Hard Faith Beginning — My First Book Release!

This is a book about my time at Adventure Bible School in New Zealand 12 years ago. This is where I converted to Christianity and began having the first ideas about telling Hard Faith stories. This is a very personal journey, but I hope that it is encouraging to others.

Purchase the book on Amazon today!

It’s been quite a journey going through this journal and reading all of the words I wrote 12 years ago. Some of this almost seems like a dream, or a movie I have seen, but then some of the journal entry days felt like I lived that moment yesterday. This is my first book I have ever published and it is something I mostly wrote more than a decade ago. This is a story that I feel like I’ve been telling in part ever since these incredible events took place. I have shared my conversion story hundreds of times in different ways and fragments but never in full.

The only people who know the events that took place are my classmates from Adventure Bible School and our ministry leaders. All of their names have been changed for their privacy, but I do miss them all and thank them all for being on this journey with me. Now publishing this journal takes me back to those sweet days of my very first child-like faith. I really cherish these memories and the stories and everything I learned. I hope that this story will hopefully help others find their faith — find their true vibrant, beautiful, messy… hard faith. This is where my hard faith began. I say it is hard faith because my story and my life didn’t get easier or simpler with this new relationship with the Lord, it only became more complicated and difficult. But He was always there, even in the deepest, darkest valleys He was always there and always good.

It was good to remember these sweet days and the new faith discoveries. I hope it is encouraging to others and ignites a passion to explore God’s Word and to engage the loving Creator of the universe who created you.

After I left New Zealand Bible School, I continued to Capernwray England the Founding School for a few more months. I still felt an unquenchable thirst for Biblical and theological knowledge so I went to seminary and earned my Masters of Theology to further explore my faith. I was introduced to what are called “faith based films” , and after watching a lot of them I realized that they were promoting a lot more health and wealth prosperity than showing the actual difficulties and darkness before conversion. I wanted to speak as honestly and accurately as I could about God as I met Him and wrestled with Him in the wilderness those years ago. After going to seminary I finally did get into NYU and went for my Masters of Fine Arts in Film afterall. I never finished that degree but I am still making films about God today.

These are not straightforward, family-friendly, rose-colored glasses films. These are Hard Faith™ films that showcase the depravity of man and the darkness of sin, yet still proclaim the goodness and steadfastness of a God who bled for us and who bled for the sins of the world.

This was my Hard Faith Beginning. My ending has not been written and neither has yours. If you are reading this book, then it is time to begin anew, or begin again, and lean into the adventure of living a life with God.I promise you won’t regret that decision! I love you and I appreciate you for taking the time to read or listen to my story. It is God’s story and no matter what you’ve done or been through- it all works in the end.

It has been 12 years since I converted to Christianity.

12 messy, contradictory, painful, depressing, searching, asking, pleading, begging, embarrassing, shameful, controversial, heart breaking, soul crushing, peaceful, loving, inspiring, incredible, safe, maturing, stumbling, shaking, moving, amazing, best years of my life.

So many times I thought my end had come, and yet the Lord has preserved me for such a time as this.

This is the personal journey of the beginning of my Hard Faith journey. Throughout most of my life I have been an avid journalizer. Some of my journals have been so personal and private that once I finish filling up the pages with blood from my soul I at once burn the books. I have burned many journals. Sometimes out of catharsis to let a dark season pass and mourn the time lost. Other times I was too embarrassed or ashamed at how the story of my life was turning out.

This journal I kept. This journal was special. It was the first time I left the country on my own and traveled the world alone. I vividly remember that cold January day in 2011 when I left my family at the Central Pennsylvania airport and traveled to the other side of the earth to New Zealand.

I didn’t know if I was making a terrible mistake but I knew I needed to make a drastic change. I just graduated college early and was desperate to finally start my life. I had a few highs and lows recently and felt like my life was already spinning apart and unmanageable at this ripe age of 21 years of life. My last semester of college I was mostly absent, working and smoking and commuting across the state of Pennsylvania. I had work and relationships back home that was a few hours away from my college campus.

I remember one time I was driving in a blizzard and despite energy shots, blaring music, and my windows down I fell asleep at the wheel after another sleepless haunted insomniac night of work and despair. I awoke swerving past a semi truck honking trying to pass me while I veered into the ditch. This happened weeks before College Winter graduation (or rather diploma in the mail shipping).

