[0:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of Tell Us a Good Story. For only the fourth time in show history, we have a repeat guest, Hollywood filmmaker, media consultant, and author, Mr. Phil Cook. You guys, Phil had so many fun stories to share, from what he has done as a filmmaker just to get something on camera, to a hilarious story of him with John and Joel Osteen from years ago. And as a filmmaker, how hard is it for Phil to sit in the back row of a movie theater and watch people react or not react to something that he produced. This includes a great story about the time he produced a film about Billy Graham and they hated it. Yes, Steph, you would be devastated. Oh, absolutely. I would. You guys, we can’t wait for here. This very fun conversation with someone we truly admire. Mr. Phil Cook. I’m Kevin. And I’m Stephanie. And during our marriage, we have dealt with an electrocution, a brain tumor, brain surgery. Then doctors telling us that children were not in our future, followed by miscarriage, and then Kevin’s cancer diagnosis. However, today we live a life completely healed and restored with three healthy children who doctors said were not possible. And we’re here to tell stories that inspire, give hope, and brighten your day. Welcome to Tell Us a Good Story.

[1:18] Okay, friends, before we get to this episode, just a friendly reminder to please hit the subscribe button on YouTube and Apple podcast or give us a review. Five stars, please. In our world, this is super, super important because it will help with the algorithm to make it easier for people to find us. And thank you for sharing our posts across your social media. That really helps with engagement and with us getting guests. Yes. So, hey, if you want us to keep working our way up to talking to Chip and Joanna, please share us with your friends. But regardless, thank you for listening to tell us a good story. All right, Steph. He’s back. He’s back, Kevin.

[1:55] He is back. I’m so excited about this. This is going to be great. Well, friends, our next guest has many titles. He’s a film producer, writer, media consultant, professional speaker, founder and CEO of the Cook Media Group, and is author of the newest book titled Church on Trial, How to Protect Your Congregation, Mission, and Reputation During a Crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Tell Us a Good Story, Mr. Phil Cook. Phil Cook!

[2:20] I need to carry you guys around to do my intros for everything. Every time. We’ll be here for you. I love it. Love it. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you for saying yes to us. So, Phil, you were episode 47 of Tell Us a Good Story. This is episode 224. And we talked to you, literally, it was November of 2020 stuff. So you were in that very first season. and I can’t thank you enough for saying yes to us then and saying yes to us now and because a lot has changed. So very excited to catch up with you. Well, you guys are fantastic. Of all the podcasts I do, I really enjoy this one because I love the whole premise about telling a story because it’s so important really in every aspect of our lives. So anytime you call, I’m here. Oh, thank you, sir. That’s awesome. Okay. The first thing I’m thinking about, Phil, is you do a lot of work with churches, with media, with non-profits, if I’m in your shoes, I would know too much. Can you go to a church service, Phil, and just enjoy yourself with your wife? Or is it constantly like, oh my gosh, the church graphics are terrible. Or the font they’re using for this song is too small. They need to do this. Can you actually just go there and enjoy yourself?

[3:32] That is actually a spectacular question. And I learned to get over that when I was in film school and I started out my career here in LA and film, I used to go to movies and see stuff that drove me nuts, all kind of bad lighting, bad script, bad technical stuff. And it started happening in church the same way. And I had to actually force myself to just, you know, tune that out, focus on the service. Otherwise I sit there the whole church service. In fact, I’ll tell you something funny. you know, I have the greatest respect for church media director because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go to a, I couldn’t work for a church that I attended on Sunday. Right. I’d constantly be thinking about that stuff. Yes. So we go to, we happen to go to a church here in LA that doesn’t care about my advice at all. They don’t listen to anything I have to say. Sounds like my wife. It actually, yeah, very much. It actually makes for a great experience because I could go in and worship and not worry about what the lighting is like, or the music cue is off or camera work or whatever. So yeah, that is a problem. And I had to really get to a point where I forced

[4:34] myself to move past it. Oh, that’s good. That is good. Okay. I have a question. The last time we spoke to you, I think Kevin mentioned, did you go to Oral Roberts University?

[4:43] I did. Okay. So what was your major there? Film and television. I started as a music major. It was film and television. I was a preacher’s kid and I didn’t know anything about film and television. I enrolled in music Because, you know, back in the 60s and 70s, being a preacher’s kid, the job requirement was to play the piano. So I enrolled in music.

[5:03] And then I met the faculty. I met the faculty at ORU and realized they were serious. So I got out of there really fast and enrolled in film and television. And I’ve never looked back. It’s been fantastic. That’s funny because I’m a pastor’s kid as well. The requirement was, once I got to teenager, I had to play the drums. Okay, you don’t have a drummer? Okay, my son here, you play. And you’re like, okay, I’ll do my best, right? Like self-taught, no training. Figure it out, right? You got to figure it out. Really true. Really true.

[5:32] Okay. So any pinch me moments, Bill, as you’ve gotten into your career, right? Because you have a very diverse background. Any pinch me moments in regards to being asked to do a project or someone wanting to work with you?

