John MacArthur's Church Through Covid: A New Documentary

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, as always, and we have a wonderful episode lined up for you today.

I'm actually really excited about this. We have the director of a new documentary coming out called

Essential Church. It's kind of a docudrama, I suppose, coming out on July 28th.

The director is Shannon Holliday. You can go see more about this movie at essentialchurchmovie .com

if you wanna find out where to see it in theaters. That's when it comes out, you can go there. So Shannon Holliday's gonna talk to us about this from Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and I just appreciate it so much.

Thank you, Shannon, for coming on and talking to us. Thanks for having me, it's my pleasure. Well, before you say anything and I say anything, let's watch the trailer, just so people know exactly what we're talking about, and then we'll get into it.

God's truth is enduringly true throughout all the generations. It transcends culture.

The church is always going to be an embattled people. If it's swimming with the tide, it's not being the church of Jesus Christ.

Look to the past, learn from the past, because the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

China has more than 200 confirmed cases of coronavirus, it's called. The entire state of California ordered to stay at home, that's 41.

California has some of the strictest policies leveled against churches. Gavin Newsom's executive order threatens jail time and $1 ,000 a day fine.

Government stopping people from going to church, Dr. Fauci. When I went into the White House, when

I sat in on the task force meetings, was a shocking level of gross incompetence.

Mortality rate from the virus was 0 .2%, you know, 99 .8 % survival, rather than the three or 4 % mortality that the people were saying at the time.

The culture and the understanding of the people of Grace Church has always been, not only do you obey government, but you honor government.

Thousands of people in the streets, but you can't have church? The hypocrisy of letting people riot, it helped us all understand one thing, this is not what they say it is.

By meeting, we're testifying the government has no jurisdiction here. I was arrested and driven to a maximum security prison.

The government has obviously turned up the heat on churches. Bye, Daddy. When the churches fall silent, the only religion left is the state.

We needed to make a biblical statement because we always put ourselves under the authority of the word of God.

LA County threatened Pastor John MacArthur with jail time and arrest. We were going to be sued.

They wanted Grace Church shut down. We wanted to go on the offensive and attack the health order as unconstitutional.

This wasn't about health and safety. This was all about control and opposition to religious freedom.

As the government gets more corrupt and more corrupt. Snitches get rewards.

It's totalitarian control has to increase. You have to have a mask on. And as they shut down any attacks against them.

This is not about freedom or personal choice. The last thing standing is going to be the church.

Shannon, that was an incredible trailer. And I'm just so excited for this documentary. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to make this film.

Yeah, you know, we had a lot of people leave our church. I'm a filmmaker, but I also go to Grace Community Church.

So I experienced this firsthand and we did have a lot of people leave this church as a result of us deciding to open back up.

And it was really heart -wrenching for a lot of folks because there had been people that had been there for years and they said, no, this is the final straw.

I don't agree and I need to move on. And no matter what we said to them, they didn't want to come back. And when

I say people left, I mean quite a bit. So the idea of having a film that would explain this and that maybe they would watch it, it's like, what would you say to those people?

How could we take back the curtain and kind of show the whole process so you get the whole context and the whole story and what the elders went through and the arguments and just the thinking behind it and just try to be as transparent as you can with it and put it out there for people to see.

And so that's what really is a motivating factor in it. Well, as you say, you go to the church that John MacArthur is the senior pastor of, and of course that's world -renowned.

I'm sure most people in the audience know who he is and remember the courageous stand he took on the

COVID issue when he decided to reopen the church. But you just mentioned that, I guess, behind the scenes, there was more going on and you want to pull the curtain back and show people.

So speak to those people who did leave and were concerned. What are some of the things they're gonna see in this documentary behind the curtain that you think will be compelling and help them understand better the process that the elders were working through?

Yeah, I think that when we first shut down, the idea was, okay, everything's shutting down, the government is saying this, we are gonna follow their lead on this.

I mean, after all, if it was like they were saying, and John MacArthur even says this in the documentary, it's like somebody said, a hurricane is coming to town and you're all gonna die, so you need to all go hide.

And so obviously when the whole world is saying that, I mean, we're ignorant on what that actually is or whether that'll actually happen, but we complied.

And then after two weeks, there were some people, and I would put John MacArthur in this camp as well, that said, okay, that's enough, we need to open back up.

But that didn't happen for another two months, two and a half months. And the reason that didn't happen is because we have an elder board of 40 elders, and we're a church of seven to 10 ,000 people.

So we have 40 elders and they were not in agreement right away.

And so when I say I pull back the curtain, I'm showing the process of those elders.

