Bible Connection Podcast: The Words of Life with Brian Bird

Bible Connection Podcast: Words of Life with Brian Bird

What does it look like to be a Jesus follower in Hollywood? TV and film producer and screenwriter Brian Bird sits down with The Bible Connection Podcast to discuss his faith journey and the importance of telling Christ-centered stories to the entire world. He talks about the power of story and the impact we can have for God’s Kingdom through telling His story.

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Brian Bird

Brian talks about how he grew up with a passion for media story that was centered on his faith. He shares his experience getting started in the television industry and explains how his work is a way of understanding people on a deeper level. His storytelling is all based on truth about people and the way the world works.

Since Brian recognizes that all storytelling comes from the Creation, he explains how he sees his work as missional. Because of the way media and content has dominated the conversations of the world and spread everywhere, he recognized that the opportunity for faith-affirming stories is out there and that God can use stories to teach people more about Him. The new media landscape gives Christians the opportunity to take the greatest story ever told into the global conversation and make sure everyone has a chance to hear it.

As Christians, we have the unique ability to bring the hope and trust we have in Christ to a global audience. Brian talks about how he feels the call to tell uplifting stories within an industry that can feel cynical. He talks about different crisis of faith that made him feel as if his work was disconnected from spreading the gospel. He shares some of the advice and perspective that helped him focus on the missional aspect of storytelling.

Excerpts from This Episode

8:35: “I still attack it like I’m a journalist. I love that because while some of it, yes, is pure fiction, some of it is based on experience. Or my sense of the world. Or my experience with other people and learning how they work and how they tick. So, in a way, all story has truth. Even fiction is coming from a place of truth. It comes from human experience.”

11:56: “If God can use something that small, or if the world is going to take something that small and it can spread all over the world, then the reverse of that has to be true. The opportunity for life and faith affirming story and content is out there.”

18:34: “I went through a bit of a existential crisis in college, in secular journalism school, where I was being confronted with the marketplace of ideas. I was saying, “How can I make this fit with who I was raised to be and who I’ve grown up to be?” I talked to a professor who I did not know was a person of faith, was a believer in Jesus. I said, “I’m trying to put the pieces together, I’m trying to make this all fit.” He said to me something very powerful. He said, “In the marketplace of ideas, truth is always going to rise to the top, so don’t be afraid of the marketplace.”

24:21: “It was permission. Permission to be dangerous with the fiath. Permission to be dangerous with the truth. To be bold. To tell people what they need, not just tell them what they want, but to tell them and give them what they need.”

32:02: “And then it occurred to me, how did God leave His revelation to us? In a big, fat novel. A big, fat narrative. His story. This narrative running through space and time, across the cosmos, across all of time. And we’re all characters in that novel.”

33:35: “Story is in our bones, it’s in our DNA. Our starvation for story. God spoke and story happened. He communicated His truth to us in story. All throughout history, the myths of mankind all have the same story.”

38:11: “Story is food. God’s story is food. It’s the cure for everything in the universe. This giant love story from Heaven to Earth is the only thing that fixes anything.”

Quoted Scripture

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John 1:1

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Hebrews 8:10

“looking unto Jesus, the [a]author and [b]finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:2

“Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.””

Ezekiel 3:1