Karen Covell: Praying for People in Hollywood

Is Hollywood a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah? Or is it more akin to Nineveh and filled with redeemable people? In this episode, we speak with Karen Covell who founded the Hollywood Prayer Network on the premise that the church needs to pray for the people working in the entertainment industry because you can't hate someone you are praying for. Then we see how this relates to the biblical figure of Esther, who rose to a position of prominence in order to save the Jewish people during a time of need.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Eternal Impact, how biblical characters and stories have changed lives today.

(00:13):
I'm your host, Aaron Mathew Kaiser.
In today's episode, we are joined by Karen Kovell of the Hollywood Prayer Network as
we discuss why the church should be praying for the people working in the entertainment
industry.
Then we'll take a look together at the Old Testament figure of Esther, who is called
to a place of prominence in a foreign land, but God had something important for her to

(00:38):
do.
I'm really looking forward to sharing this episode with you, so let's jump right into
it.
Karen, I want to thank you for coming on to this episode of Eternal Impact.
You're so welcome.
I love it.
I'm glad you asked.
I think a good place to start is to talk about the Hollywood Prayer Network that you're
the founding director of.
For those in our audience who aren't familiar, can you let them know what this is?

(01:02):
Absolutely.
Well, I'm a producer.
I produce television specials, documentaries.
I'm packaging a feature right now.
My husband is a composer.
He writes music for films and television shows.
We have two grown sons in the industry who are filmmakers.
We have realized that this place in Hollywood is the world's most influential mission field

(01:24):
and marketplace.
Years ago, I realized that we were forming a community of Christians who were in the
entertainment industry as professionals in the secular world, but that there was a gap
and a division between the church in America and Hollywood.
The church hates Hollywood.
Hollywood hates the church.
We saw this 30 years ago.

(01:46):
It's been a problem for a long time.
Where do you think that started?
Oh, I think it's the enemy.
I think it started way back in the beginning of the film industry when suddenly the Christians
started feeling uncomfortable that the films are getting a little edgy for our beliefs.
The belief in the early 1900s was for Christians to leave Hollywood instead of staying in it
and being salt and light.

(02:07):
In fact, Hollywood was started by a Christian couple wanting it to be a peaceful place for
Christians to live.
Then the film industry found that it was a great city to start film projects because
of the weather, because of the location.
There started that divide very early on.
Christians felt that it was evil and they needed to leave.

(02:30):
Then it got darker.
Then decades went by of struggle and division.
I started thinking about it in the early 80s and thought, there's got to be a way to build
a bridge between the church and Hollywood.
We have a foot in both worlds and neither one really respects or loves the other one.

(02:51):
Our friends were the same way.
I thought, I can't get Hollywood to love the church because the church has boycotted
them, has pointed fingers, thrown out our television sets, burned our books.
We've just been radically unloving.
I do believe if you pray for somebody, you can't hate them.

(03:12):
I thought if I can get the church to pray for Hollywood, then they can't hate Hollywood.
Their hearts will start melting and they'll start understanding that these are God's
children as well and that they need to really care about who they are and try to understand
more about what they're creating and what they're doing.
I thought, okay, I'll start the Hollywood Prayer Network, challenge the church and mobilize,

(03:35):
challenge and mobilize the church to pray for the people, the projects, and the issues
in Hollywood.
Then they might start melting their hearts and understanding more.
It's been since 2001, I am not giving up, it's been a slow challenge, but we have seen
great changes.

(03:56):
I now know that we have a solid group of Christians in Hollywood, a community that we know over
10,000 people at least.
I keep meeting more all the time.
We encourage community, prayer, growing spiritually, getting involved in churches, having small
groups.
We continue to challenge Christians on the outside, to pray for the people here, to pray

(04:19):
for the Christians, to have an influence, to be great at what they do, to reach out
and share their faith with their non-Christian coworkers or bosses or associates or even
neighbors, and to not judge Hollywood, but to just pray and let God do His work here.
Because I think when you judge someone, they can't hear your message anymore.

(04:43):
And so that's the whole purpose, the whole foundation.
And I've been committed to it as a producer ever since.
One of the things that had stuck out to me was when I was looking over the website, your
mission statement is praying for the entertainment industry and building community in Hollywood.
And I specifically noted that those are two distinct statements.

(05:06):
And very important.
And one is not more important than the other.
Because you can pray and pray and pray for something, but if you don't take action, you're
not going to see the results of it.
We see the fruit of people's prayers as we build community, as we pray for each other,
support each other, encourage one another, cry with each other, laugh, form friendships.

(05:28):
Then we start seeing more Christians in decision-making positions.
We start seeing more people sharing their faith with those around them that we call
pre-Christians.
We see God moving as people pray and we form community.
You were talking about how you start formulating this in your mind 15, 20 years before you actually

(05:50):
Actually about 25 years ago, I started thinking about it and going, how do I make a difference?
How do I build a bridge?
And it finally hit me through prayer.
And actually, the thought I had was if you pray for somebody, you can't hate them.
We still struggle with young people who come to Hollywood despite the desires of their
family or even their pastors.

(06:11):
There are still Christians all across the globe who think Hollywood is some awful, evil
place and if you come, you'll either lose your faith or you'll never get a job, you'll
go broke and starve.
Or you'll be in Satan's evil pit.
And none of those are true.

(06:32):
It was kind of powerful.
Your website says that you believe that Hollywood is not Sodom and Gomorrah, which I haven't
heard that personally, but I've heard people being told that it's like, why did you want
to go to Sodom and Gomorrah?
But it's Nineveh.
It's a redeemable place full of redeemable people.
That's absolutely what we stand on.
That God can redeem anyone.

(06:54):
He created us.
He loves us.
Who are we to decide who has no hope and who doesn't?
It's not up to us.
It's up to us to use the gifts and talents God has given us to live a life confident
in our faith and then to share the love of Jesus with other people.
And that's reading further on your site.

(07:15):
It says over the years, Hollywood Prayer Network has seen attempts to change Hollywood fail
because Christians outside of Hollywood want the content of the films and TV shows and
music to change without praying for the hearts of the people creating it to change.
That's a commitment that we truly have.
The content of anything won't change until the hearts of the people creating it change.

