December 9, 2025 • 15 mins
What happens when a former atheist follows the evidence instead of the assumptions? Universe Designed—the new documentary from filmmaker Michael Ray Lewis—dives into some of today’s most-searched faith questions: Does God exist? Is Christianity true? Can science and faith coexist?
Releasing December 13, the film traces Michael’s personal journey from skepticism to belief, sparked by astrophysics, philosophy, and the surprising realization that “not wanting it to be true” was the last barrier between him and Christ. The conversation explores his three-year investigation into origins, fine-tuning, evolution, manuscript history, the resurrection, and why beauty and design point us toward a Creator.
If you’re curious about apologetics, Christian worldview formation, or how real evidence shapes real faith—this episode gives you the roadmap.
Highlights
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Michael’s shift from atheism to Christianity through scientific and historical evidence
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How a single Hugh Ross YouTube video started a three-year deep dive
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The role of objective truth, origins, fine-tuning, and evolution in the film
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Why the documentary begins with universal questions and ends with the cross
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The filmmaking choice to use slow-motion and nature imagery to spark wonder
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Why pacing, curiosity, and accessibility mattered in presenting heavy topics
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How the film equips Christians and gently challenges skeptics
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Why this cultural moment is ideal for a documentary about truth and meaning
Resources & Links
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🎬 Universe Designed
Streaming December 13
universedesigned.com -
📚 Featured voices include Frank Turek, Hugh Ross, Alisa Childers, and more
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🎧 Explore more faith-building podcasts at LifeAudio.com
Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey Michael, thanks for joining me. Thank you Michael for
having me. Michael ray lewis filmmaker who is the director
of the new documentary film Universe Designed. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It releases December the thirteenth. Universe Designed dot Com is
the website. It explores the existence for God and it
also explores the validity of Christianity. Michael, I really enjoyed this,
the pace, the cinematography, all of it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Really. You describe yourself as a former atheist. How did
your personal journey lead to the vision for this film
Universe Design.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well, the evidence is really what persuaded me that Christianity
was true. You see, I grew up in a home
where I'm pretty sure most of us would say that
they believed in God, had a Bible under their bed,
but we never talked about God, we never talked about Jesus.
Obviously didn't read the Bible, and so over time, as
I got older, I started really just seeing no good
(00:59):
reason to believe it. On top of that, I was
watching documentaries by Bill Maher and others making fun of Christians,
and the only real interactions I had with Christians were
the ones on the street corners that were yelling at
me that I'm going to Hell, and so, I mean
I just naturally adopted atheism. I said, well, there's no
good reason to believe it anyways, and so I'm going
to just kind of adopt this materialistic mindset. Well, a
(01:22):
little bit later in my life, my wife ended up
coming to me and she said that she felt like
Jesus is calling her back. And I remember thinking to myself,
oh no, now I got to start dealing with all
this again because I had been pretty against Christianity, But
I said, you know what, I love her, I'll see
what this is all about. And so she dragged me
into a church and I remember looking around. I'm like,
(01:43):
all right, these aren't like the ones on the street corners.
But I get it that gives them something to hope in.
I just don't think it's actually true. And during that
process I started hitting her with hard questions, but no
matter what, she was adamant that it was true. And
there was one peticular moment where a YouTube video popped
up on my feed by an astrophysicist by the name
(02:05):
of doctor Hugh Ross, and she was showing in the
video how like science isn't incompatible with Christianity. In fact,
there are lots of good scientific evidences for the existence
of God. And I remember that was the first video,
the first moment where it kind of peaked my curiosity,
and I said, maybe there's a little something to this.
(02:26):
And that started a three year journey of me just
diving into everything from the evidence from the origins of
the universe, the fine tuning, the evidence surrounding the resurrection.
And at the end of that three years, I was
still very skeptical, and I was still very hesitant, and
I started asking my wife questions about scripture and she said,
(02:46):
you know what, I don't know how to answer these questions,
but I do have a friend of the family that's
a theologian that may be able to help you answer them.