All my plans to move to Los Angeles and begin my film career in Hollywood fell apart days before the end of my last semester. No one wanted to move with me, no one wanted to hire me, and the Great Recession was still delaying opportunities to make more films or to find gainful employment.

At this point in my life I knew two things. First, I knew I wanted to make movies as a film director. Second, I knew I wanted to have meaning in my life. My former goal felt straightforward, but my latter goal felt impossible. How does one make meaning of a life? I had heard of industries of titans having worldly success and riches in life but then still feeling empty and depressed. I had seen, met, and read individuals like this enough to know I didn’t want to make it to the top of the Hollywood entertainment industry and then die feeling unfulfilled. I wanted something eternal to satisfy my otherworldly longings…

What did I do? I signed up to go to Bible School across the globe at an informal, gap-year-ish Christian camp. The Bible school was in a county I always wanted to visit and felt like it was far enough away I could really be alone with my feelings and forming beliefs to solidify what it was I believed was the meaning of life.

I think I had this great desire to find a purpose to living because I honestly felt that life overall could be pretty devoid of purpose. I had a lifelong struggle with severe depression and suicidal ideation. Throughout my youth and even my first semester of college I disappeared for months, sometimes even years in my depression. Some of my earliest memories I try to forget and consequently relived in night terrors. I never shared these struggles with anyone. I looked very put together and accomplished, but inside I was dying and bleeding out. I needed a higher purpose or power to help me, but I never put a lot of stock in this Christian God or American Jesus religion.

I had read some other comparative religious books but I did not find their theology or teachings consistent or reliable. Christianity had always seemed to be more Mickey Mouse and social club than a real life-changing religion. I had a lot of negative opinions of the whole religion and the few memories I had of being dragged to church by grandparents or hearing sermonettes at weddings and funerals left me completely unmoved.

Nothing about it seemed attractive or alluring. There were one or two youth group or Christian music festival events either kids from school or my token Christian cousins would invite us to and I thought at least some of these religious folks can have fun! But nothing felt altogether moving or attractive.

I felt hesitant about moving to Los Angeles, especially as I was waiting at this point to find out about Film School in New York City in the Fall. Somehow moving to New Zealand felt easier than going to the boulevard of broken dreams. I knew somehow, someway I was going to be successful and had always been incredibly busy. My difficulty was when things slowed down or I was alone — that was when I was most self-destructive and suicidal. I had already had some pretty great highs with making my two first feature films with a local theatrical release before my 21st birthday; after the success and the limelight I would be plunged into meaninglessness and despair.

I knew before I started my career I needed to figure out once and for all what I believed and what I identified with philosophically, religiously, and personally. I felt ready to learn more and ironically I was attending a Christian college and had even had some deep talks with friends about why they were Christians and what this faith was all about. Why I was at a Christian college as a non-Christian has a lot more to do with guilt and convenience than it did wanting to pursue a relationship with a higher power. I breezed through the religious classes and often just tried to poke holes in the professor’s lecture, always playing devil’s advocate. Anyone that was really “religious” felt a bit unhinged and immature. I wasn’t interested in college, and yet I still felt like I had missed out on the opportunity to really explore my belief system and try to make sense of my life and feelings.

When I was ready to graduate and my plans and people fell apart and away, I realized I needed to figure this shit out now. I didn’t think I would survive by myself in a harsh and expensive new home like LA. I needed to escape and explore my purpose before diving into the next education or career move. It was time.

My initial plan was to move to Europe and read the Bible at a cafe daily until I had read it all front to cover and then could decide once and for all if this was another religion I could write off. A friend of mine from college said it was a good idea but maybe it would be better if I read the Bible with other Christians and Bible teachers so I could learn under their tutelage and they could help me understand my faith and answer difficult questions I always seemed to have. This friend also said I would be less likely to go off and start my own cult if I learned with others who had dedicated their life to understanding this book. I agreed with that assessment and advice and I started searching. I found the most fun-sounding Christian school I could in the world, “Adventure Bible School”. And the name did not disappoint! I went into this school still convinced and ready to dismiss this religion like an investigative journalist. Who I found in the wilderness changed my life forever. I present to you: my journal.