(07:40):
You can't get someone who's got a dark, hard heart to create a loving, beautiful message
of beauty and truth and joy.
It's just incongruence.
So we have to pray for the people.
And then the result of that is the products that they create.
In fact, I have a story about that.
A friend of mine was sharing his faith with a TV executive years ago and he kept meeting

(08:05):
once a week with him.
And the man was not really interested in God but intrigued enough to have my friend keep
coming back.
So my friend shared his faith and prayed with him and told him that, you know, just don't
worry, let go.
God will take care of everything for you.
And there was a long journey.
But one day my friend came into his office and he was on the phone and he said, hold

(08:28):
on just one second and threw him a script.
So my friend waited while he got off the phone and looked at this script and the front had
read all over it.
The title of the project was crossed out.
It was a TV script.
The pages were bent and red was crossed out and everything.
And he thought, well, why is he giving me this?
When the executive got off the phone, my friend said, so what is this about?

(08:52):
And he goes, oh, I just became one of those born againers and I now can't write this
stuff anymore.
He was annoyed that he actually within the time that they had met had become a Christian.
And then he read back on his product and said, I can't do this.
Something changed in his heart because it's God who changes us, not other people.

(09:14):
And my friend didn't want to change him.
He wanted to open up his heart to God and then let the Holy Spirit do what he wants
to do.
And you see that happen over and over again.
It's really interesting seeing even as a Christian, as you go through the process of sanctification
and how things that maybe early on in your career, you might've been willing to do.

(09:36):
And then later on, it's like, no, I can't really, I can't do that anymore.
That's not what God wants me to do, or I'm just not comfortable doing it.
And that can shift over time.
Oh yeah.
I mean, that it was necessarily wrong beforehand, but that just God, he's working on your heart
and he's making it less comfortable for you to do the things that are pushing them.

(09:59):
Are not our best.
Exactly.
That's it.
The thing, the sentence I hear most with people who become Christians here, the first thing
is I can't swear anymore.
It's so true.
It's like, now I feel bad doing that.
When I became a Christian, I used to speed while I drove and be pulled over by police

(10:22):
all the time.
And I would literally think of great stories to tell them, to give me a warning, not a
ticket.
I became a Christian and the first time I was pulled over, I couldn't lie anymore.
And I was so annoyed because I got a ticket.
I'm like, I can't do this anymore.
That's great.
I am horrible.

(10:42):
I'm not a morning person.
And when I've had nine to fives, getting there on time has been a challenge depending on
when exactly it is.
And it was to a point where even just coming up with an excuse of, oh, there's a lot of
traffic, even if it was true, there was a lot of traffic.
I was like, yeah, but on top of there being traffic, I got out of left a little earlier.

(11:04):
I didn't.
I hit the snooze button 10 times literally.
And it got to a point where it was just like, I'm sorry.
Yes, I'm late.
And I'm just, I am sorry.
I'm not making an excuse because A, I don't want you to be thinking I'm always coming
up with excuses.
And B, I'm like, I don't want you thinking that I'm making things up.
Because it's going to sound that way, whether you convince yourself otherwise or not.

(11:28):
Exactly.
Well, a friend of mine said he thinks one of the most powerful things a Christian can
say is I was wrong.
What an amazing freedom to be able to say that knowing it's not us.
Our reputation is built on our faith in God, not on what we do or how we act or how we
come across.
And so we can die to ourselves and we can live for Christ and then have the freedom

(11:52):
to do and say whatever is best because he's giving us that power and that wisdom to do
it.
Although I do have to say, Karen, that I never make mistakes.
I thought I did once, but I was mistaken.
And you know what?
I'll pray for you about that.
You're going to find those little bad dad jokes at some point.
You do.

(12:13):
All the time they come through.
There was another thing on the website that, and this is the last thing on the website
necessarily I want to touch on.
There was a quote right on the front page that caught my attention.
And I didn't realize that apparently Cecil B. DeMille was a Christian.
Yes.
For those that don't know, Cecil B. DeMille is mostly known for being the director and

(12:36):
producer of the Ten Commandments and also Samson and Delilah.
A lot of biblical stories.
Yes.
In the 1930s, I believe it was that he was in his peak, the early 1900s.
He loved God and he stood for his faith as he made his movies.
And at that time he was free to make biblical stories.

(13:00):
I just always presumed, oh yeah, the Ten Commandments, that was a period where, yeah, they could
happen because they knew the audience would accept them.
I just was under the presumption that the executives were not doing it out of their
own faith.
But then the quote is, I have found the greatest power in the world is the power of prayer.
There is no shadow of doubt of that.

(13:21):
I speak from my own experience.
I had to look that up to make sure that was actually credited to him.
And then sure enough, it was on like IMDB.
And you know what?
There are more Christians through the years in film, television, music, video games, internet
content.
We don't realize that God has placed Christians in this marketplace so that we can be salt

(13:42):
and light and make a difference.
And what we find is as we gather the ones that we find together, they start getting
more confident and bolder and then they find others and it grows and grows.
And we're seeing exponential growth now.
And one of the hits too on with what you're saying earlier as well with this town being
influential is I a year ago, I would have said if you told me I was going to do this

(14:08):
podcast, I would have said no, since this is very really.
Yeah, because this is I hate I hate Christian films because they're either tend to be cheesy.
But then also it's almost like they're trying to build a separate market instead of playing
in the main field.
But Hollywood itself influences the culture of the entire world.

(14:29):
And I've been saying for specifically the last couple of years that my mission in Hollywood
is to create entertainment that will be influential across the world.
At least that's what I'm striving toward.
And then God was like, no, you're going to do this project right here and then we'll
see about everything else.
Oh, that is so funny.
Well, let me go back to what you said about hating Christian films.

(14:52):
Here's a perspective that I saw years ago that I truly believe.
There is the commercial film market that comes out of Hollywood, and it's all of the commercial
product that the whole world can see.
But then in film, there are niche markets.
There are the martial arts films.
Anybody who loves martial arts is going to watch one.
They don't care how good or bad it is.
That's true.

(15:13):
There are the horror films.
The horror audience is faithful and will watch every horror film ever made, whether its quality
is beautiful or it's a tacky low budget film.
The quality doesn't matter.
It's the genre.
That's the same with Christian films.
People don't care about the quality.
They want that genre.
They want a Christian film.