And so she directed me to one of the friends
of the families, and I remember I walked in at
five pages full of questions. I'm ready to hammer this
guy with And I notice, I remember that every question
I asked him, he answered it using scripture. And at
the end of the conversation he looked up at me
(03:07):
and he said, so do you think that it's true?
And at this point I had no more objections, and
I said, well, yeah, I think so. But it didn't
really hit me until the drive home. On the way home,
I remember thinking to myself, I actually think this is true.
And that's when I realized the evidence isn't what was
holding me back. It was the fact that I didn't
(03:27):
want it to be true. And when I realized that,
I said, well that's not a good reason. Threw my
hands up and I said, all right, Jesus, what's next,
gave my life to christ became extremely excited about learning
more and trying to understand because this is all actually real.
And then I realized I was correct in my assumptions
as an atheist that Christians were not prepared to give
(03:48):
a good defense for why they believe that it's true.
And so I'd already kind of been in the film industry,
making horror films of all things, and I thought to myself, well,
I need to make something for the kingdom. I need
to do something for the kingdom. My mom my wife,
said well, why don't you do a documentary based on
the evidence that convinced you that it was true?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And so I said, you know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Just that, I send emails to some of the top
Christian apologists of books that I had read during my journey.
Bob Plane, tickets went out, got interviews, ended up with
thirty six hours of content that I had to try
to condense down to an hour and twenty five minute movie.
And what I tried to do in the movie is
to build a case strong enough to be convincing and
(04:28):
to show people the evidences. But I also don't want
to bore people with all the details and kind of
just do nothing but facts, and so I tried to
structure it in such a way that it flows, tells
a story, but also piques your curiosity, so that if
you're a non believer, you'll hopefully be prompted to take
a second look at all this, and if you are
(04:49):
a believer, you'll be encouraged and excited to know that
what we believe is actually true and we need to
be out there sharing that truth with others.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The included a views with some of the top ofogists
and thinkers in Christianity today. As you already edicated Frank Tierrich,
you ros So Lisa Jielder's season, There there's a goodness.
It seemed like a dozen or more people in this
I can't think of all of them. Tell me about
the structure of the film, because I really found it
fascinating how it begins with just the general questions about life,
(05:19):
Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing?
What's the purpose of life? And then it ends, of
course with Christianity. So what was your desire with the
structure of the film beginning with maybe the bigger questions
just design, and ending with the cross and the resurrection.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, I think one of the problems looking at Christianity
from my atheistic perspective was that I was told the
repent and believe language all day. But what happened was
I rejected all of that because I had roadblocks that
needed to be overcome during that three year period in
(05:58):
order for me to be able to fully grasp the
gospel right. And so when I decided I was going
to make this film, I said, you know what I'm not.
I need to come at it with a different approach.
I need to do it in such a way that
starts to peak people's curiosity, help them to realize there
are big questions that we all have, but we've all
(06:18):
stopped asking them because we get distracted, We get busy
with life, and so we need to start asking these
big questions. Then I shift gears into truth. Does objective
truth exist? Are there things we can know? If so,
what are those things? Then we shift gears into where
did the universe come from? Why does the universe seem
(06:39):
to have such a design to it? Why does life
seem to have such a design to it? I shift
into the topic of evolution, because that's a big objection
for non believers. Evolution has disproven Christianity, so we cover that.
Then I shift gears into well, if there is evidence
for the existence of a god, how do we know
that it's the Christian God? Well, that all comes down
(07:01):
to Jesus. Is Jesus who he claimed to be? And
so I cover the manuscript evidence. Why we should trust
the Bible? Why why do we deem it reliable source?
And then what kind of evidences do we have for
the historical figure of Jesus? Was he historical figure? What
do we know about the evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus.
