together through this fantasy world, exploring just really fun and creative concepts.

Speaker 2

Now, obviously from the clip we just heard, you don't know what's going on yet.

Speaker 8

True.

Speaker 2

So help us. What's the. I don't.

Speaker 1

What's the setting?

Speaker 2

You don't want to give it away, or do you want to give it away?

Speaker 7

We'll give it a little away. We'll tease it. So we'd say that the road to K Luma is a Five part audio drama that retells the story of the prodigal son from the perspective of the prodigal son's son.

Speaker 2

What's K? Luma?

Speaker 7

So this is a fantasy world. This is a world we made up. And in this world, we've got kind of this main kingdom, the kingdom of K? Luma, with a good king who we can maybe guess who that might be.

Then we've got a various number of independent clans that all are kind of along this western coast. One of them, we find out, has a strange connection to the kingdom and an estrangement with the king.

It's kind of the story of this classic evil warlord who comes in and sieges the city. Our main character, Orek, has got to figure out how to save the city. As we dive into it more and more, we get to learn a little bit more about what's going on with this kingdom over here.

Speaker 8

And that's who you heard in that clip as well. You hear Oric and his friend Vera, who are our main two characters that we feature. And Oryk's father, the chief, Janek then comes in there at the end of the scene and he's the chief of.

Speaker 7

Kind of the main clan that we're in for most of the story.

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So how did you guys, who did you recruit to do this? I mean, those voices are pretty fantastic. Who's the old man? He's probably not even an old man.

Speaker 8

Well, I might happen to be the old man.

Speaker 2

Are you.

Speaker 1

Oh, wait, let's hear his voice.

Speaker 2

Ready?

Speaker 8

Begin.

Speaker 2

That's you.

Speaker 8

That's me, yeah. Pitch me down a little bit. That's the secret.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 7

Because we did about what, 13 voices.

Speaker 8

We have a lot of voices that.

Speaker 7

We are play with our voices.

Speaker 2

Really?

Speaker 1

That's fine.

Speaker 8

Well, so you know, when you start.

Speaker 2

You can save some money that way.

Speaker 8

That's exactly. You start as a passion project. You have a small budget; you can only hire, you know, for the parts that really need actors.

And so, yeah, we ended up taking all the side stuff on ourselves pretty much.

But yeah, we hired eight to 10 actors that were all so talented. So great.

Speaker 1

What about the music? Because the music was pretty epic.

Speaker 8

Yeah. If you're familiar with Adventures in Odyssey, like we've already mentioned, you'll recognize some of the music or the way that John Campbell writes music because it's the same composer.

He is just so great. He has knocked it out of the park so far, and we're just excited to see how it all comes together.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, this is the first I've heard, and maybe I shouldn't say this, they can edit it out, but there have been times, at least in my opinion, and it's just my limited opinion that sometimes Christian art isn't excellent.

You know what I mean? Sometimes it is, but sometimes like, oh, it's for God, it can be mediocre. From what I just heard, you care about excellence. You care about the soundtrack, you care about the voicings, you care about the script.

Again, I've just heard a little clip and I'm like, this is well done.

Speaker 1

Let'S hear another clip.

Speaker 2

And that honors God, in my opinion. That honors God. No, I don't want to hear another clip. I want you to respond to that. Is that important to you guys?

Speaker 7

Thank you. Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah. There are certain pieces of Christian media that I'm not the biggest fan of, admittedly.

And I think it's great to get the example of Jesus because Jesus told parables, he was a storyteller and he told good stories that made sense to a cultural context.

And I'm like, man, I want to write stories that grip people. And then when you dig deeper, you're like, wait, there's something really valuable here.

And that makes it so much better than a blockbuster movie on one hand or, you know, a piece of social media that maybe we don't appreciate as much, like why it doesn't have to be one or the other.

And there's just such a richness to a well-told story. Especially when we have Jesus Marble.

Speaker 8

This guy, he was the quality control arm as well as the head writer and the director. But he also was always the one to seek as close to perfection as we could find.

I have more of a producer side, so, you know, I co-wrote with him, but I was always the one pushing like, okay, we gotta meet this deadline.

But yeah, he was always, because of your level of, you know, you needed it to reach this certain level of quality, to even be interested in making it.