(15:35):
Tyler Perry films are that way.
Many, many genres of films fall into the niche markets.
So we don't have to judge it as bad compared to the commercial market.
We can say Christian films are one of the niche markets, and then there's the commercial
market.
And we have a choice of doing both.
The lines are starting to blur.

(15:56):
Documentaries used to be a niche market, and now documentaries are blurring into the feature
commercial market, and the lines are getting just more blurred between them.
So I think the same thing is happening with Christian faith-based films.
Yeah, and it's been interesting seeing some of those faith-based films like God's Not

(16:16):
Dead take over just the box office on their opening weekend.
Oh, it's crazy.
And you know, there are studios now that have formed faith-based divisions for films that
are meant for a Christian audience.
Lionsgate has a partnership with the Irwin Brothers, and Sony has a division called Affirm

(16:36):
Films, and the different studios have these divisions because, first of all, they see
there's money in the marketplace.
And second of all, they say, I don't want to be left out of what everybody else is doing.
That's a very good and convicting to me point.
I want to dial back a little bit and talk about your walk with Christ.

(16:57):
How did you get drawn into the kingdom?
Well, I grew up in a home in Chicago, a suburb of Chicago, where we went to church every
Sunday, but we never talked about it.
We never read the Bible.
We never prayed together.
It was just, it was cultural more than really a relationship.
So I was used to going to church, and I had three other siblings.

(17:22):
And when we each left to go to college, I was the third out of four of us.
We each left the church that we had grown up in and started our own belief system.
And we're all still believing completely different things.
But what happened to me was I left home and I got assigned a college roommate my freshman
year of college.

(17:42):
And she happened to be a committed born again Christian.
So I was a marked woman from the moment I walked in.
So my mom got saved.
Is it really her college roommate?
Yeah.
That is so wild.
So the minute we met, Debbie started praying for me.
And all year long, I would give her trouble and I'd ask big questions and I would push

(18:02):
back and I believed in God, but I didn't really know God.
And she came from a really horrible background compared to me.
Terrible divorced home, alcoholism, all kinds of things that were very sad.
And yet she had such joy.
And she was so committed to what she believed that it intrigued me.

(18:23):
And through that whole freshman year, I just kept being a little more open and a little
more open until three weeks before the end of school.
I was walking through campus and suddenly I just said, God, I want what Debbie has.
But there are three things I don't want.
I do not want to tell anybody about you because I grew up with my dad saying there are two

(18:45):
things you don't talk about in public politics and religion.
And that was just ingrained in my brain.
Well, thankfully a relationship with Jesus isn't a religion.
There you go.
Phew.
The second thing is I do not want to be a missionary because there were missionaries
that came to my church when I grew up and they were miserable and they dressed dumpy
and they didn't have joy.

(19:06):
And I thought, forget that.
And the third thing was I did not want to go to Africa because I thought every time
you become a Christian, you have to go to Africa.
And I didn't want to do that.
So I said, but other than that, you have all of me.
And I waited for thunder or lightning or something and nothing happened.
So I went to class, kind of forgot about it, and then went back into my dorm room.

(19:28):
And honestly, Erin, the first thing my roommate looked at me and she said, what's different
about you?
And I thought, oh my gosh.
And then I said nothing.
And then that night we were doing homework a few hours later and she stopped.
She goes, Karen, something is different about you.
What's going on?
And I literally thought, okay, it's showing what's happening to me.

(19:49):
What is he doing to me?
You know, but I denied it again.
The next morning I got dressed.
I was on my way out the door for class and she stood in front of the door and she said,
okay, did you become a Christian?
I burst into tears.
How did you know?
Yes, I did.
And she cries and we hugged each other.
And I said, I have to go to class, but we'll talk later.

(20:11):
I ran out the door.
I shut it.
And my first thought was, okay, God, only Debbie.
I am not telling anybody else.
And I went to class and I kept that promise for three weeks, the last three weeks of school.
Debbie and I talked and talked and she was so excited.
I went home to Chicago.
A week after I was home for summer vacation, my mom sat me down and out of the blue, completely

(20:34):
shocking to me, she said, your dad and I are talking about getting divorced.
I didn't even know what to say.
I was so horrified that all that came out of my mouth was, you have to know about Jesus.
You have to find out, he'll change this.
He'll take care of this.
And she's like, what are you talking about?
I said, you have to have a relationship with Jesus and he's going to fix this.

(20:54):
And she said, well, how do I do that?
I said, just talk to him.
Well, how do I do that?
And I'm like getting exasperated.
Just pray.
I had no idea what I was talking about.
And so I led her through some bumbling, odd prayer and she accepted Christ right there
in her life.
And the first thing she said after she said, no, I want that.

(21:17):
I want what you have, she said, you've got to tell your grandmother.
So she set up a meeting at a restaurant two weeks later, my grandmother came, the three
of us sat down and she said, okay, Karen, tell your grandma what you told me.
And I bumbled through all of this again.
I prayed for my grandmother.
She became a Christian right there.
By the way, my parents never got divorced.

(21:39):
They were together for 54 years and they were holding hands before he died.
You know, it's crazy things.
So my grandma became a Christian.
And then I went back to school in the fall and I started thinking, I wonder who the other
Christians are in the theater department.
I think I better find out.
And I start writing notes to people and calling people.

(22:00):
I was almost obnoxious.
I started sending books to my siblings so many times that my sister finally called me
and said, Karen, you've sent me two Bibles.
I only need one.
I'm like, oh, okay.
So that part of not telling anybody, I just blew right away.
Then when I realized I love being a missionary in Hollywood, my husband and I realized this

(22:25):
is a mission field and we're here to be excellent at what we do and to share God's love with
people along the way.
We are missionaries in the world's most influential mission field.
And my whole mindset shifted.
And then I blew the second one.
So then the third one, we had two boys and I thought, I want to give them a bigger vision

(22:45):
of what the world is like.
So let's sign up and pray for a boy through World Vision.
And of course, they assigned us a boy in Africa.
We fell in love with him, prayed for him, wrote to him, sent videos to him.
It was so much a part of our family's life.
And we finally, as a family, got to go to Africa.
And it was the most extraordinary life changing trip in my life.