(07:22):
I also address in the film the problem of evil
and suffering, ultimately delivering the gospel message in a way
that hopefully people will really be able to absorb it
for the first time because I've taken down those roadblocks
ahead of time, and then I just lay it on
the table and say, you know what, the evidence is there,
what are you going to do from here?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I love the pace of the film, Michael.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The footage of everyday life is in slow motion, if
it's if it's I don't know filmmaker language. This is
just me talking as a viewer, but it's almost as
if you're inviting the audience to slow down and think
about life and stop looking at your phone.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Tell me the.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Goals of that and how you would describe that as
a filmmaker.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I mean, visuals are something that I've always noticed will
and well, just the pacing of things in general will
lose people. If you pace things incorrectly, you can lose
people pretty quickly, and so you have to keep things moving.
You have to keep things flowing. And the way I
chose to do that was to do it by showing
these scholars who know what they're talking about, but showing
(08:35):
them kind of behind the scenes, showing them what they're
doing behind the scenes. In addition, I wanted to we're
talking about the reality of nature of what we see,
and so I wanted to be able to show the
beauty of the earth, show the beauty of space, the
beauty of what we see in nature, and while we're
talking about it, so that you can see that like
(08:56):
beauty itself is an argument for God, why things beautiful?
And so I wanted people you write what we tend
to do is we tend to stay in our home,
watch TV, stay on our phone. We don't get outside
of nature. And so if we're not exposed to God's creation,
how do we expect these people to see the evidence
for it? Because that's what scriptures say, look to the heavens.
(09:18):
The evidence is clear.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
We're so busy in life that we don't ask the
questions that we were created to ask. And we live
in cities and we don't see the vastness of the
heavens that the writers of scriptures saw that led them
to write the verses that we quote. The film is
described as bridging science, philosophy, and Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You've already kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Touched on this, But was it challenging to present all
these discussions of academic topics but make it accessible.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh, it was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
This is partly why it took me three years to
edit it, because that's the key, right is we have
all of this information that we want people to understand,
but the hard thing is to is to get them
to be interested in it. Because this is a lot
of heavy thinking. When I was looking at Christianity as
an atheist, it's very easy to be skeptical and take
(10:12):
things at face value. So you hear slogans like, if
there is a good God, then there can't be evil
in the world. Evolution has disproven Christianity. Christianity is illogical.
It's this is religion, not science. Science tells us truth,
religious tells us a myth right. And so you hear
these slogans and you adopt these ideas, or you adopt
(10:33):
the first idea you see on Google, and you don't
dig deep enough. And so the challenge was to try
to create something that would get people to dig deeper.
And that's what I hope that I've done by the
structure of it, by the pacing of it, and by
delivering enough information to pique your curiosity, but not so
much that your eyes glaze over.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It begins with just questions about life in general, and
then it does get into some heady topics, but then
it goes back into maybe some less heavy stuff. So
if you do, if someone's out there watching it and
they're like a boy, that's really tough to understand, just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It'll get better.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you know, sometimes subjects are worth exploring, and sometimes
you do have to maybe think about it a little
deeper and rewind it and watch it again.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's just life. Who is this made for? Let's begin
closing here. Who did you make this for? And what
do you hope the audience walks away thinking?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
And I'm sure the answer to that is different for
who's watching it Christians and Christians.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Originally, when I went into making this film, my heart
was dedicated for this to be towards the non believers.
I was going to market it towards the non believers,
and that was what my audience source was going to be.
That's why if you watch the film, it takes you
a good twenty minutes before you realize you're even watching
a Christian film right now. I did that intentionally because
I want people to not reject it on the basis
(11:56):
of it being a Christian film. And so my primary
audience is those non believers who are open to hearing
the arguments, who are open to taking a second look
at Christianity and hopefully pique their curiosity and challenge them.
