The Evangelism Podcast features Daniel King interviewing Josh Newell from the Jesus Film Project. The Jesus Film, originally created in 1979, has been translated into over 2,250 languages and serves as a powerful evangelism tool by presenting the Gospel of Luke in people’s heart languages. The Jesus Film Project provides multiple resources for evangelists, including a mobile app offering access to 2,200+ language versions of the gospel, downloadable clips for sermons, and portable backpack-sized projector units that have distributed over 10,000 units in the past year to missionaries and church planters worldwide.
https://youtu.be/2fn_Z87cF5Y?si=krRdcyNnFrFHIIm1
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Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Josh Newell from the Jesus Film Project. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (00:13):
Thanks, Daniel. It’s great to be with you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
Now we are in Thailand in the city of PIs low, right in the middle of Thailand, and we are here for a great big festival. We started last night on a university campus here, and many university students came and we’re so happy because you and some of the Jesus film people from here in Thailand came to participate. And the team from Crew Campus Crusade for Christ here in Thailand has come to help us talk to the students here on campus. And so kind of tell us what your team here in Thailand has been doing.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (00:57):
Well, like you said, the Campus Crusade Thailand team has been all in to help do whatever we can to motivate students on the campus to come tonight to the events in the last night, the previous night. And I think what’s amazing about what you’ve been doing is giving people who really haven’t heard about Jesus at all an opportunity to hear about him. So we’re excited about that today. We spent time on the campus just talking to students, inviting them to come as many people as possible. We’re passing out flyers along with the Korean volunteers that we’re doing that. And just getting into conversations with students and hearing about maybe where their spiritual soil is at this point was really fun today. So thanks for letting us be a part of it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:43):
Well, we’re very honored to have you here. Now, the Jesus film has become one of the greatest tools for evangelism in history. And I’ve actually used the Jesus film for many years. My parents were missionaries in Mexico, and so we would go out into the streets, into churches and we’d show the Jesus film. And then as I’m traveling to do crusades in different nations, often I will use one scene from the Jesus film to show a miracle that Jesus did or show some part of the Jesus story and then I’ll preach from it and people love that. And then sometimes when we do crusades, when the sun goes down, we will have a movie night and thousands of people will be sitting on the ground sitting and watching the Jesus film. And so what a tremendous tool it is for the kingdom of God.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (02:36):
It is amazing. Everything that you just said is still all striking to me as well because you think about a movie that was made in 1979, but it has now been translated into over 2,250 languages.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:50):
Wow.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (02:51):
There’s an incredible global reach. And I think some of the things that you talk about in terms of how widely used it’s been, it’s been because it’s the word of God on film and a language that people can understand and with a clear opportunity to receive Jesus and have a relationship with him. And that’s where I think partnership comes in so beautifully. We do our part and you do your part. The church does its part together. We’re making Christ known
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:20):
Now here in Thailand, we’ve been using the Jesus film with our gospel trucks. And so I came to do a youth crusade back in November, and we had a driver who was driving us around, and he was a Buddhist driver. We knew he was Buddhist because right on the dashboard of the bus, he had a little Buddhist figure. So we were there, we did a three night event, and each night we were showing the Jesus film and he sat in the front row and watched the Jesus film every night for three nights. And we went and asked him, what, what’d you think? He says, the story has touched me so much. And so we prayed with him, and then some of our team members were giving away a little figurine. It was like a little rubber figure of Jesus. And so the next day we noticed that he had put the Jesus figure there on his dashboard next to the Buddha figure, but we were like, wow. The Jesus story impacts people’s lives. Sure does. Tell us some testimonies of what the Jesus film is doing around the
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (04:29):
World. Yeah. It’s really about giving everybody a clear opportunity to follow Jesus in their, and we really believe that people hearing the gospel in their heart language is the fastest way to connect and resound the most spiritual note that we all have, which is a longing whether we acknowledge it or not, to connect with our creator. And of course, Jesus is the way to do that. And lifting up his story, his life, his death and his resurrection as told from the Gospel of Luke is so clear and compelling. And so when it’s shown whether it’s in a gospel truck in Thailand or in any one of the other countries on Earth, what is happening is that there’s a breakthrough. One of our partners who shows the Jesus film in India and throughout all of South Asia says that this isn’t a movie. It’s God creating a breakthrough in the spiritual darkness. It’s the power of God showing up. And that’s what we really believe. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:31):
Amen.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (05:31):
When that happens, people respond in ways that unless you’ve seen it, you probably wouldn’t believe it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:40):
One of the tools that you’ve developed that I really love a lot is the Jesus film app. And so if you go to the app store, you can just type in Jesus film and I think you’ll be able to find it. And when you put it on your phone, then it has the Jesus film, but it’s not just in English. It’s in many different languages from around the world. And so this is such a cool tool because if you meet someone from a different country and say, what is the language of your mother tongue that your mother spoke to you when you’re a little child? And they’ll say it, you can look up the Jesus film in that language and you can show them just a segment from the Jesus film and say, watch this. And I’ve used this before. When people hear in their mother tongue the language of what their mother spoke and they hear Jesus speaking that it has such a tremendous impact on their lives.