(23:07):
And on the way home from Africa in the plane, I realized the three things I told God I didn't
want became three of the greatest joys in my whole life.
That's incredible.
I almost wanted to spoil the story with like, as soon as you said you weren't going to go
to Africa, I almost said, so how many times have you been to Africa?

(23:27):
But some told me not to say anything because it was good.
The payoff was going to be too good.
I was like, there's no way this story is going to end without you going to Africa.
Isn't that the truth?
And it was extraordinary.
We all, the four of us, it changed all of us.
It's interesting when we tell God something.
Like I was saying earlier a year ago, I would have been like, no, I'm not doing a religious

(23:49):
thing.
I'm not doing a religious thing.
Look at that.
The minute we say it, we better watch out.
My husband jokes all the time and he said, I wish you told God you didn't want a billion
dollars.
Right?
That's, yeah.
I forgot that one.
One of the big parts of this program is that we talk about biblical characters and parables
that have influenced our lives or that we relate to.

(24:12):
Is there anyone in your life that you see in the Bible?
Well, I do.
And not as a compliment to me, but as a reminder of who she is.
And that is I really relate to Esther.
And I do because she was a woman who didn't realize the impact that she could have, but
she obeyed God and she showed up and said, I have to say something.

(24:37):
I have to say something about the truth here.
And I realized that's what happened to me.
I realized this divide between the church and Hollywood.
And I said, I have to say something.
I have to do something about this.
I got incredible resistance, mostly from the church.
Christians who thought…
That's interesting.
More resistance from the church than from Hollywood.

(24:57):
Oh, much more.
Much more through the years.
Christians are the only ones that have an adversary.
We're the only ones that fight spiritual battle.
People that are doing things in their own will with their own strength, they don't
have spiritual battle.
Yeah.
The enemy doesn't need to worry about them.
It's those of us that want to do it for God that get that real struggle in that battle.

(25:18):
And so the enemy is really only here to do one thing and that's to divide, steal, destroy.
And he does it through Christians getting mad at other Christians.
Marriage is breaking up.
Ministry is breaking up.
Church is breaking up.
If he can cause division within the Christian body, then it just destroys the whole understanding

(25:39):
that as we love each other, other people will be attracted to Jesus.
The enemy's got it made if we don't like each other.
So I knew walking into this with the strong hate or fear that Christians had for Hollywood,
that I would be getting spiritual battle.
And I see that with Esther.
Esther had to come up against pretty insurmountable odds to first get the attention of the king,

(26:04):
then to have the strength to tell him the truth, then to have him respond positively.
Each step of that was miraculous.
And it was interesting too as I was going through the study.
So Esther takes place before Ezra goes back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

(26:29):
And so it's while most of Israel is still in captivity in Persia, who they had gotten
taken away by Babylon.
And then Persia came and took over Babylon.
And so now Persia is in control.
And ironically, we call Hollywood Babylon.
That's true too.
So it takes place in that time.
And one of the interesting things that had jumped out to me that I didn't realize was

(26:52):
the, well, the background of the story is that the king had put someone named Haman
in power and basically second command, I think his grand vizor basically.
And he got incensed that Mordecai, Esther's guardian, wouldn't bow and prostrate himself
before him.
It's all even crazy.

(27:13):
And instead of just taking him out, he finds out that Mordecai is a Jew and it's like,
well, let's just kill all the Jews.
That'll take care of it.
That'll take care of it.
How easy is that?
But it was just like this complete overreaction and he gets the king to sign off on it.
But what I didn't realize, and this is proven in two places here in Esther, that the king's

(27:36):
decree, a royal decree, could not be rescinded.
So it's a very unique solution that they ended up getting to where basically they had to
give permission for the Jews to fight back.
And everywhere that the original decree was being mandated and they were starting to try

(28:00):
and round up and kill the Jews, the Jews now had another royal decree that allowed them
to fight back and they were winning.
Isn't that wild?
It's this complete revolution.
And that was God giving them favor.
In the midst of being in captivity, being spread throughout, it wasn't that they were
just in one city.
They're throughout, there was 127 provinces that the king oversaw and they were spread

(28:23):
throughout that.
Yeah, that's right here in Esther 1-1.
And he reigned from India to Ethiopia.
Look at that.
And you look at the entertainment industry, we reign across the globe and we have certain
mandates that have to be done the right way to make things happen.
And then we have the church responding saying, this is evil, stay away.

(28:45):
It's almost a mandate from them.
And sometimes they're right.
And sometimes, oh, sometimes, a lot of times they're right.
This is a tough place to live and work because artists are prophets and artists either reflect
what's going on in culture or project what's happening.
And if you don't have a godly foundation to your beliefs, you're going to project what's

(29:06):
actually happening in the earthly realm.
What we need are more Christian artists so that we are prophets telling what's happening
or what's coming in the godly realm.
And that's where we have to stand firm and fight against all of the obstacles, all of
the people who don't agree, all the people who think it's too evil and hopeless and keep

(29:29):
going forward.
And it takes tough people to be able to do that, not hard hearts, but believing so strongly
that God has called us here, that this is what our job is, and we have to trust him
totally that we can keep going every day.
It's interesting because I didn't move to, I've been in LA for 14 years now and I didn't

(29:51):
move until I was 28.
I resisted.
I thought, because I came from San Diego and I thought, oh, I'm close enough to, if I need
a meeting, and then I realized, no, I need to be up here.
It's not going to happen.
Yeah.
It's not going to happen unless I'm here.
But I resisted for 10 years.
And then at first I thought, oh, I wish I'd come up 10 years earlier.
But then at the same time, now that-

(30:13):
Would you have been ready 10 years earlier?
No, because I went through my first five years here in LA.
I lived on the floor of my office.
And then I had a little bit of a reprieve where things started going well.
And then I actually talk a lot in my last episode about how I'd gotten into this nine
to five that wasn't what-
It was killing you.
It was physically killing me.

(30:34):
And it was also creatively killing me.
It was a very well-paying job at a bank, but it was not what I came up here for.
It was right after my mom passed and I was like, life is short.
And so I left and I had a plan to keep going and I fell flat on my face and I lost my apartment,
lost my car.
I mean, it's like all this-
We all say, we say everybody hits the wall, you hit the wall.

