Making M.A.D. Choices in a Hollywood World with Ted Baehr, MovieGuide Founder

Brad:
Welcome everyone on this episode of GoMad. Doug and I are here at NRB National Religious Broadcasters Convention and we so if you hear that little buzz in the background That's people all around us.

Doug:
All of Brad's fans clamoring to get his wait, you told me that was about a lot of noise for two people. They do. I I pay them extra.

We are so excited because today we get to talk with Ted Bear, the founder and president of Movie Guide. Movie Guide is such an amazing ministry. I don't know about you, Brad, but there are so many choices of what to watch these days.

I especially if you have streaming services, I just sit there paralyzed going Why do I watch and and what do you think? I just stare at the screen and keep punching the remote while my wife Anna gets more and more frustrated. But today on the podcast, you're gonna hear a lot of laughs, you're gonna hear a lot of wisdom from Ted.

Not just here is what to watch. Don't watch this, but actually some great stories and some great ideas about how we can yes be better ambassadors for Christ based on our choices.

Brad:
He's got some pretty amazing stories to tell, some pretty sobering statistics. And you're gonna get to hear it all on the other side of Jesse here. So everyone, let's go mad!

Jesse:
Hey friends, thanks for joining us again on GoMad. We hope you're having an awesome summer. As you heard, Doug and Brad got to chat and interview with Ted Baer, founder of Movie Guide.

Ted offers a unique perspective as someone who's lived in the Hollywood scene for pretty much his whole life. And he offers valuable insight on how to make a difference in the world that you find yourself in. Be sure to check out movieguide.

org after the episode. Ready? Let's go mad.

Doug:
So we are thrilled to be here at NRB National Religious Broadcasting. Um a great conference and we're here with Ted Bear, the head of movie guide. This is this is a special cast.

This is very exciting Most folks who are listening are gonna know exactly what movie guide is. Anytime I'm considering anything media-wise for my family, that is my first stop. Not just because there's there are websites where you can go that will say, you know, put in black and white, this is how many swear words there are and this is what's happening.

in front of you. But Movie Guide is real unique in that it also shares the idea of what's going on, the themes of what's happening and what especially your young person, but We all have to guard our hearts, so it's for adults as well. What the movie is going to be trying to communicate to you.

So I was talking with uh my brother-in-law. last night and we were talking about how we have these movies that we grow up with that we are are just so passionate about. Eighties movies.

Eighties movies. And and we were talking about how we have this great nostalgia for them And we say, I can't wait to show our kids these movies. So we show them to them and we forget, we're we're listening to we're like, oh my goodness, I forgot all of the Sexual stuff in here I forgot about all this profanity.

For me it was back to the future. And I'm I'm Goonies is another Goonies is another one I was shocked by. my children and Oh my goodness, almost immediately right guys, we're gonna just have to do this later, I think.

But uh Dad there's your story, if you could share a little bit about uh your story with us because from what I understand You got an ear with Hollywood folks, the folks that make these movies, and said, look, if you're gonna make something that's supposed to be for a family, let's actually make it for a family. So can you help us understand a little bit about how movie guide came about in your heart for it?

Ted:
How much time do we have to talk about that? Uh number one movie guide is built to help parents. and help children develop discernment and by unpacking all those things that you were shocked by and helping people understand the worldview and we have a hundred and fifty criteria I was head of a department at City University, New York in the late 70s. We got seventy sixty-two professors together, developed the first media literacy course.

I tested it. and a local church. So we've we have a system and I've written about forty books and half of them have been teaching our children to be culture wise and media wise so they don't succumb to the media.

Because the average child by the time they're seventeen years old Spends over 65,000 hours of the media, 12,000 hours in school, 2,000 hours of their parents, and if they go to church every week And it's a normal regular church, not a on fire church. They uh once a week for one hour, eight hundred hours by the time you're s who has the dominance here in that and You know, I grew up in the industry and my parents were stars. My father was a big Hollywood star.

He won the box office award in 1936. We didn't have the Academy Award until a little bit after that. So that was the award that everybody wanted, the number one box office.

And then after World War II he starred on Broadway. And I grew up you know, I summarize it to be funny, as a left wing Kami Pinko rat. I mean literally I was a left wing comminkle rat.

So please forgive me guys. And my mother died when I was young, so I was really bad and then um Four women had their eye on my father. One of them was single and she gave, she they all came to Christ through Billy Graham and they'd take them to Christian meetings.