This isn't the only thing the movie's about, but most definitely the first act, the process of Grace Community Church dealing with those arguments and having to become unanimous, having unity.

Because one of the things that Grace Community Church has always had concerning their elder board is that they have to be unanimous in their decisions.

And the elder board was not unanimous. So it was not an easy process and it took time.

And I show that process. And I think that that's probably, it's very transparent.

And I actually have a couple interviewees, a couple elders who speak to this division in our elder board at the beginning about what we should do about this.

And working through that and how they become unanimous. You know, this is the process that just about every church across the

United States had to go through. And so I think of it as, you know, using muscles you haven't used in a while or having to apply theology that you know, but you've never applied it in this particular context.

Let's reminisce for just a moment, go back to 2020 when the government first asked everyone to shut down and it seemed like a no -brainer.

Of course, we have a hurricane coming, let's shut down. You said it was pretty quick after that.

What was the thing that you think made the difference? And quickly after that started to pull people in the direction of let's reopen.

Was it the fact that it wasn't the hurricane that they were saying it was, or was it a realization that, hey,

Romans 13 doesn't mean what we thought? What do you think it was? Yeah, I think that there's two things.

For example, our pastor, Pastor John, John MacArthur, he right away started delving into the statistics.

And I don't get too into that into the documentary. He definitely does have that part of it, but he right away was,

I'm not buying this. And he was talking to his doctor friends and looking into it.

And we just started researching it. But what happened right soon after the COVID thing is that,

I think if you remember the George Floyd incident and the riots started to just take over the country and the politicians were joining them.

And all of a sudden they had this different tune of what the doctrine should be and how we handle this

COVID threat. Because if you were protesting, it was okay. So hundreds of thousands of people can go out and protest and be right up next to each other, not social distancing.

They don't have masks on. I mean, they're just doing what they normally do in a protest, but you couldn't go to church.

And I think that definitely moved the dial for some of the elders. Because then there became, okay, so there's some hypocrisy going on here.

And is this really because of scientific truth or is this really because of just political doctrine that was made up?

So that started to reveal some things for some folks. The other thing is that we do get into is the

Romans 13 subject. And I'll speak for myself. I've been at Grace Church for a while.

And if I were to say how Romans 13 was applied at Grace Church before COVID, it was usually applied to folks who were like political zealots.

And you had to say, hey, the Bible says that you're supposed to submit to your leaders.

You're supposed to submit to the government. You've got to pay your taxes and you got to pray for leadership.

And we don't lead revolts, that kind of a thing.

And when COVID hit, it became like, well, okay, so we're supposed to submit to the government, right?

And there's a lot of people that were still in that mindset and it was very broad and there was no qualifying aspect to it, that was just the application period.

And what COVID did is it forced people to look at the other side of the coin of Romans 13 and say, is that really the case?

And in the documentary, Mike Riccardi actually shows his evolution on this when dealing with a friend and his studies, his own studies, and it shows how he goes from one side of the coin to the other side of the coin and says, oh, there's both sides to the coin and I have to recognize both.

So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question completely, but those are the things that pop into my mind concerning the documentary.

Well, it's very encouraging to hear you say that and to see that, hey, people do change when confronted with circumstances that challenge their faith.

And I would assume, and I'll let you speak to it, if this scenario were to present itself again, what do you think would be the reaction at Grace Community Church and maybe broadly speaking in evangelicalism?

You think there'd be a lot more opposition? Yeah, I don't think Grace Church will ever shut down again, to be honest with you.

I don't think they'll ever shut down again. I think the church would stay open and they would tell the congregants, look, inform yourself, make wise decisions according to your health.

We're not going to dominate your conscience on this matter. We're not telling you that you have to come to church without a mask and that you have to social distance, but we're not telling you not to do those things.

But the church is gonna stay open, we're gonna be here, and if you wanna come to church, come to church. Yeah. You as an individual have to work through that.

So yeah, I don't think they'll close again. I believe that's the right approach. And I'm so glad that we're learning this now and because there's gonna be situations,

I'm sure that will come up within the next decade that are similar, where the government decides liquor stores are essential, but not the church.

Who's in this documentary? You mentioned Votie Bockham off camera. What kind, who, as far as Christian leaders or maybe people who aren't

Christian leaders, can we expect to see if we go and see this? Yeah, we have Votie and he speaks.

I really wanted Votie, he was preaching at Grace and when I heard that, I had wanted him before that, but we were having a difficult time to like,

I'm gonna have to fly to Africa or he was gonna be in Florida. I would fly out to Florida and interview him there.

We were trying to work out all these things. But then he actually came to Grace because he was in the area and I think it was kind of improvisational.