(06:40):
And so I also was on your website today, the Jesus film website, and we needed a clip for tonight’s service. And so I went on there and I was able to find the Jesus film in a bunch of different languages, and I was able to download a clip for using in our service tonight. And so if you’re an evangelist, this is a great tool that you can use. If you want to preach from the Jesus film, you can download a segment in any language that they have available and use it in your preaching. This is a tremendous tool and you guys are giving this free of charge for people around the world. It’s such a huge blessing.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (07:19):
Well, I mean, you think about what do evangelists need? They just need the Holy Spirit and go, but if they had a tool to cross over into anybody’s language or culture, how much more effective could they be?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:34):
Oh, it automatically came on here.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (07:37):
What’s your heart language?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:39):
Yeah, that’s probably
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (07:40):
Thai.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:42):
Yeah,
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (07:43):
But you’re right. That’s why we designed that app is so that everybody could have access to 2,200 plus languages of the gospel in their pocket. So at any point you could be with somebody, and I do this a lot when I take an Uber or when I’m traveling or even this afternoon when I was on campus, I could sit across from somebody and let Jesus do the talking. And when people experiences his story, then everything changes because they’re having a personal encounter with Christ. And so that makes my job as an evangelist quite easy at that point. What do you think about Jesus is the easy next question. And then the whole conversation just takes a meaningful turn instead of just talking about surface things where you have to work your way through to get to the gospel sometimes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:32):
Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about your story. You’ve been with Crew for many years. You get started with crew, and then what are some of the things you’ve done with them over the years?
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (08:44):
Well, hey, it was at a conference like this for students that I heard about the Great Commission really for the first time in a way that made sense to me. And the speaker was talking about showing Jesus film in different languages. And it never occurred to me that there were people all around the world who couldn’t read or write. And so even if they had access to the Holy Bible in their language, they wouldn’t be able to understand it. So there needed to be a oral and visual way to experience Jesus in the way that I just kind of like to describe that is that no one should have to learn another language to hear Jesus say, I love you. And I think about that a lot because what you’re doing tonight for thousands of Thai students hopefully, is connecting the dots with a spiritual note that they may not even know that they had and pointed them to Jesus Christ.
(09:37):
And last night you showed the Jesus film called Me the Storm, or Jesus called me the Storm. That was the clip that you showed. And I think it’s so powerful when you can see with your own eyes who Jesus is as told from the scripture. So all of those things are some of the key ingredients and why it’s a tool that regardless of where you are in the world or what language you speak, or if you’re male or female, young or old, or what profession you have, Jesus can connect with where you are right now. And the Jesus film is a great way to share that truth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:13):
We have a lot of evangelists, missionaries, pastors that listen to the Evangelism podcast, and I know that crew has a bunch of different tools available to help people with evangelism. What are some of the different tools that you offer people that are available
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (10:31):
To
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:31):
Help people out?