And I'd go along to protect him and keep him from becoming a crazy Christian. And uh I'd walk out and huff and puff because I'd gone to Dartmouth and Cambridge and all the I I've got three advanced degrees. Wow, I've been a doctorate.

So I've you know, academics were easy. I the reason I went to doc to University of Munich and and Francis because I said they're pretty girls in France. I'll go to school.

They're pretty girls in England. So I'll go to England. Right.

There you go. I understand it was fun. And um So they they take and one of the women noticed that I just didn't like it.

You know, the world has I mean Dartmouth and all those Ivy League colleges have set you against you know, faith. I mean that's what they do. They tell you it's a myth, they tell you everything else.

Yeah. So one woman was so smart and I asked her years later, Would you intend to do this? She said, Read the Bible.

And every week my father would say, Audrey wants you to read the Bible. Have you read the Bible? I'm not gonna read the Bible, but you told her you would.

I was lying. I'm not gonna read the Bible. So after months of this arguing I started I'll read the little short part, the New Testament, and I started reading Matthew, and you know from your life that about sixty people sixty percent of the people come to Christ by reading the Bible.

If you're embarrassed to talk about it, give 'em the gospel of John or the Gospel of Man and it it'll bring 'em to Christ. So I Said, this is a true story. I'd always been told it was a myth.

This is something that's real. Jesus is real, and he'll give me, John 10, 10, a more abundant life. I gotta get get this.

So I went to somebody's house. I said I'd like to accept Jesus. My wife looked sick because she had abandoned the Catholic Church and bec I didn't have the Catholic Church in the background.

And she'd become a feminist and went to Rice Architecture, was on the cover of Mademoiselle and all this stuff. Oh wow. So then You know, she came to Christ five years later.

It was not easy. And then my father came to Christ seven years after I came to Christ. And it's it the whole family was swept up in my own little revival.

And I'd grown up in the industry. I'd financed five feature films. Oliver Stone's first film.

And I s when I came to Christ, I said, I made these lousy films. What can I do to help people? So we started doing movie guide and we started writing books on teaching your kids to be media-wise.

What year was Movie Guide started Movie Guide started in 1985. Wow. The ministry started you that's a good question.

Uh in 1978 And I was head of the organization that did the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe on C V S Television. Really we had thirty seven million viewers. But I said I don't need the Emmy Award.

I never collected it. They con told me years later that I could still get it. My father got a lot of awards.

I'm not here in it for awards. I teach people how to make movies. I teach people how to teach their kids to be media-wise.

So I see myself as just a servant. Which is what minister means. I just serve people, that's all.

Brad:
And this is just a tool to help people. So nineteen eighty five was I I remember some of the movies around that time was there Anything in particular, any movie or movies that triggered? Hey, we've d something's gotta be done to inform people more about what's out there.

Ted:
Well, uh to put it in another context Uh in the beginning there was only one movie with positive Christian content and it was Chariots of Fire. Oh. Watch that with my kids. Love it.

Doug:
That same song's gonna be in my head the rest of the day.

Ted:
Um m met you know, the writer and everybody else and that 'cause I was in the industry. And then it went on that I got call from Bill Bright. You knew Bill Bright.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Jesus Nazareth was Preparing to come on CBS and he said, Help, you know, they don't have a resurrection.

Bill was, you know, really wonderful. So I go and meet with Vincenzo La Bella and and uh We go to the Vatican and I get them to put a resurrection and I show my class how we structured a resurrection when they didn't have the footage. And everybody thinks it's a resurrection.

It's actually scenes I just revealed the trick. Okay. Movies are tricks.

They're not real. So we I got caught up in that, but then I said there's gotta be you gotta reach a lot of people. Right now we reach Um in January 83 million people a month that were really strong people.

Now it's up to 89 million. And I don't do anything to do that. I mean I'm talking to you and I'm sure somebody's gonna listen and go to movie god dot org, but it's a um I just see this growth because people like it.

It's it's good and it's helpful and we're here to help them.

Doug:
Ted, so we like taking road trips. Our family like taking road trips and I we got this Ford expedition. Ted is like, where are you going with this?

We're not talking cars today. I love driving this thing, but it has, I've terrified my kids a couple times because I'll start changing lanes and they're like, dad, there's a car there. Uh it's got an awful blind spot.

So it doesn't matter how many times I try to look there, I'm still gonna miss the little VW. So here's my question. Here's here's the amazing segue here.