(30:57):
Oh, I hit the wall hard.
I lost everything.
And yeah, so my episode last week was on John Mark.
Oh my goodness.
Isn't that something?
Yeah.
I had said, like originally I thought, oh, I wish I'd come up here 10 years earlier.
But then I realized, no, I would have literally gone back to San Diego with my tail tucked

(31:17):
between my legs and I would have given up.
I would not have made it at 18, 20 years old.
Because it's a tough place.
It is a tough place.
This town chews you up and spits you out.
Well, we say that this is not a playground.
This is a battleground.
Yes.
We are not here to play house.
It's the front line in the spiritual world.

(31:38):
It is.
It's the front lines.
There's also a lot of understanding in the spiritual world about Los Angeles.
First of all, it's known in our world as the city of orphans because people come here without
family.
They're not supported for coming out here.
They want to make it rich, be rich and famous.
They come for the wrong reasons.
And there are three main reasons we find that most people who are not grounded spiritually,

(32:03):
why they come to LA.
The first is to reinvent themselves.
The second one is to get the affirmation of their father that they never got.
And the third one is to escape their past.
So one of those reasons is why most of the people come here.
And what do they do?
They're the world's worst stepfather.
This place doesn't give grace to anybody.

(32:25):
It's competitive.
It's expensive.
It's hard to live here.
It's such a spread out city physically that it's isolating.
Now add on the pandemic and forced lockdowns.
It's even more isolating.
Yeah.
How many people left town because of that?
Well left town or committed suicide.
Yeah.
I was going to add that on.

(32:45):
But yeah.
I mean, really terrible.
There are more people on depression medication.
They're lonely.
Three fiery darts of the enemy that I deal with every day with somebody in our industry.
Loneliness that comes from isolation, discouragement, and fear.
Oh, I know that.
And sometimes the fear is even fear of success.

(33:06):
Oh, isn't that ironic?
Yeah.
Yeah.
People I feel like that's sometimes what I deal with.
I'm afraid to take risks in case it works.
Yeah.
Is that ironic?
Which is also crazy, but there's so much spiritually going on here.
We need Jesus so desperately here.
And when we realize that, then I think he says, now you're right where I want you.

(33:30):
Need me desperately and then I can start working.
And that's where we are.
The Christians that can really hang in there get broken, get humbled, realize we need God
and each other.
And then we start building a beautiful community.
In fact, I know some people in Nashville.
Nashville, everybody's a Christian.
It's the music capital.
Culturally at least.
Yes, at least culturally.

(33:50):
Right.
And so they don't realize that they need each other, which we still do.
And so there are friends of mine who see our creative community in Hollywood and how we
hang on to each other and we pray together and we meet together and we have small groups
and Bible studies and anything we can find to just connect.
And there's a little bit of a jealousy or a sadness because they say, we wish we had

(34:12):
that here, but people don't see the need, even though it's still there.
Even if it was available, they wouldn't take up.
They wouldn't take it up because they didn't know how much they needed it.
And we are here on the front lines and we know we need it.
There's no question.
Oh, I can tell if I am at church multiple times during the week usually and I miss one.

(34:32):
Can't you tell?
I can tell.
And it's usually mostly because I start slipping into my old sin patterns, my old sin thinking.
I default to want to sin.
It's my old flesh.
Well, it's and you've got a heightened spiritual battle that will take your vulnerabilities
and project them.
And so you've got a you've got a good internal struggle going.

(34:54):
That's real.
But if we have each other and we can be open with people and be close to them and say,
I need prayer now, I'm struggling now, I'm feeling isolated, I'm feeling discouraged,
I'm feeling fearful.
Would you pray for me?
That's when we can lift those and push away the fiery darts and start building and strength
ening our faith.
I don't normally deal with anxiety.

(35:17):
But during the pandemic, I had a video client that I was working on and something was keeping
me from sitting down and editing and I couldn't explain what it was.
And it was it was right after I'd hit the wall and failed.
And I didn't realize how deep the depression had gone.
And so it was a lot of that.

(35:38):
But then the depression was causing my like it was just causing anxiety where I couldn't
even sit and edit and do what I was trying to do to push forward.
I had to reach out to a couple of brothers.
I'm like, I don't know what's going on.
I don't feel anxiety.
But I'm feeling it now.
I every time I sit down, it's like this like it's as if I was writing and it's just this

(36:00):
massive writer's block, just a blank page, I literally would sit down to edit and do
everything but and you don't realize it because I just don't realize it.
And some of them, I don't know, you can make excuses and such like that.
I found the way to do it is I first realized there's a difference between defining a problem
and changing it or defining a problem and managing it.

(36:20):
There are certain things I want to change.
They don't seem to change.
I've tried for years.
They're not changing.
So instead of continuing to set myself up for failure or discouragement, I say, OK,
maybe this one God's not ready to change in me yet.
So in the process, I'm going to manage it.
And what I found is when I get discouraged, I immediately now reach out to someone else

(36:41):
and encourage them.
And what that does is it lifts me out of my own discouragement and they get lifted and
I'm giving instead of drawing into my own misery.
I have to push myself out of my own thoughts and reach out to somebody else.
And so I have now made that just almost a normal response.

(37:01):
When I feel discouragement, I'll call someone, I'll write them a note, I'll email them and
just say, how are you doing?
I'm thinking of you today.
I'm praying for you.
Hope you're having a great day.
Want to know how you're doing.
And that pulls me so quickly now out of my discouragement that I'm pretty hooked on it.
It kind of reminds me a little bit too of the prayer of serenity that they say in AA

(37:23):
or celebrate recovery, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference
between those you can and can't change and the acceptance of the things you can't change.
That's it.
And the freedom of knowing it's not up to me.
I'm going to give this to God and let him work through me.
God's got the power.
He's got it.

(37:43):
God's got to be in control.
Yeah, he's got it.
He's got it.
It's so true.
And that's what a lot of people coming here just need to hear sometimes.
They just need to know, oh, I'm not alone.
Somebody understands and I can keep going forward.
So many people don't get that from their families or their churches.
In fact, when I speak around the country, I say, would you look at your child who wants

(38:05):
to be in Hollywood or who is in Hollywood as a missionary and pray for them and support
them?
You know, the irony is there are people who support and send money to missionaries that
are in cannibal tribes and they think it's noble and godly to be there.
But then when someone says they want to come to Hollywood, they go, oh, no, you're going
to lose your faith.
Right.