Speaker 2

And I tell you what, parents care about that. And when you play for the kids, especially if it's not good, their kids are like, okay, mom and dad, cheesy, dumb, not. I don't want to hear it tomorrow night.

Speaker 1

Kids are the hardest audience.

Speaker 7

Yeah, yeah. And that was actually something we talked about, and we kind of made a pretty distinct choice that we didn't really want to write down to our audience.

We're like, I think kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Let's write a story that might be, you know.

Speaker 2

Well, let's talk about that, because you guys know this better than anybody. The art can be excellent, but everything lives by the story. If it's still not a great story, it doesn't matter. The art needs to matter.

So what's the inspiration behind the story? I don't even know what the story is yet. I know Prodigal Son, but there's gotta be an origin to that. Why the prodigal son?

Speaker 1

Well, why don't you give a brief overview of what the prodigal son's about for those who don't know.

Speaker 2

You saying go into preacher mode?

Speaker 1

No, not that deep. Just a brief overview.

Speaker 2

Time me. See if I can do it in one minute or less. A father with two sons, and the youngest comes and says, "I want the inheritance." Now and again, preacher mode would be, he's basically saying, "I'd rather you be dead. I want to live my life." The father gives it to him. He goes off and basically spends it and wastes his life in Vegas. I think it says in the Greek, "with wild women," and ends up at the very bottom, eating pig slop. A Jewish man eating pig slop.

This is a story Jesus tells. The details are incredible, showing how low he's come to the point where he's like, "I'm at the bottom. I'm gonna go back to my father and beg to be not his son again, but just a hired hand on the land," thinking he'll never accept me.

The beauty of this story is, as the son is coming back, the prodigal, the father's waiting by the mailbox, is what I always say. He's been waiting for days or months, whatever it is, and comes running. A Jewish man pulling up his outer garment to run to his son. What a picture of the father's love.

Speaker 1

For a son, which was unheard of. A Jewish man wouldn't run.

Speaker 2

No. And so the graphic detail, I mean, the details Jesus gives her. Beautiful.

And there's this other piece of the story everybody sort of misses. The older brother who didn't go off in wayward living is home the whole time. And he's jealous and he's mad that the son who didn't live the way his father wanted to live is getting the robe, the meal. He doesn't get to come back as a hired hand. He is a fully loved son all the way back.

And the older brother's jealous of this. And we're both in this story.

Speaker 8

He gets the Fat and all that's.

Speaker 7

Getting taken out of his inheritance because the younger brother has all his. So he's. Yeah, he's rightfully upset.

Speaker 2

So based on I didn't do it in a minute, maybe two minutes. And I probably missed so many details, but I bet I preached 30 times in 30 years, probably every year.

It's like, what an unbelievable picture of the grace of God. You guys are creating an audio drama based on that.

Why that story?

Speaker 7

Yeah. When I often tell my testimony, I often use the lens of the prodigal son. Now, about a couple of years ago, when I was reading through it, I wrote down in the margins of Luke 15, man, I think I'm both of these sons in the worst way. I think I grew up thinking that what a relationship with God looked like was just begrudging obedience, like the older brother, I realized.

We learned a lot from Tim Keller in this whole process. Tim talks about how both of the brothers don't really want the father; they just want the father’s stuff. I was a pretty good religious kid, in air quotes, and I just wanted what that gave me. You know, my parents gave me kudos, teachers gave me kudos, and it wasn't until high school that I started to kind of look at the things of the world. My heart was split between wanting to do kingdom things and wanting to do my own thing as well. That’s where the younger brother came in.

I just wanted approval, pleasure—whatever you name it—and I kind of lived that way. My journey back has been about learning that I want to truly seek the father rather than just what he can give me. I think that's been the big thing.

And this was a cool little note from Keller: when the younger son comes back, he says, "I'll work as a hired hand for you." He’s not saying, "I'm going to be your slave," or "I'm going to do all this." Instead, he’s saying, "No, I can pay you back. I'm just going to work for you until I can pay you back." That’s what I do when I sin. When I'm at my lowest, I think, "Alright, get back on the horse. Start obeying God again." Then I think, "Then I'll be okay. Then I'll be good with him."

Speaker 1

I'll stir it up.

Speaker 7

Yeah. And that's not how it works.

I think I wanted to write that into this story for kids and have parents and kids be able to have that dialogue of understanding. The father just runs into him.