Um I feel like entertainment is maybe American Christians' greatest spiritual blind spot. There's so much power in stories being told well. Um we we love talking about on our podcast our ambassadorship for Jesus.

We're representing him wherever we go with our co-workers, our family, especially, our children. How does what we're putting in our hearts what because obviously when when a story is told powerfully, it's uh Leonard Bernstein said what he loved about music was It bypassed the brain and went straight to the heart.

Ted:
That's the whole point. It's an emotive medium. It doesn't teach you LM learning.

I teach cognitive development area media literacy. Yeah. I was head of a department at Berkeley, you talk about crazy.

And um Yeah, but the fact of the matter is, you know, because I deal with a lot of all of this uh academic stuff. It most if not all psychiatrists would tell you, for those of you out there, that once you get the image in your mind, in fact I show clips about this from Oxford you don't get the image out. So what you see is people who got an image of sex or violence.

About seven percent of the kids want to respond to the violence. About thirty percent want to respond to the sex. Really?

About sixty percent of women want to go shopping. Wow. I like that.

There we go. So movies touch the heart But the person has to be susceptible to then go off. I mean, I just talked to somebody's here who son went was a wonderful son and he had, you know, the Hebrew name of Jesus and he was He went bonkers and he went to Kansas from here and got and stole a couple of cars and broke into a home and a blah blah blah.

But, you know, all of that gets the media because he's r he's susceptible. That and some people are not susceptible, which is another problem. And they say, Well, I saw this movie, it didn't bother me.

Yeah, yeah. That doesn't matter. I mean some people can drink alcohol and look like they're sober and some people get drunk.

You've got to know your kids, but you asked the most important question. The psychiatrist said you can't remove it, but God says if you turn to him, that he will cleanse your mind and remove that image. And you will be a new mind in Christ.

So once you become a new mind in Christ, it's God living in you that takes over and helps you live through these. Temptations and that's what they are.

Brad:
And I love that perspective because the reality is is that All the time we hear people in the body of Christ who love Jesus. They they truly passionately love Jesus, but there's com this compartmentalizing of W du it doesn't matter. It's not impacting me.

And you just completely debunk that with with I mean it's not only does the word of God support that it impacts us, science supports that it impacts us, all the the wiring of our brains. It shows that it's really important that with the old computer terminology, garbage in, garbage out. And if we're not good stewards of what we are watching, you mentioned John Ten Ten before and Entertainment, the enemy roams around like a roaring lion.

Ted:
Yeah, just steal seeking. Yeah, exactly. And then once he steals, he's got a kill, so there's no evidence. And destroy all the evidence. Oh, I like the way you put that accent.

Brad:
Well, and what I love about Movie Guide is as you were saying, Doug, it's the content side of it. So what I've been able to do because you guys have a great app too, uh so folks make sure you movieguy. org or the app movie guide download that because it's really easy to find the movie.

You guys are always adding to it. Even older movies you guys are always adding things. And I've been able to, especially with my oldest daughter, say, Hey, there this is something you'd like to watch.

Go research it and let's let tell me what you see. And so it's not just about parents using it because like you said, Doug, it is Adults need to be using this too. I use it for myself and my wife and I use it.

But you can start showing your children how to have discernment.

Ted:
And I think that's the whole point.

Brad:
That's exactly what we want to do.

Ted:
In one interview, um I'm probably gonna see the person tonight when I was on a caller called in and said my daughter wanted to go see this movie. Their whole, you know, school class wanted to see it. It was a funny movie.

And uh But you know, some of those funny movies the they get pretty baudy. But she read the review and we put in the content section uh that you know the animal's head got knocked off. It's supposed to be a joke.

Right. But it's in the movie. Right.

And they use it as a basketball or hockey puck or whatever. And she said, No, I love animals. I don't want to see it And her friend said, You come on, we're all going to see it and you probably know the movie.

But anyway And there are lots of these movies that if you help the children understand, in fact if they develop the standards I teach all this, and you say, okay, your standard is that you don't want to see animals harmed, right? Well then you don't want to go to this movie. Your standard is that you don't want to see women harmed.

Then you don't want to go Your standard is that you don't want to see people blown to pieces and you know, all the rest of it. Well then you you read about it and you say I made a decision, this isn't what I want to see. Unfortunately, Christians go to movie more movies than non Christians.

That's the reason why for every ticket for every ticket that a non Christian buys, the Christians buy two point three times Is that right? Wow. And um they're the biggest film going audience and I'm trying to figure that out.