(38:26):
And it's just inconsistent.
And so for Christians on the outside to say, if I know somebody in Hollywood, I'm going
to pray for them.
And I'll send them money to say, hey, I'm thinking of you, here's support to keep you
going.
Go buy a Starbucks and have a better day.
And sometimes we need that Starbucks.
Oh my gosh.
Or help pay their rent.
It's so true.
The mindset of Christians outside Hollywood needs to change and the mindset of Christians

(38:48):
inside that they are called here, that they're meant to be here, that they need each other
and that they can make an eternal difference.
That needs to.
They can make an eternal impact.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Everyone here can.
Is there anything else about Esther that we should dive into?
I kind of like how she went about it.

(39:10):
She had to be very shrewd.
Well, one of the things it says is that she had people fast and pray.
Yes.
I wrote that down.
That's all I knew and know how to do.
I can't do it alone.
This is not my job.
This is not my thing to change the world in any way.
I am one little cog in a wheel.

(39:31):
God can use me, but I know I have to see the bigger picture and the only way anything is
going to change is for people to fast and pray.
That's what I had to do and I continue to do that.
Would you pray?
We have prayer partnerships.
We have a kids and teen prayer calendar.
We have prayer calls.
We have anything we can do to get people to pray.

(39:52):
I challenge people, when you go to a movie, don't leave after the movie is over.
Visit and watch the credits and pray through the names on that list that goes by.
I hadn't even thought about praying for them.
Yes.
It's usually just waiting to see if there's a post-credit scene.
Yes, that's it.
But in the meantime, pick out a name that pops out and you pray for that person.
You could be the first person ever praying for that person.

(40:15):
Can you imagine?
That's an incredible thought, the first person to ever pray for that person.
That's right.
You look at that list and you go, oh wow, the gaffer.
I don't know what that is, but Lord, I pray that you touch their heart, that you bring
Christians around them.
Right on.
Some of these films are so many names in the credits.
You've got 10, 15 minutes to sit through.
You might as well have a great prayer time.
It's a really interesting thought.

(40:38):
I did want to read really quickly the passage where Esther has them do this.
Oh, do that.
Because the fact that it's Esther's idea.
It's in Esther 4 verses 15 or 16 to 17.
And Esther said for them to respond to Mordecai, go gather all the Jews who are found in Susa

(40:58):
and fast for me.
Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.
I and my young women will also fast in the same way.
And thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law.
And if I perish, I perish.
In verse 17, so Mordecai went away and did just as Esther had commanded him.

(41:20):
There are three things in there that stand out to me.
First of all, Esther was not afraid to stand up to a man and say, do this for me.
Pass on the word.
She was strong.
To her guardian.
To her guardian.
He respected her.
He knew she was right.
The second thing is, is what you have to know that fasting and praying has the power of

(41:40):
God in it.
None of our actions will work unless we start with the foundation of prayer.
There's a great quote.
I think it was Oswald Chambers.
He said, prayer is not preparation for the greater work.
Prayer is the greater work.
And that's what Esther understood.
And the third thing is that Esther knew she could not change things on her own.

(42:04):
She couldn't do it.
The only way that she could obey and see a change is to get people to fast and pray.
And she was so confident in her God that nothing stopped her.
And that's another thing I realized being here, we have to be so confident in our God
that we know it's not about us.
It's about him and we're just showing up and working with him.

(42:26):
And she did that.
And I just get such inspiration from her and what she did.
She didn't just go right in to the king.
She decided to make sure that she had extra favor with him.
And wait.
She waited.
She prepared a feast.
And then she went and brought not only the king, but the second in command who ordered

(42:50):
the death.
Yes, the one she should not want to be a part of at all.
She invited him in as well.
And then there's even I have this chapter six, we won't read it, but it's this hilarious
story where Hamon is he goes home to and recounts his glory to his wife and his friends.

(43:10):
He's like, look at all the riches I have.
Look at all that's been given to me.
Look at me.
Look at me.
But but Mordecai, he vexes me.
And they're like, well, then put him to death.
And so he actually builds these gallows and is going to hang Mordecai the next morning
before the second because there's a second she didn't do it just one feast.

(43:32):
She's like, I have two banquets.
The king was like, hey, there was this guy Mordecai that, you know, had told me about
this plot against me.
And have we honored him?
No, we need it.
So what should we do?
She asks him on because what should I do to the man that I want to honor?
And of course, I'm on thinking it's him.
Yes.
Oh, you should do this and she'd do this and do this.

(43:53):
And he does all of it.
Yeah.
And then so Hamon is forced to honor Mordecai, like put a robe on him, parade him through
the streets on a horse and say, this is the man whom the king.
You can't get more ironic.
You cannot get more show God's sense of humor, too.
Absolutely.
And it also shows that Esther had a faith that was not shaken by circumstances.

(44:16):
There were many times in that story it looked hopeless.
And she knew I just have to keep believing for what I know is right.
And she became a queen because the previous queen just said no to the king.
And he got so mad.
He's like, you're no longer the queen.
And she's way shrewder than that.
Yeah.
We have to be as shrewd as serpent and as gentle as does.

(44:38):
And that's the same thing here.
Sometimes we forget the dove part, though.
We do.
I know.
Or we're too much on the dove and we can't handle the tough circumstances, one or the
other.
Two of the disagreements that some Christians have for what I do here are based on that
very thing.
Some people think I'm pushing aside God and being too tough and that I need to be, you

(45:01):
know, just more gentle and subservient and such, not realizing you have to be a warrior
when you're in battle.
And there are other people who think that I am just being too...
I give in too much to the circumstances, to what people say, to the environment that I
live in and that I'm compromised in my faith.
We're supposed to turn the other cheek, but we're not supposed to be a walking doormat

(45:24):
unless God specifically tells us in this situation, let them walk all over you.
And sometimes He will.
Sometimes He even does that.
But what He also says is you have to love the people.
You don't have to live their lifestyle.
So when I'm here, I don't judge people who do things I don't agree with.
I love them.
I pray for them.
I encourage and support them.

(45:45):
But I won't do what they do.
I won't live the way they live.
I won't compromise my faith.
But I can't be judging other people.
I have to leave that job up to the Holy Spirit.
I am here to love people to Jesus.
Is there anything else about Esther that we haven't touched on yet that you want to make
sure to impart?
Esther is not afraid of success.