Both sons, he comes out of the party, talks to the older son, and then he runs out to the younger son. Like, man, he loves us so much.

That's just something really, really impactful to me.

Speaker 8

Yeah. I mean, we both, I think, like, the story of the prodigal son connects to me as well. I think I always, like, when I read the story, found myself as the one who wanted to try to be good, you know, and it really, you know, I grew up in a Christian home, but it wasn't really until college that I started to grasp the concept of relationship with Christ.

I was all about the legalism. I was like, I want to look good. I want people's parents to be proud of my parents for how they raised their kid. You know, those things like that.

Speaker 2

And your parents were on staff, right?

Speaker 8

That's true. Yeah, they still are.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So you're from day one, your entire life, your parents are in full time vocational Christian ministry.

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Was that a pressure?

Speaker 8

Yeah, these are things that help connect to the story we wrote as well.

But yeah, I mean, it's like definitely felt pressure as being one of the oldest to set a good example.

And so that's like, when I would hear the prodigal son story growing up, I'm like, I am kind of like the older brother, because if I'm seeing the younger brother go off, I'm like, well, I better be twice as good now because I don't want people looking at our reputation.

Speaker 2

Exactly.

Speaker 8

Yeah. And so, you know, and that kind of leads to a lot of just feeling like you got to keep everything inside and what's on the outside needs to look perfect because Christians are so perfect, you know, quote unquote.

And so, yeah, it does really connect. Thinking about like, the older son is probably watching the younger son run off and spend everything and be like, how could he do this to us? I'm going to fix it or something.

Speaker 2

You know, you were that guy.

Speaker 8

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

What about Tim Keller's sermon? Was there something that you remember getting from those sermons that said not only change your life and understanding of that story of the prodigal, but ended up being inside of this audio drama.

Speaker 7

Well, I think Spoken still speaks to me is he talks about not only do we have to repent of the very clear and blatant sin that we do, but we have to repent of the sinful reasons we do righteous things. You know, talking about the older brother and man, that hit me. Because there are so many times where I'm doing a good work and I'm thinking, "Doing pretty good, God. You owe me." You know, I mean, maybe that's a little bit, but in my mind, there's pride. And I think I've gotten better at catching myself, being like, "Lanon, what is the motivation for why you're doing this? Is it because you are just overflowing from the love that God's given you, or are you doing it because of any other reason?" And that's wrong.

I mean, Jesus leaves the older brother on a cliffhanger. And so we wanted to kind of model that in ours, but we really did lean into the older brother. We actually started by making him the kind of villainous character, and then we thought, "We should explore the struggle." It was really powerful when the actor was recording. I mean, he was doing the whole scene, and you could feel the years of, like, "I have worked hard for you, and I'm not getting what's mine." He was in tears after it was over.

I just remember, like, we cut, and we all just kind of sat there. We were like, "Let's sit in that for a minute." And that was cool as a writer to get.

Speaker 2

I was gonna say, who wrote that? Cause that's good writing.

Speaker 8

I believe we both wrote that scene. I think I wrote like an iteration of the scene where the father goes out to speak to the son.

And then like most of our scenes, you know, I give to Landon. Landon kind of rewrites a little bit, and then we come back and then we fine tune.

And so it was definitely both of us kind of tag teaming on that one.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. So, Perry, did you feel like when you heard even Keller talk about the older brother, did you identify in a way you had?

Speaker 8

Totally, totally. I mean, it's just the idea of when he says that both brothers want the father's stuff, not just like, if someone who's maybe not super familiar with the story of the prodigal son reads it, they're probably going to look at the older brother as the good guy, quote unquote, and the younger brother as the unrighteous one. And really that's not the point. Especially when considering who the parable is being told to in the Bible.

So it's like thinking about, wait a second, you're telling me that I was just as bad, I wanted the same thing as the one who went off and made a shame of himself, as I just wanted the stuff of the father I wanted the accolades. And even in writing and producing and doing this audio drama, it's a good gut check for us because there are times when we're like, oh, we want it to be so good because we want people to give us the recognition of making something awesome and, you know, all these things.

And it's always a good gut check of being like, but what was the heart when we started it? When we started it, we didn't think we were going to get a budget. We didn't think it was going to have any kind of high quality at all, that we were just going to do something for passion.