I mean I think part of it before COVID was they thought, well I can go to this movie and it's safer than sitting at home and watching TV because then you got the ads and all the trash that comes at you. But even when you go to a movie, you're you're seeing something just like you said with Back to the Future.

Doug:
Yeah.

Ted:
That's got content That you didn't expect. So we try to help people.

Doug:
So Ted, I'm 12 years old and I don't think I've ever wanted to see a movie more in my life, Rambo. Rambo comes out, all my friends, 12, 13, they're all seeing Rambo, or they say they are. And I'm like, Rocky's in this movie.

I have to go see Rambo. So I was bugging my dad about it every day. Dad can I I wanna see Rambo, I wanna see Rambo.

So I remember we're out in the backyard and and he's he surprised me. He says, Okay, Doug, here's the deal. Now I didn't realize he was using Psychology at this point.

I'm too young to realize this, but he says, Looks me in the eye, Doug. I trust you. I love you.

I support your decisions. So sure. I will let you decide to go see it.

Because I so trust your judgment. And then of course I didn't want to see it at all because I don't want to disappoint dad. That's beautiful.

It it's all about his dad was he was serious about about winning our hearts loving Jesus versus behavior. Because I mean when you're two years old, yeah, try to control your kids' behavior. But at some point, before they're 18, before they move out of the house, if there's not a transfer uh from behavior to I just love God and and I'm winning a heart.

I I bring that up because I'm curious if there's a personal grid that you have to Determine what you're gonna l watch to what I watch, listen to, um, because you know the rating system, anyone who trusts the rating system is in trouble. Yeah, I mean if you you go and oh it's PG and and the rating system is an evil ploy.

Ted:
Before the rating system when the churches were involved through the Protestant Film Office and the Jewish Defense League and the Catholic Legion of Decency, you know, which have been all mocked in time, but they kept movies clean from nineteen thirty three to nineteen sixty six What I mean by clean is they didn't have foul language, you didn't have nudity, sex, the violence was not porno violence or whatever you have today. And then they withdrew And Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, because people stopped going to movies, went from forty-four million weekly attendance to 17 million. People weren't going to movies.

The movie industry panicked. We don't have standards anymore. They gave up the standards.

And the standards were that you wouldn't portray violence in a way that a young susceptible person would commit violence. You wouldn't portray sex in such a way that so the standards were very positive but they all fell apart. The church actually left Hollywood Hollywood didn't leave the church.

The head of Paramount Pictures, a Jewish man, said if you leave Hollywood, it's like taking the salt for the meat. The meat's gonna rot. Within three years it rotted.

Wow. And this guy, Lyndon Johnson's corrupt press press secretary came up with a rating system. But the rating system, think about it.

I mean you're you love road trips, right? Right. So you're driving through a town and you see a blinking red light where you know what You know, I mean on a store, not on the i you know, you get oh, that's alcohol, that's a place I can go to get something nefarious.

And um kids know that. They immediately know that if it's a blinking red light it's gonna or whatever the movie is, it attracts them. And it's the forbidden fruit.

We know that from Adam and Eve. So we need to be so the rating system became a way of deceiving people And back in I'm gonna meet the man who helped me do this. He was the head of a network.

Tonight I'm meeting him for for dinner. And he did a program like Entertainment Tonight talking about all the kids going to R-rated movies. And surprisingly, it was seen by a president named Bill Clinton.

Ah. And he got concerned. Why?

It was seen on a Sunday. He called all the theater owners to do a a mass call on Monday to agree to card kids. Once they started carding kids, which they had not done before in nineteen ninety eight or whatever.

suddenly the box office for our rated hit the bottom. Really? And that's why now our figures show that the more sex the less money you make, the more nudity the less money you make, the more violence the less money.

Because The biggest audience was always the kids audience. Right. Parents don't go to movie generally.

They watch it at home. Kids want to go to a movie because they want to date They don't want their parents to see them dating. They want to go to the movie theater.

They can put their arm around their date. Right. You know, they they don't have to talk because they don't know what to say.

They can go off to ice cream and talk about the movie, did you see that scene? You know. So y the kids are the audience And when you c started carding them, you removed the audience.

14 to 24 was a big audience. And um The movie industry right now, last year of the top ten, eighty percent were really strong Christian content. Um 80 70% of the movies overseas.

And I've got all these statistics. So go to movieguy. org and you can get it.

I love it.