But after giving my life to Christ and realizing that
so many believers out there are not equipped, I realize
(12:16):
this is also a film for believers. This is a
film that if you've grown up in the church and
you've always been told that it's true, but maybe not
necessarily why it's true, this is the film for you
because this will encourage you to know that, like everything
we believe about Jesus is actually real. There are good
arguments for it, there's good evidence for it. It's not
(12:38):
just this emotional reaction that we have, like there are
facts like this is the reality. Christianity is true because
it's the best explanation for the reality we find ourselves in.
Whether I like it or not, it's true. And so
my hope is that this will encourage believers as well,
to excite them to take a second look at all
of the evidence and to learn that there's something called apologetics.
(13:00):
There's an entire field of study that can equip you
to be out there having conversations about Jesus and you
don't have to be scared to have those conversations because
we have the best explanation and if what we believe
is true, we shouldn't be scared to share that truth.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
It always breaks my heart when I hear somebody be
constructed and not reading a story about them and the
question that kind of made them stumble was one that's
you know, in the.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
First chapter of any basic apologetics book. I do have
one more question for you.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It seems like this this is a good time for
this film to be released. It seems like we have
an entire generation. You have young people asking questions and
searching for truth.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Right now, some.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
People think gen Z is in the midst of a
revival on college campuses. What do you think about the
timing of this film's release.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It's really interesting because when I first started making the film,
I was like, oh, it'll take me a year. Well,
that year went by, the second year came and I'm like, Okay,
this is the year it's going to come out. And
then I kept making changes to it, and things kept happening,
and life happened, and because this is a passion project
for me, I start to make money to pay bills
and support my family, and so then it kept getting
(14:06):
pushed back and pushed back, and then I was like,
you know what, I'm going to take the time and
I'm going to raise money. I'm going to try to
get it into theaters. And I attempted that and then
everything happened, like the world started to shift and I
started to see things changing, and I don't know. I
got to the point where I said, you know what,
it's time. It's time to go ahead and release it.
And that's when I got with my distributor and I said,
(14:29):
let's just go straight to streaming. As much as I
would love for it to go to theaters and people
to be able to see it in a theater, my
goal is for it to just reach people. However that's
going to happen, and I just need to finally let
go of it and let God do with it what
he's going to do. And so the timing is all God,
not me, everything, every obstacle that He put in front
of me, and then just prompting it on my heart
(14:52):
to go ahead and release it. And so, yeah, you're right,
something's changing. I don't know what's going on, but I'm
just long for the ride. So, and it'll be released.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
On all major streaming platforms in terms of renting and
buying correct correct Okay, December the thirteenth, Universe Design dot Com.
It's one of the best apologetics films I've ever seen,
so I just encourage people who have questions or.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Who want to build their faith to check it out. Michael,
thanks so much, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
five star review. That's how we help more people just
like you find the show. A big thanks to the
team at life Audio for their partnership with us on
the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you
will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
See you next time.
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey Michael, thanks for joining me. Thank you Michael for
having me. Michael ray lewis filmmaker who is the director
of the new documentary film Universe Designed. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It releases December the thirteenth. Universe Designed dot Com is
the website. It explores the existence for God and it
also explores the validity of Christianity. Michael, I really enjoyed this,
the pace, the cinematography, all of it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Really. You describe yourself as a former atheist. How did
your personal journey lead to the vision for this film
Universe Design.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well, the evidence is really what persuaded me that Christianity
was true. You see, I grew up in a home
where I'm pretty sure most of us would say that
they believed in God, had a Bible under their bed,
but we never talked about God, we never talked about Jesus.
Obviously didn't read the Bible, and so over time, as
I got older, I started really just seeing no good
(00:59):
reason to believe it. On top of that, I was
watching documentaries by Bill Maher and others making fun of Christians,
and the only real interactions I had with Christians were
the ones on the street corners that were yelling at
me that I'm going to Hell, and so, I mean
I just naturally adopted atheism. I said, well, there's no
good reason to believe it anyways, and so I'm going
to just kind of adopt this materialistic mindset. Well, a
(01:22):
little bit later in my life, my wife ended up
coming to me and she said that she felt like
Jesus is calling her back. And I remember thinking to myself,
oh no, now I got to start dealing with all
this again because I had been pretty against Christianity, But
I said, you know what, I love her, I'll see
what this is all about. And so she dragged me
into a church and I remember looking around. I'm like,
(01:43):
all right, these aren't like the ones on the street corners.