(46:06):
You know, you said before that one of the problems is people are kind of self-sabotaged
because they're afraid of success.
She became queen.
She was a nobody when she started.
And God didn't only lift her up to a place where she can have an influence.
He lifted her up even farther to be the top woman in the whole land.

(46:27):
And she embraced it with humility.
It didn't go to her head.
It didn't make her think, hey, I'm pretty hot stuff.
We have to stay humble.
And that part of her, I just keep thinking whatever God does, wherever I am, it's not
up to me.
It's not about me.
It's not focused on me.
I have to just obey.
And He can keep me at a low level to just reach the people there.

(46:51):
He can bring me up to be amongst kings.
And I can reach the people there.
And whatever it is, I just have to keep my eyes on Him.
And I think she did that really well.
One of the notes that I found about the Book of Esther is it was commenting on how this
is the one book in the Bible that stands out because it's complete absence of any explicit

(47:16):
reference to God, worship, prayer, or sacrifice.
And sometimes that causes contention.
But it appears that the author of the book has deliberately refrained from mentioning
God or religious activity as a literary device to heighten the fact that God controls and

(47:41):
directs everything, even seemingly insignificant coincidences.
Well, there are no coincidences in the world of Christianity.
And I agree with you totally.
That's another thing that I relate to about Esther is in my world, I have Christians saying
to me, you're not sharing the gospel enough.

(48:03):
You're not telling them the truth of the gospel.
You're not talking about Jesus.
And I relate to her in that the Holy Spirit has to work through me.
And I have to understand the culture.
I have to understand the hearts of the people.
And I have to speak in their language.
I speak truth.
And I speak it with love.

(48:24):
And I speak it with grace.
And yet, if I come at somebody and give them the gospel points that they need to know,
they're going to shut down and turn away and I'll never have another chance to talk to
them again.
If I talk through telling stories the way Jesus did, if I understand I need to hear
who they are before I tell them who they need to be, then I'm laying a foundation of friendship

(48:49):
and of trust so that I have more opportunity to share my faith down the line than if I
came right at them and told them everything they need to know right away.
It's a slow growing mission field.
Developing relationships is the most important thing.
And what I have learned is not only did Esther have all of her impact because she developed
relationships, but God works through us through relationship.

(49:14):
And honestly, I've realized the only reason we're here on earth is for relationships.
With God and with other people.
And what we do and what we accomplish and what gifts and talents we have all have to
do with the people group that he's put us in and how we build relationships along the
way.
And that's exactly who Esther was.
Everything that he used in her was through building relationships.

(49:36):
She had the support and the prayers of her Jewish people because she had good relationships
with them.
She had the support and the openness of the kingdom because of her relationships with
them.
And she ultimately got her way with the king because she took the time to develop a relationship
with him.
And so those are all things that we need to remember.
We are not the ones to change the world.

(49:58):
We're the ones to build loving, solid relationships.
And then we get a chance to share our faith through that.
One of the things you said early on in there too about taking the time to understand the
culture we're trying to speak into.
That's I think one of the core fundamental areas that we so often miss.

(50:20):
And you really see though part of Esther's success was that she knew the culture of the
Persian kingdom.
She sure did.
That's why she could be shrewd.
Because she understood it.
Exactly.
She took the time so she could be shrewd.
And so she knew that she had to do certain things in order to get the king's attention

(50:42):
because at both times the king knew at the banquet, well, what is it that you request
of me?
And the first time she didn't come right out with a request.
It was like, oh, I want you to come back for another banquet tomorrow.
It wasn't the right time.
And then the next time he asked again.
And then it was finally she made the request.
But then she also knew that the king's decree was not he couldn't rescind it.

(51:07):
So she knew what to ask that would be an effective ask so that her people would not be slaughtered.
Because she knew the culture.
Because she knew the culture.
And here's the irony.
Christians who want to be missionaries, they find an organization that sends them overseas
and usually they take up to two years to prepare to go overseas.

(51:28):
They have to raise money.
They have to learn the culture.
They have to learn the language.
They have to learn the traditions.
They have to find out like a hidden people's group, what makes them tick and how do they
live there?
Nobody does that coming to Hollywood.
Why don't people take time to learn our culture, to learn the language of Hollywood, to learn

(51:49):
the traditions?
I mean, yeah, this is a completely unique culture on its own.
It's totally a hidden people's group here.
And I even called the US Center for World Missions one time and said, you know, you
left out one city and your list of hidden people's group.
And the guy laughed.
Yeah, right.
And he said, Hollywood is a hidden people's group.
And I told him all the reasons.
We have our own gods that we worship.
And sometimes our gods are ourselves.

(52:11):
Oh, yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely.
And all of the gold plated statues, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Tonys, the Emmys.
Which God could use if he wanted.
If he wanted to.
And he can.
He can use those.
Absolutely.
But they're not what you worship.
Right.
We have our own language.
We have our own traditions.
We have a, in fact, I compare the mission field of Hollywood.

(52:34):
My husband said if you take Hollywood and say it backwards, it's the Dulewa tribe.
Doesn't that sound like a foreign mission?
It does.
It's a Dulewa tribe.
Sounds like something you'd find in Africa.
There you go.
The Maasai tribe, the Dulewa tribe, it's all the same.
They have their own gods that they worship.
They have their own traditions, their own culture.

(52:55):
They're known for being polygamous.
We're known for being almost polygamous.
We have four or five wives, just not at the same time here.
The marriage and divorce rate here is so exponentially changing.
It's so hard.
And it's going to get even worse, I think, because there's this societal norm now to

(53:16):
cohabitate before marriage and they don't realize that statistically they're increasing
their rate of potential divorce if they get married from 50% to 80 or 90%.
And what's interesting is that those are non-Christian studies.
Those are just sociology and psychology studies, which is interesting.
But if we see that this is a mission field and we see that God is calling us here and

(53:39):
that we have gifts and talents he's used to bring us to this place, we have to prepare.
We have to take the time to learn what is it that we're getting into.
When people come here and they say, I've come here because God wants me to be rich and famous,
I tell them to go home.
That is the worst reason to come to Hollywood.
Rich and famous?
Oh my gosh, that's a disaster.