It was just like a week before, hey, I'm in the area, you guys want me to preach? And we're like, sure. And then

I heard about that and I was like, okay, we gotta find a way to get an interview. And it was really difficult because he's very busy and it wasn't initially a part of his schedule and he was very tired, but he did a fabulous job.

And I was able to interview him in the seminary library in the basement. And I wanted him because I know he is such an expert when it comes to Marxism and the effects of Marxism and how we as Christians should see

Marxism. And that's one of the things this documentary really hits is that it shows that the folks that run our government are not neutral and the government is not neutral.

And we as Christians should not see the government as just some kind of neutral sphere that exists out there.

We need to bring our Christian worldview into all spheres of life, including how we see the government and how we understand them.

And that they're operating from a worldview. And so this actually is spiritual warfare.

And Vodi brings that into the documentary. Now, of course, we have

John MacArthur who's in the documentary. We have Chris Hamilton and Chris Hamilton really ended up being a integral part of our documentary because he was so transparent about Grace Church's journey on this, including the division we had in our elder board and how they became unanimous and all of that.

So Chris Hamilton, who's our chair in the elder board. And then we have, see, we have

Vodi, we have John, we have Ian Hamilton. Because one of the things, and we haven't talked about this and I didn't talk about this off camera with you is that church history is actually a big part of this.

And I really leaned into that. In fact, the film opens with a scene from church history.

There's a parallel between what happened in the 1600s with the Scottish Covenanters and the

Puritans and the Great Ejection and what happened to us during COVID. And it's a really interesting parallel.

And the more we look into church history, what we realize is that this is a consistent, constant conflict that has happened since the beginning, since the fall.

And Ian Hamilton is kind of our representative of church history and he's Scottish. And so we got to go to Scotland and film a lot of this and interview him.

So there's Gary Brady, who's the author of the Great Ejection, 1662. He's in this as well, who speaks to our church history.

In this film, and let's see, who else? We have Ian Hamilton, we have John MacArthur, Chris Hamilton, Bodie Bockham.

Trying to think. Oh, Jenna, Jenna Ellis. Jenna Ellis is in this, she was our lawyer and she was the senior constitutional advisor to the president.

So she was part of his administration and she's an expert on the constitution. So she's part of our story, a big part of our story.

And the legal battle is part of our story. So we have lawyers from San Diego who are a big part, who really,

I was concerned when I first started working on this documentary that the legal part was gonna be really dry and not interesting.

And it actually turned out to be really compelling and I'm really proud of it. And I think the audience is gonna really enjoy hearing all the details of the cases or the trials that they went through and how the lawyers lead us through that.

It's fascinating. So we have Jenna and the other lawyers from LaMandry and Jonah in San Diego.

Thomas More Society, that's what they're a part of, the Thomas More Society who represented us. And that is, oh, we have

James Coates. So James Coates is in Canada and he's a big part of this documentary. We tell the story of James Coates and Tim Stevens in Canada.

So really this documentary has kind of three parts to it, if you will, that show our protagonist, which is the church.

We have the present kind of local church, which is Grace Community Church. We have that story, but then we have the local churches, which kind of is a representation of the global church.

That's why we focus on Canada as well. And then we have the church from the past, the believers from the past, who in a way show us the way because they had to work out these concepts of why they would take a stand.

And so we tell their stories and we kind of weave in and out through the documentary through all these three parts showing that.

So it's fascinating. I'm really happy the way it turned out. I gotta ask, because now that you've told me all these different elements in the film, how long is it?

Yeah, exactly. It's two hours long. So I got it down to what's palatable for a theatrical release.

I had to cut out a lot. And some folks might, you know, there's a lot there.

There's a lot there, but it definitely doesn't drag. It's not boring. It moves, but there is a lot there and you'll get a lot out of this film.

There's a lot of story. Is it a documentary, a docudrama? How would you categorize it?

Yeah, I would say that it is definitely, it's not super academic, but it has those elements to it.

So it's definitely a story. You're gonna go sit down and watch a movie. You're not gonna watch a thesis paper on film.

It's not just interview after interview after interview and that's it. Of course, the whole thing is driven by these interviews, but I filmed a lot.

And for the church history, I'm really proud of how we problem solved that because originally

I wanted to film these reenactments with actors and then we saw budget -wise and time -wise, we don't have the resources to do that.

Okay, so then I had to come up with a different solution. And so I was like, well, I'll do my actors, but I'll just strip everything away and it'll be in this black space and I'll make it really stylistic.

And I had all these, and I got really excited about that, but then it became, no, you can't even do that. So I kept being told, no, no, no, no, because I don't have the resources or the time.