And so it's always good to think back to that story of the Prodigal Son and be like, we're doing this because we have that vision to connect with people over the story that people that grew up thinking that, like, feeling the same way as us probably still do. And really all the father wants is just that relationship. We don't have to act or perform or be scared.

Speaker 2

So is that sort of your hope as writers, producers of a person that's really never heard or not familiar with the Prodigal Story from the Bible, and maybe they still aren't, but they hear your audio drama? What are you hoping happens?

Speaker 7

Yeah, hoping that families listen to this together because, I mean, there's so much parent and child dynamics. I think if I had been able to listen to this as a younger kid, I would have been able to maybe strip back some of the legalism that I adopted.

So, yeah, I want families to listen to this together. Go listen and then have discussions about it.

And we have resources.

Speaker 8

It's a great discipleship tool is what we think it is. Like those families that maybe their child doesn't have a great understanding of this concept of the story and the way it can connect to all of us.

But you put it in a world like this with relatable characters who, you know, by the time you get to the meat of the Prodigal Son, they've already come to know and love our characters, hopefully through a few episodes.

And so then you see these themes interacted so much easier to connect, especially for a kid versus words on a page. You know, thinking of how kids learn these days, that's why, you know, technology is the way it is aimed at kids. So.

Speaker 1

Well, I can tell you how I envision it, just because our family's grown and I seen how audio dramas affect a great story, a great movie affects us. It goes deep into the heart and it moves us emotionally Spiritually. And I'm imagining a family listening. And I could imagine a parent saying, I really relate to, whether it be the older brother, the brother that goes off and does his own thing. But wouldn't it be sweet for a parent to share a little piece of their testimony and then even ask their kids, who do you relate to the most? And why is that? And then reiterate here. This is me like going into mom mode. Then I imagine the parent teaching, discipling, pouring into their kids. Like, I want you to know, no matter what you do or where you go, I will always be here watching for you, chasing after you, wanting you to come back home and come to the father. But no matter what you do, I'm always gonna be waiting. I mean, that's the part to me that, man, those stories drop deep into our hearts and then it moves us to action. And I know that that's gonna happen for families, you guys.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, one of the most powerful truths, I think. And maybe I got this from Tim Keller. I don't know. When you look at that Luke 15 passage, this is the third of three stories about the same topic. So obviously, Jesus, it's the only time he did this. He's driving home a point, three times, same point. He's like, they're missing something. What'd they miss? He eats with tax collectors and sinners. And he's thinking, yeah, that's who I am. That's what I love them. And they're like, that's despicable. And he's like, let me tell you three stories.

So the hope would be, man, if they, you know, a parent is teaching that to their son or daughter. Like Ann was saying at the end of this discussion. And it won't be a one-time debt, it'll be several discussions. It'll be like, you will understand the love of the father and you'll understand the love of your father. Your earthly father, mother, right here.

Yeah. So we're going to get to hear one more clip. But let me tell you this, if you want it, you can get it at familylife.com roadtrip. You don't have to go on a road trip to listen to it. But that's our slash for you.

Speaker 1

Free.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's free. FamilyLife.com Roadtrip. You're going to get to hear the whole thing. So here's another clip. Set it up for us.

Speaker 8

Yeah, well, this clip we kind of foreshadowed earlier in the episode that there is an evil villain that kind of comes into the story early on and provides that pressure to the village of Pahar, which is where our main character lives.

And so this is his introduction. This is a piece from his introductory monologue where he kind of lays out, I'm here. This is what you gotta do, or you're gonna be destroyed.

So here's the clip.

Speaker 3

Of course, if you choose to reject my proposal, there will be consequences. My kingdom's expansion is like a wildfire that cannot be contained.

Give the heart to me and enjoy the luxuries of the kingdom of Saffron, or be swept up and destroyed. The choice is yours.

What will it be? War, surrender, or famine?

Speaker 7

What is that?

Speaker 3

And to you, most honorable Chief Yannick, I eagerly await your decision.

Speaker 1

So you can.

Speaker 2

I'm a little scared right now. I just gotta tell you.

Speaker 1

Hi, guy.

Speaker 2

I'm like, yeah, that was powerful.

Speaker 1

And you can get all five episodes at FamilyLife. Com roadtrip. And you're going to want to do that. Family Life today is a donor supported production of Family Life Accrue ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.