(54:01):
If they come here saying, I want to use the gifts and talents God's given me to be in
a place where I can love people, I can make a difference, I can bring hope and joy.
I say, come on, join us.
We are all hanging in there together.
That's what gets me excited.
I almost feel that we've already done application.
But is there anything from the story of Esther that we haven't already touched on that our

(54:25):
audience can take away?
First of all, we have to have a deep faith in God.
We have to know him, we have to study him, we have to spend time with him, we have to
listen to him.
She heard from God.
She doesn't say, there's a voice that told me this, but she turned to him and heard from
him and obeyed.
The second thing is we cannot have fear.

(54:46):
Esther had no fear.
I am on a rampage to tell people, don't be a fearful Christian.
God can't use us if we're full of fear.
We have to be bold and confident in our faith and have him bring us places, do things, say
things that will change culture, will change hearts, will change lives, and not worry about

(55:07):
what they're thinking of me or what could happen or what might go wrong.
We can't have fear.
And the third thing, we have to start with prayer, prayer and fasting, and have that
be our foundation.
And then as we're listening to God, let him use us in ways that are beyond what we could
hope for or imagine.
A friend of mine wrote a book called One Big Thing.

(55:27):
Phil Cook, great friend, and what he says was he believes God has created everybody
to do at least one big thing in the world.
And we have to find what that is.
And he believes the way we can find it is one of two things, either to think about what
are we passionate about, what do we think about all the time, what do we talk about,
what do we like to do, and maybe that's the one big thing we should focus on.

(55:51):
Or what makes us mad?
What do we hate?
What revs us up?
What do we want to change?
And that might be the one big thing.
If we can define and decide what it is that we really are driven to do something about,
we could find that purpose, we can find that big thing, and we can move forward and make

(56:12):
an eternal difference.
If we just kind of get in a mode of going to work and trying to make a living and watching
TV and hanging out with friends and, oh, I hope for the weekend, we have missed a possible
purpose that could be eternally significant.
I think Esther had that purpose.
She knew she had to do something, and she focused on it, she prayed about it, she brought

(56:35):
other people into it, and then she obeyed without fear.
And I would love every Christian to live a life like that.
As we close, let's shift back to the Hollywood Prayer Network, and for those who are Christians
in entertainment, how can they get involved?
I know we didn't really talk about this room.

(56:57):
Where are we?
We are on the campus of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.
It's actually the only church in the country that has launched five entertainment ministries.
It's a visionary church.
It stands as a beacon in Hollywood as you go down the Hollywood freeway, you see the
cross, you can't miss it driving by.
It's a place that God really decided would be the home of ministry to Hollywood.

(57:23):
So I feel honored to be a part of this.
I launched the ministry in 2001 on the campus of this church.
I've been here ever since.
They have been partners, they've been supporters, they've been co-visionaries.
It's been wonderful.
I'm here because if I'm having the Hollywood Prayer Network, I want to be in Hollywood.
I think wherever we feel called, we need to be there.
I don't want to drive in or send in letters or make phone calls to people in a place to

(57:48):
minister to them.
I want to be living with them.
I want to be side by side.
And there's a great verse in Jeremiah 29, 4 through 7 that said, God said to the people
he called into exile or Hollywood, buy houses, live in those houses, plant gardens, eat from
those gardens, have families, get spouses for your children, increase, don't decrease,

(58:10):
and seek the peace and the prosperity of the place that I have called you and pray for
it because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
And that's what the Hollywood Prayer Network is doing in Hollywood.
We have put down roots.
We live here.
We love the people here.
We minister here.
And we seek the peace and the prosperity of the people in the Hollywood entertainment

(58:33):
industry.
And as we pray for them, we too will prosper.
And that's what we've done for 21 years.
That's what we will continue to do down the line.
I just want to encourage other people to find their mission field, to pour into the people
that God has put them in the place where they're meant to be, where they use their gifts and

(58:53):
talents, to consider themselves missionaries, not people to change somebody else, but to
be in a place to love other people, to obey God, to use their gifts and talents in a place
that can encourage other people to find out about the love of Jesus, and then to trust
him so fully that he can use us to make a difference.

(59:16):
And so the Hollywood Prayer Network is online, hollywoodprayernetwork.org.
We have all kinds of ways to get involved.
We send out a bi-weekly prayer sheet.
It's a call sheet, which is what they use when they have movies and TV shows.
And we pray for the people here.
We have prayer partnerships.
I would love to have more Christians on the outside of Hollywood.

(59:38):
Take one Christian Hollywood professional to pray for as their media missionary.
We've matched thousands of prayer partners this way.
We have a Friday prayer call, one hour at 12 noon Pacific time.
We just get people on Zoom and we pray for Hollywood.
We have a kids and teen prayer calendar.

(59:58):
We have wristbands that say the zip code of Hollywood to pray for.
We have remote prayer stickers that say stop and pray for this show, and it fits on the
front of any TV remote.
I have done any crazy thing I can do to get people to pray for Hollywood.
And sometimes it's the crazy things that are the most effective.
I hope so.

(01:00:18):
I hope we touch every Christian and challenge them and mobilize them to pray for Hollywood
because prayer for Hollywood will bring cultural revival.
I truly believe that.
Well, Karen, it has been a pleasure.
Thank you.
And I want to thank you for coming onto the show today.
Oh, absolutely, Erin.
I really appreciate it.
And the best to you, too.

(01:00:40):
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Eternal Impact.
I really enjoyed our conversation with Karen, and I appreciate her sharing her vision with
the rest of you.
My biggest personal takeaway and conviction is that you can't hate someone you're praying
for.
It makes me realize how many people in the spotlight I've been critical of instead of

(01:01:03):
prayerful toward.
And that's something I need to work on.
In our next episode, we visit Kings Harbor Church in Torrance, California to talk with
Pastor Mike Johnnie about how growing up the son of immigrant parents led to him shepherding
a church in a unique part of Los Angeles.
Then we take a look at a unique story in First Samuel involving Kingsall's son, Jonathan,

(01:01:27):
and his armor-bearer facing off against the Philistines.
Please don't miss it, and make sure to subscribe and share this show with your friends.
For more information or to join our email newsletter, visit our website at eternalimpact.show.
Until next episode, I am Aaron Mathew Kaiser, and this is Eternal Impact.