And so then I found with our 3D animator, Zach, he said, because I couldn't find an animation.

I was like, okay, we have to animate it. I couldn't find an animation that was really thrilling me so much. And then he showed me these 3D characters that were like chiseled or like these plaster of Paris type things.

And I thought, oh, that could be interesting. I wasn't really on board at first, but I was like, that could be interesting if we made it look like they were from the church graveyards that we shot in, that they are the statues in the graveyard so that they look like tombstones, the same material and that kind of stuff.

So then I'm really proud of what we did with that. And it came out really great.

And I tell the story of the covenanters, their stand, their suffering through that medium.

And it was a great storytelling tool that I could use. And I could design all my shots with a camera on these things and it really worked out well.

That's great to hear. Yeah. Yeah, I've made a few documentaries myself and I know that those challenges can be the, they can make or break a movie sometimes.

And so it's great that you're able to get that. Yeah, I would say this about the documentary. You're going to sit down and watch a story.

You're gonna watch a movie, not a thesis paper. It does deal with these lofty subjects that are academic, but it's not supposed to be fully comprehensive in that.

That's what a book is for. That's what a thesis paper is for. That's what a sermon is for. I did not make this movie trying to sermonize it and make it a sermon.

I leaned into just making a movie. But I think that's what a movie should be, honestly.

If you're gonna pay a ticket to go sit in a movie theater, you should watch a movie. And it should do all these things that you want to accomplish and inform people and communicate these theological truths, but they should feel like,

I just watched a story, a satisfying story that had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And somebody cared about the art of filmmaking and the art of storytelling.

And that's what you buy a ticket for. That's right. What do you want people to walk away with?

What's the moral lesson that they're gonna feel as they walk out of the theater? I think two things.

And I hit it before is I want them to walk out saying, you know what? Nothing is neutral, including the government.

I was wrong. If I thought the government was neutral before, it's not. There's nothing neutral.

And I need to take my Christian worldview into everything. And second, that I hope it puts steel in their veins.

And the next time something like this happens, and it will, it may not be a virus, but it's going to be something where they're gonna say the church needs to fall under the state's control because of emergency of some kind.

They need to have steel in their veins and say, no, that's not your jurisdiction. And I can biblically say it's not your jurisdiction.

And church history has worked through those biblical principles. And I can lean on that.

And I can feel confident in my stand to not ever compromise who the head of the church is, which is

Christ Jesus, our King. And not be given to anybody else, no matter the circumstance.

Well, I'm sold. I'm ready to go see it. So if people wanna go check it out, essentialchurchmovie .com.

And I mean, do you have any instructions or hopes for people that are,

I mean, obviously we need to pray for this, that it would do well. I think you did explain to me, if more people see it, right?

It's gonna stay in the theater longer. Yeah, so as we made this film, the marketing plan evolved and we saw what we were hoping for, opportunities to actually get it into theaters.

And the more we looked into it, we found a pathway to do that. For that to be successful, people have to go and see the movie.

We're trying to get the movie in over a thousand theaters across the US. That's our goal.

Maybe we can get more. We have a distributor we're working with and we're talking to these theaters now.

But for them to be sold on the fact that our movie is something that they want to take up one of their screens or more because they're actually gonna make money on it, you have to sell them on that.

You have to prove that to them. So tickets are on sale now for one theater that for sure has taken us and that's in the

Los Angeles area. So if you live in the Los Angeles area, we have tickets available on the 29th and on.

We started the 28th, but the 28th sold out. We started, I believe, Friday afternoon and they sold out in 24 hours.

So, and that was just word of mouth and social media talking to our church. So we wanna sell out that theater, the

Lemley in Santa Clarita. It's in Newhall, Santa Clarita. That's the Los Angeles area.

If we sell that out, that really helps us as we sell our film to these other theaters. And then the best thing you can do is go to the website,

EssentialChurchMovie .com. EssentialChurchMovie .com. Go there and put your email in there and you'll be updated on any theaters that are gonna be showing it in your area.

And so we're gonna constantly be updating that as theaters accept our film. And the more people that buy tickets now, the more we'll be able to continue to push this to more theaters, maybe even globally, and it can snowball.

That's how these things work. So I'm on this show today and I'm gonna do probably tons of other shows like this for the next month, trying to get the word out so that people will do just that and buy tickets and go to the theater.

And then theaters will be like, okay, let's have it another weekend and let's have it another weekend. And then more theaters will be like, that's making money.

Let's have it in our theater and it snowballs from there. Awesome, awesome. Well, I can't wait to see it. EssentialChurchMovie .com.

Shannon Holiday, thank you so much for joining me. And we're just praying that it's a success.