Brad:
I have got an encouragement for you and a question about uh just kind of the current trends. Uh we work with Native American young people. Excellent.

And we uh just this past year at our first year at at uh the On Eagles Wings Leadership Center where we got more time to equip them. One of the things we taught was Entertainment choices and I just want to encourage you that I we said okay choose something choose whatever movie you want Check out movie guide and we're gonna talk about it. And so they kind of got into small groups, reported back on what they found, and one young man in particular.

changed how he views entertainment in a big way. He just even was talking to me the other day of saying, I now know I gotta I have to look at these things. and I have to see what's in it.

And it was a huge heart change for me when I started using these resources. But so you're making a difference in Native America. I want you to know that.

I love it. There is uh a lot of hope In Native America now because there are young people who are saying, Praise God, I love Jesus and I want to make a difference with my people. Um I just want to ask you the Trends in Christian media that you're seeing and faith-based films and everything, they're obviously coming out at a more rapid pace Doesn't mean they're all, you know, uh that they're all top notch or whatever else, not not criticizing them, but that's Apart from kind of the number that are coming out, what are some of the trends you're seeing that encourage you in some of the media that that's coming out?

Ted:
You know, the Irwin brothers did a little interview like this at the NRB last year and they said, Well, thank you because you kept pushing us to do better and and their films are more, you know cohesive. The trouble is and there's no trouble with Jesus Revolution, it's a good movie. And the Kendrick's brothers movies, you know, Alex Kendrick used to be my radio engineer.

They're all getting better. Right. So I'm not complaining about But in Hollywood, 60 to 70% of a movie is marketing.

And Hollywood spends $50 million a year on marketing. And my friend who's a left wing Tommy Pinko rat, Jeffrey Katzenberg that I love dearly, he he lost control of DreamWorks because if he was gonna pay twenty million dollars to ABC to put on ads Who got the money? Disney, because they own ABC.

If he bought the time on NBC, who got the money? Universal Pictures, cause they own it. Uh if you do I CBS, Paramount Pictures So he was funding with Shrek and everything his enemy.

I mean his competitor. Maybe I should put that in more gentle terms. So when you're doing this and most Christians don't even think about marketing, but I've seen movies that are really good Christian movies.

They open to three or four million dollars. And meanwhile, London is falling, w you know, which is Gerard Butler's worst film in a in a pack of bad films. There are a few of those.

Made a hundred and ten million that weekend. Now why does that happen? marketing.

Disney, which some people don't like now, for a year is speaking to your children. Saying Little Mermaids coming out. You know, and the rule in marketing is that six months out, you want half the country to know about it Little mermaids coming out.

And then by the the month before it opens, you want 90%. Well, Christians don't do that. I I talk to people all the time.

Oh I didn't know Nefarious was coming. I didn't know Jesus Revolution. I didn't know about these movies.

So we've got to get with the program. It's a business. There's a way to run the business and no matter how high quality If nobody knows about it, nobody's gonna go to the movie.

Doug:
Ted, we uh time flies when we have a great guest. I know. And we know you've got other interviews today. I've got one re

Ted:
Soon.

Doug:
So let me ask you this last question here. Um you're sitting uh we're in a podcast booth here. But yeah, when actually you are sitting across from a uh dad, their uh mom who are listening right now, um if you could look them in the eye and tell them one thing to encourage them about their choices about especially they want their kids to be ambassadors for Christ so much affects young people when they're growing up. What would you you're looking them in the eye right now, you're encouraging them. What would you tell them

Ted:
Well, the movies are getting the Hollywood movies are getting more Christian. You know, if I told you there was a movie out about Satan trying to woo the bride of Christ and there's a movie where there where he's got a lake of fire and he's got susp people suspended above the lake of fire and he's practicing with his little demons, his talk to the bride of Christ, you know, I'm gonna be good if you marry me. I'm gonna be great.

I mean this sounds like a biblical movie, like a Christian. It does. But it it made a billion two hundred million within four weeks.

Doug:
Oh my god.

Ted:
Oh my goodness.

Brad:
Okay, now I just I'm I gotta unpack that one for a little bit. I'll circle back.

Ted:
But now you do that. That's amazing. You know, we've been encouraging.

We do the numbers, we give it to people at Argela, and we see more and more of 'em like, you know, one Jewish producer who's a friend, a close friend, God bless him. And um He came to the Gallup and he was making big films, but you know, some of them were pretty s sleazy. One of 'em was Simple dumb and dumber.

