I feel like God has intrusted a lot into me and I don't want to sit on it and be selfish. I want to think long term on how we can help this next generation of Christian filmmakers to make a big impact for God. Stephen Kendrick More Quotes by Stephen Kendrick More Quotes From Stephen Kendrick The only way love can last a lifetime is if it's unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love. Stephen Kendrick truth love relationship 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. Stephen Kendrick selfish marriage hate Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive. Stephen Kendrick believe people moving Sometimes it wasn't even when we were knocking on doors, it would be, the phone would ring and somebody would say, "God told me to do this," and it would be exactly the perfect timing to help us with the next step of the filmmaking. Stephen Kendrick phones perfect doors Selfishness is like a disease that suffocates our capacity to love. While love asks us to deny ourselves for the sake of another, selfishness demands we put ourselves first at their expense. When we choose to be self-centered, we become less kind and content—more needy, sensitive, and demanding. More unsatisfiable. Moodiness and impatience, laziness and irresponsibility, are only selfishness in disguise. Stephen Kendrick capacity-to-love demand self Your quality of life is directly tied to the amount of love flowing in you and through you to others. Though it’s often overlooked, love is infinitely more valuable than riches, fame, or honor. They will pass away, but love remains. Stephen Kendrick honor passing-away love-is Patience gives your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time that they deserve to correct it. It gives you the ability to hold on during the rough times in your relationship rather than bailing out under the pressure. Stephen Kendrick mistake patience giving We still had the prayer support of our church. We shot this film [War Room] in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we had about 85 churches rise up and support us across racial and denominational lines, and many of them were praying for us, and we built some prayer teams where we had people on set praying. Stephen Kendrick team prayer war Get in God's word every day. God's word equips us for everything we do. Stephen Kendrick You must choose to live by enouragement rather than by expectations. Stephen Kendrick live-by expectations There is an old story from the Eastern tradition that says that when the gods created the universe, they found a place for everything but the truth, and this created a problem, because the gods did not want this wisdom discovered right away. One of the gods suggested the top of the highest mountain, another the farthest star, a third spoke up for the dark side of the moon, and another for the bottom of the deepest ocean. Finally, they decide to place truth inside the human heart. In that way, we would search for it all over the universe, with the secret within us all the time. Stephen Kendrick ocean stars heart 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. Stephen Kendrick income volunteer church Nobody knows you as well as our spouse. And that means no one will be quicker to recognize a change when you deliberately start sacrificing your wants and wishes to make sure his or her needs are met. Stephen Kendrick sacrifice wish mean With Courageous, it was the first film where we really began to pay our cast. Because the church owned the previous films and we started so small, with such small budgets, people were just volunteering on the cast and crew. Stephen Kendrick volunteer church people 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. Stephen Kendrick prayer heart years 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. Stephen Kendrick impact journey people That word is 'willing.' It's an attitude and spirit of cooperation that should permeate our conversations. It's like a palm tree by the ocean that endures the greatest winds because it knows how to gracefully bend. Stephen Kendrick ocean attitude inspirational There must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, will not be swayed by time or circumstances. Stephen Kendrick foundation stronger unconditional-love 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. Stephen Kendrick team journey father Prayer doesn't sound like a cool hot topic that would cause people to rush to the theatre, stand in line, and buy tickets about prayer. Stephen Kendrick theatre prayer people