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (10:32):
So including the Jesus film, there’s a tool that we’ve long used called the Four Spiritual Laws, started out as a booklet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:39):
Sure. Dr. Bill Bright, I think was the first to use the four spiritual laws, and I’ve used that so many times over the years. It’s such a great presentation of the gospel.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (10:48):
It’s a great tool to have in your toolbox and a lot of other tools. It clearly represents that God loves you, has a plan for your life. Sin came into the world, world is broken as a result, but there’s a pathway through Jesus, and all you have to do is receive them. Those are the four laws. Well, for today’s generation, pamphlets aren’t always the best way to communicate, and so we’ve developed something called the four, which is just four visual pictures describing each one of those four laws and put it on bracelets or on shirts, on swag, on the apparel. It gets a conversation started and you can easily say, Hey, this heart represents God’s love for you, et cetera. So those are some of the ways that the four laws and other tools like that that we’ve had have crossed over. But today, on college campuses all around the world, people are sharing their faith, starting with their personal testimony, and regardless of what tool you use, the success criteria is never what can I do to communicate. It’s about communicating in the power of the Holy Spirit and letting the results stay in God’s court. I’m just a vessel. You’re just a vessel for the Holy Spirit to work through, and you have to be willing and able to communicate that, but ultimately he’s in charge of the fruit. It takes a lot of pressure off, don’t you think?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:10):
Yeah. Another cool tool that you’re using here in Thailand is a little backpack sized unit with a projector and a mini sound system, and your team came and gave some of the people that we had trained in evangelism, some backpack units, and they’ve been taking that out and showing people the Jesus film. And in nations where it’s difficult to preach the gospel, this is a great tool to be able to reach the unreached.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (12:42):
Yeah, those backpacks we’ve sent out over 10,000 in the past year to different missionaries, different church planters around the world. My favorite story that I heard recently was from the Democratic Republic of Congo, A nation, if you know it is just in
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:58):
Conflict.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (13:01):
The story starts actually with a farmer who is kidnapped and hilfer ransom along with 12 other farmers because his family was poor, they couldn’t pay the ransom to the kidnappers. The kidnappers put them all into this tiny little shack in a remote village. No one knew where they were and said, if your families don’t pay tomorrow, we were going to execute you all. And so they prayed because they didn’t know what else to do. None of them really followed
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:30):
Jesus. That’s where you really start to pray.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (13:32):
Yeah. That’s when it comes into focus like, okay, I’m not sure I even believe in God now. I believe God, if you’re there, help me out. Well, that night, as they’re in the shack waiting their fate through the slits in the board of the door, they could see a light coming up in the middle of the village and then a movie projector start, and there’s a video projector from a backpack that we had given to a church planter who had the Lord had used to come to that village that particular night, and who was in the crowd, but the kidnappers themselves hearing the gospel in their own language. And at the end of it, when the evangelists preached and asked, would anybody like to give their lives to Jesus, the four kidnappers said, yes, we want to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:19):
Give our lives
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (14:19):
To Jesus. They gave their lives Jesus and immediately went back to the shack where they were holding the 12 captives, opened up the door and said, you’re set free. So what I love about that story, of course, is the miraculous timing of God, but also the faithfulness of evangelists to go. They had no idea that what was in that shack. They had no idea who was going to be in the crowd. They were sewing broadly in backpacks or apps or four laws, whatever, preaching. These are ways to communicate the gospel. Only God knows what the soil is, and our job is to simply spread the good news as far and wide and as often as possible.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:06):
Amen. Well, I so appreciate what you’re doing. If someone wants to help to sponsor a backpack unit or to be a part of spreading the Jesus film around the world, what is a good website they can go to find more information?
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (15:22):
Pretty easy. Jesus film.org, one word Jesus film.org. You can go online and find ways that you can be a part of either financially or prayerfully supporting the work. I really appreciate this time that we’ve had together and really appreciate that you’re coming to Thailand to share the good news of Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:38):
Thank you. We are so happy that you guys are here, and I’m really praying that out of this outreach that we’re doing this week, that a new campus ministry will be raised up here in Pilo, Thailand, and that the Jesus film will continue to be used all over Thailand and all over Southeast Asia. For the glory of God,
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (16:02):
Only 2% of ti follow Jesus, 2%, less than 2%. So the opportunity is enormous. You’re stepping into that need. So thanks again.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:15):
Thank you, Josh for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Josh Newell – The Jesus Film (16:17):
Appreciate you, David.