That's not clean, a hundred percent clean. So don't worry about it. But he um said, I can make films for my kids now.

And he started making most of the Hallmark movies and now he's making more most of the G G I C movies. We had a Muslim who'd done 150 films in the number one film on ABC. uh many series.

He came to Christ at the Gala. Oh wow. So we have a lot of people come to Christ.

We have a lot of people who change their attitude about what they're doing. A friend of mine who's the one of the heads of uh Netflix, they hired a woman to be in a Christian to be in charge of the films and they hired a Christian to do those not all the films. But some of the films to have c strong Christian content and some of the uh television another woman for that and I met with her.

And they did Blue Miracle, which is oh yeah one of the best movies of all time. So actually we see These changes taking place. The average movie in Hollywood, if you think it's instant pudding, takes thirteen years.

Wow. And you think about that top gun, how long did it take between the You probably weren't born when the first Top Gun was out. I think just just by a few years.

Yeah, that we had it. I remember uh Tom Gun bring it out thirty-six years later, thirty-five, whatever it is. Yeah.

And same thing with Avatar. I mean, it took thirty years. Movies take a long time.

Yeah. And they involve and if Can I go in one little more direction and then we've got a wrap and I gotta go to. Um the problem is that a a a big budget movie, let's say Dune, 200 million dollars, you're orchestrating the whole movie Uh a lot of the Christian movies don't have S budgets.

They have maybe a three million dollar budget. Right, right. And they can't afford to take an extra shot and you can't afford to do this.

Sure. But what'll happen is We go from an entertainment to melodrama. So Disney said for every tear you have to have a laugh.

So in Bambi, when Bambi's mother shot, the next scene is Thumper. It's funny. Because if you leave them down in the tier in the hospital bed, people get my wife is on chemo, she watch I watch a lot of Christian movies in the hospital bed.

You know, it's it's it's melodrama. Yeah. It becomes artificial.

Right. So you need the money and you need to orchestrate the movie, you need to have laughs and all sorts of things I mean the scene in Super Mario Brothers where Satan is, you know, hanging people in trouble like a fire is pretty funny. Right.

Yeah. All that is funny. But you're not thinking about it at that time.

Right. And and same thing with Guardians of Galaxy. They actually it's pro-life, it's anti-abortion, it's anti manipulation.

And you know, they just woo wove in and and Rocket goes to heaven and they say there's somebody else controlling the universe, not this mad scientist and yeah. It's not time for you at That interesting I'm still complaining about that 'cause my wife died last year and I want to go in. I can't understand why.

God is God, what are you doing here

Doug:
Well I I will say Ted is way more up on the movies than I am right now. It's been a busy season, but this week we're in Orlando. I'm actually seeing both of these movies this week. Oh I've seen the Mario and um Mario's a fun movie. And and we're also gonna check out uh the Indiana Jones movie, I think.

Ted:
So I have not seen Fast X He's the most Christian person they've done. Really?

Doug:
There's gotta be writers. There's gotta be some writers that are jumping in there.

Ted:
We just tell them they can make more money. That's all.

Doug:
There we go. So We uh the the name of the program, Go Mad with Doug and Brad, um my dad would say we'd be walking out the front door. to school and he'd yell, people thought we were crazy.

He'd say go mad. Go mad is make a difference. So go make a difference.

And that's what we love about movie guide, about Ted Bear. Thank you for making such a great difference in so many families

Brad:
I'm gonna pray for you real quick and then you can run, all right. Heavenly Father, thank you for Ted. Thank you for his ministry.

Uh I I don't know if everyone would views Movie Guide as a ministry, but it is, and it's a ministry to us. It has uh helped us along the way and helped our families and we just pray that you would continue to have a hedge of protection around movie guide, around all those reviewers. We know it goes beyond Ted that there's people that are reviewing those that are seeking to see things the way you see them.

And we pray that you would continue to help them to be a voice that helps people learn discernment, not just a go see this, don't go see this, but how to process it and how to think through the entertainment choices they're making. We pray you'd be with Ted also. Um we uh know we saw Our dad just uh with the loss of our mom years ago and uh that's hard.

Um and um I can't imagine what all he's been through and grief is a long journey and we just pray for him as he continues to walk through that. Absolutely. And that you'd just be very real, very close to him, and that uh you we know you're close to the brokenhearted and we pray he would feel that We thank you for uh him being with us today, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Ted:
Amen.