But I get it that gives them something to hope in.
I just don't think it's actually true. And during that
process I started hitting her with hard questions, but no
matter what, she was adamant that it was true. And
there was one peticular moment where a YouTube video popped
up on my feed by an astrophysicist by the name
(02:05):
of doctor Hugh Ross, and she was showing in the
video how like science isn't incompatible with Christianity. In fact,
there are lots of good scientific evidences for the existence
of God. And I remember that was the first video,
the first moment where it kind of peaked my curiosity,
and I said, maybe there's a little something to this.
(02:26):
And that started a three year journey of me just
diving into everything from the evidence from the origins of
the universe, the fine tuning, the evidence surrounding the resurrection.
And at the end of that three years, I was
still very skeptical, and I was still very hesitant, and
I started asking my wife questions about scripture and she said,
(02:46):
you know what, I don't know how to answer these questions,
but I do have a friend of the family that's
a theologian that may be able to help you answer them.
And so she directed me to one of the friends
of the families, and I remember I walked in at
five pages full of questions. I'm ready to hammer this
guy with And I notice, I remember that every question
I asked him, he answered it using scripture. And at
the end of the conversation he looked up at me
(03:07):
and he said, so do you think that it's true?
And at this point I had no more objections, and
I said, well, yeah, I think so. But it didn't
really hit me until the drive home. On the way home,
I remember thinking to myself, I actually think this is true.
And that's when I realized the evidence isn't what was
holding me back. It was the fact that I didn't
(03:27):
want it to be true. And when I realized that,
I said, well that's not a good reason. Threw my
hands up and I said, all right, Jesus, what's next,
gave my life to christ became extremely excited about learning
more and trying to understand because this is all actually real.
And then I realized I was correct in my assumptions
as an atheist that Christians were not prepared to give
(03:48):
a good defense for why they believe that it's true.
And so I'd already kind of been in the film industry,
making horror films of all things, and I thought to myself, well,
I need to make something for the kingdom. I need
to do something for the kingdom. My mom my wife,
said well, why don't you do a documentary based on
the evidence that convinced you that it was true?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And so I said, you know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Just that, I send emails to some of the top
Christian apologists of books that I had read during my journey.
Bob Plane, tickets went out, got interviews, ended up with
thirty six hours of content that I had to try
to condense down to an hour and twenty five minute movie.
And what I tried to do in the movie is
to build a case strong enough to be convincing and
(04:28):
to show people the evidences. But I also don't want
to bore people with all the details and kind of
just do nothing but facts, and so I tried to
structure it in such a way that it flows, tells
a story, but also piques your curiosity, so that if
you're a non believer, you'll hopefully be prompted to take
a second look at all this, and if you are
(04:49):
a believer, you'll be encouraged and excited to know that
what we believe is actually true and we need to
be out there sharing that truth with others.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The included a views with some of the top ofogists
and thinkers in Christianity today. As you already edicated Frank Tierrich,
you ros So Lisa Jielder's season, There there's a goodness.
It seemed like a dozen or more people in this
I can't think of all of them. Tell me about
the structure of the film, because I really found it
fascinating how it begins with just the general questions about life,
(05:19):
Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing?
What's the purpose of life? And then it ends, of
course with Christianity. So what was your desire with the
structure of the film beginning with maybe the bigger questions
just design, and ending with the cross and the resurrection.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, I think one of the problems looking at Christianity
from my atheistic perspective was that I was told the
repent and believe language all day. But what happened was
I rejected all of that because I had roadblocks that
needed to be overcome during that three year period in
(05:58):
order for me to be able to fully grasp the
gospel right. And so when I decided I was going
to make this film, I said, you know what I'm not.
I need to come at it with a different approach.
I need to do it in such a way that
starts to peak people's curiosity, help them to realize there
are big questions that we all have, but we've all
(06:18):
stopped asking them because we get distracted, We get busy
with life, and so we need to start asking these
big questions. Then I shift gears into truth. Does objective
truth exist? Are there things we can know? If so,
what are those things? Then we shift gears into where
did the universe come from? Why does the universe seem
(06:39):
to have such a design to it? Why does life
seem to have such a design to it? I shift
into the topic of evolution, because that's a big objection
for non believers. Evolution has disproven Christianity, so we cover that.
Then I shift gears into well, if there is evidence
for the existence of a god, how do we know
that it's the Christian God? Well, that all comes down
(07:01):
to Jesus. Is Jesus who he claimed to be? And
so I cover the manuscript evidence. Why we should trust
the Bible? Why why do we deem it reliable source?
And then what kind of evidences do we have for
the historical figure of Jesus? Was he historical figure? What
do we know about the evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus.
(07:22):
I also address in the film the problem of evil
and suffering, ultimately delivering the gospel message in a way
that hopefully people will really be able to absorb it
for the first time because I've taken down those roadblocks
ahead of time, and then I just lay it on
the table and say, you know what, the evidence is there,
what are you going to do from here?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I love the pace of the film, Michael.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The footage of everyday life is in slow motion, if
it's if it's I don't know filmmaker language. This is
just me talking as a viewer, but it's almost as
if you're inviting the audience to slow down and think
about life and stop looking at your phone.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Tell me the.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Goals of that and how you would describe that as
a filmmaker.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I mean, visuals are something that I've always noticed will
and well, just the pacing of things in general will
lose people. If you pace things incorrectly, you can lose
people pretty quickly, and so you have to keep things moving.
You have to keep things flowing. And the way I
chose to do that was to do it by showing
these scholars who know what they're talking about, but showing
(08:35):
them kind of behind the scenes, showing them what they're
doing behind the scenes. In addition, I wanted to we're
talking about the reality of nature of what we see,
and so I wanted to be able to show the
beauty of the earth, show the beauty of space, the
beauty of what we see in nature, and while we're
talking about it, so that you can see that like
(08:56):
beauty itself is an argument for God, why things beautiful?
And so I wanted people you write what we tend
to do is we tend to stay in our home,
watch TV, stay on our phone. We don't get outside
of nature. And so if we're not exposed to God's creation,
how do we expect these people to see the evidence
for it? Because that's what scriptures say, look to the heavens.
(09:18):
The evidence is clear.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
We're so busy in life that we don't ask the
questions that we were created to ask. And we live
in cities and we don't see the vastness of the
heavens that the writers of scriptures saw that led them
to write the verses that we quote. The film is
described as bridging science, philosophy, and Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You've already kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Touched on this, But was it challenging to present all
these discussions of academic topics but make it accessible.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh, it was very difficult.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
This is partly why it took me three years to
edit it, because that's the key, right is we have
all of this information that we want people to understand,
but the hard thing is to is to get them
to be interested in it. Because this is a lot
of heavy thinking. When I was looking at Christianity as
an atheist, it's very easy to be skeptical and take
(10:12):
things at face value. So you hear slogans like, if
there is a good God, then there can't be evil
in the world. Evolution has disproven Christianity. Christianity is illogical.
It's this is religion, not science. Science tells us truth,
religious tells us a myth right. And so you hear
these slogans and you adopt these ideas, or you adopt
(10:33):
the first idea you see on Google, and you don't
dig deep enough. And so the challenge was to try
to create something that would get people to dig deeper.
And that's what I hope that I've done by the
structure of it, by the pacing of it, and by
delivering enough information to pique your curiosity, but not so
much that your eyes glaze over.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It begins with just questions about life in general, and
then it does get into some heady topics, but then
it goes back into maybe some less heavy stuff. So
if you do, if someone's out there watching it and
they're like a boy, that's really tough to understand, just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It'll get better.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you know, sometimes subjects are worth exploring, and sometimes
you do have to maybe think about it a little
deeper and rewind it and watch it again.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's just life. Who is this made for? Let's begin
closing here. Who did you make this for? And what
do you hope the audience walks away thinking?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
And I'm sure the answer to that is different for
who's watching it Christians and Christians.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Originally, when I went into making this film, my heart
was dedicated for this to be towards the non believers.
I was going to market it towards the non believers,
and that was what my audience source was going to be.
That's why if you watch the film, it takes you
a good twenty minutes before you realize you're even watching
a Christian film right now. I did that intentionally because
I want people to not reject it on the basis
(11:56):
of it being a Christian film. And so my primary
audience is those non believers who are open to hearing
the arguments, who are open to taking a second look
at Christianity and hopefully pique their curiosity and challenge them.
But after giving my life to Christ and realizing that
so many believers out there are not equipped, I realize
(12:16):
this is also a film for believers. This is a
film that if you've grown up in the church and
you've always been told that it's true, but maybe not
necessarily why it's true, this is the film for you
because this will encourage you to know that, like everything
we believe about Jesus is actually real. There are good
arguments for it, there's good evidence for it. It's not
(12:38):
just this emotional reaction that we have, like there are
facts like this is the reality. Christianity is true because
it's the best explanation for the reality we find ourselves in.
Whether I like it or not, it's true. And so
my hope is that this will encourage believers as well,
to excite them to take a second look at all
of the evidence and to learn that there's something called apologetics.
(13:00):
There's an entire field of study that can equip you
to be out there having conversations about Jesus and you
don't have to be scared to have those conversations because
we have the best explanation and if what we believe
is true, we shouldn't be scared to share that truth.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
It always breaks my heart when I hear somebody be
constructed and not reading a story about them and the
question that kind of made them stumble was one that's
you know, in the.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
First chapter of any basic apologetics book. I do have
one more question for you.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It seems like this this is a good time for
this film to be released. It seems like we have
an entire generation. You have young people asking questions and
searching for truth.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Right now, some.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
People think gen Z is in the midst of a
revival on college campuses. What do you think about the
timing of this film's release.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It's really interesting because when I first started making the film,
I was like, oh, it'll take me a year. Well,
that year went by, the second year came and I'm like, Okay,
this is the year it's going to come out. And
then I kept making changes to it, and things kept happening,
and life happened, and because this is a passion project
for me, I start to make money to pay bills
and support my family, and so then it kept getting
(14:06):
pushed back and pushed back, and then I was like,
you know what, I'm going to take the time and
I'm going to raise money. I'm going to try to
get it into theaters. And I attempted that and then
everything happened, like the world started to shift and I
started to see things changing, and I don't know. I
got to the point where I said, you know what,
it's time. It's time to go ahead and release it.
And that's when I got with my distributor and I said,
(14:29):
let's just go straight to streaming. As much as I
would love for it to go to theaters and people
to be able to see it in a theater, my
goal is for it to just reach people. However that's
going to happen, and I just need to finally let
go of it and let God do with it what
he's going to do. And so the timing is all God,
not me, everything, every obstacle that He put in front
of me, and then just prompting it on my heart
(14:52):
to go ahead and release it. And so, yeah, you're right,
something's changing. I don't know what's going on, but I'm
just long for the ride. So, and it'll be released.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
On all major streaming platforms in terms of renting and
buying correct correct Okay, December the thirteenth, Universe Design dot Com.
It's one of the best apologetics films I've ever seen,
so I just encourage people who have questions or.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Who want to build their faith to check it out. Michael,
thanks so much, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
five star review. That's how we help more people just
like you find the show. A big thanks to the
team at life Audio for their partnership with us on
the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you
will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
See you next time.
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