[5:45] Oh, yeah. A million of them. I mean, one of my great pinch me moments was when I first decided to enroll in film and television. You know, it’s funny. In high school, I had a group of guys, friends, and we made movies all the time, never thinking for a minute we could do this for a living. We had my dad’s Super 8 movie camera. That’s how old I am. Film, three minute little reels. And we made army movies and space movies and mafia movies. Never thought about doing it for a living. Go to ORU in Tulsa, decided to take my movies and my camera thinking maybe I’ll find some people here that would like to do it. The first day I’m in school, I’m opening my suitcase and some of the films fell out. And the guy crossed the hall of the dorm said, hey, I’m taking a film class. I can show you how to edit those things. I didn’t even know you could cut film. That’s how ignorant I was. Anyway, that night we went down to the film department and we’re working on my little movie. And the professor was there working on some project of his. And on his way out late in the evening, he stops by, introduces himself and said, you know, I’ve been watching your little movie out of the corner of my eye. And he said, it’s better than most of the kids I’ve worked with for years. He said, I’ve got kids that have taken class for years and don’t do this well. Could I show your movie in my class tomorrow? And I said, sure, if I can sit on the back row. So sat on the back row the next day, thread the projector, showed my little movie. And believe me, it was nothing spectacular. But after it was over, they talked about it.

[7:06] And this idea hit me. I had this crystal clear moment of revelation that I don’t think I’ve had before or since that if I can do something with a camera that makes people talk like this, that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life. And I literally changed my major that day, enrolled in film and television, and I’ve never looked back after all these years. Wow. Okay. So how hard is it to sit in the back row and it’s the premiere of whatever you’ve worked on? You’ve done months, right? Of edits in the back room. How hard does it feel to sit in the back row and watch people’s reactions? Like, shouldn’t they be laughing here? Shouldn’t they be crying here? here. Like how hard is that?

[7:44] No, it is hard. It is very, very hard. And also it’s amazing. I mean, when something hits, when you see people cry at the right moment, or you see people get caught up emotionally at the right moment, it’s the greatest feeling ever. So it’s a mix. There’s no question about it because the things you expect, the audience doesn’t always respond to. And the things you don’t expect, sometimes they do respond to. So it’s a real mix, but it can be very, very nerve wracking. I know film directors here in LA that won’t go to their premieres, Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So it can be very emotional. Any projects that you’re going into or you’re at the very end and you’re just like you’re starting to get scared, like there’s a fear that comes over you like, oh, this isn’t the direction I was thinking it was going to go. And it’s kind of turned to 180. Any situations that that you found yourself in?

[8:31] Every project I do, when I finish it, I think I should have done it differently. Yeah. I mean, every book I write, as soon as I finish it and see it in print, I think, why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that? So, yeah. I mean, you know, it’s so funny. I live in Hollywood here in LA, and people talk about, I live with no regrets. Well, I have no idea what that’s like, because I live with a billion regrets. You know, every time I produce something, I wish I’d done something differently. So, it’s really, that’s a great question. and it’s really true. I don’t think about that very often, but every project, I wish I’d done it differently. Oh, Phil, I don’t ask my wife about regrets because I don’t want to open that door because she’ll tell me. Yes, I will. The marriage. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don’t ask about that.

[9:17] That’s a good, that’s a good thing. That’s really good. Well, you know, it’s funny that people ask me, what’s your favorite book or what’s your favorite project? I always say the next one because I’m usually dissatisfied with my last one, no matter how good, bad, or ugly it is. So I’m always moving forward which I think is a good thing for sure absolutely okay I have a question the fact that you just said that has there ever been a project that you’ve been a part of where you’re like I am so proud of this like I gave it my all and I’m sure you give your all and everything but this it just kind of everything came together yes your heart was in this production.

[9:52] We did a project a number of years ago for Billy Graham, of all people, and they came to us and said, we’d like to do a one-hour television special that somebody who would never be interested in watching a Billy Graham program would actually watch. And so we took them at their word and we went way, way out there. It was kind of like Billy Graham meets MTV. We opened it with a guy committing suicide in his car. And when we did the final cut, we sent it to the ministry and the ministry leadership hated it. I mean, they absolutely hate it. The number two guy at the ministry at the time said, this will never be broadcast. This is not what we’re about. And we were just devastated. And one of his guys on the inside of the ministry told me that this was back in the VHS days. Remember when we sent screeners that way? And he left her VHS screener sitting on his coffee table. And they told me that his wife came in later and put it in the machine, not knowing what it was. And she watched it. And they told me later with tears in her eyes, she told her husband, look, I don’t know what this is, but people should see this. And so they broadcast it. It was a global three night event. They put us in the middle thinking most people would skip over that night.

[10:58] And the LA Times, Los Angeles Times newspaper reported that it generated a million calls of people calling for salvation. Oh my gosh. You’re talking So it’s a great lesson in being true to what you feel God’s called you to do and being true to your creativity, because it was one of the rare, rare, rare, rare situations where I had a client that just did not like it at all. And but it turned out that it was right on target. So and trust me, the Billy Graham people are great people. They’ve done some remarkable things and we were honored to work with them. But it was just a great case where their vision for something and our vision for something conflicted and it ended up that it turned out to be a super successful program. All right, Steph, I’ve got a question for you. What’s your favorite book of all time? Obviously, You Met Her Where? Oh, I thought you were going to say the Bible. Oh, oops. What’s your second favorite book of all time? You Met Her Where?

[12:01] It’s just the second. Totally distant. It’s a pretty good book. Sorry, God. It’s still a pretty good book. But we’re so excited. Where can people get our book? Okay, I know this. Amazon.com. Yes. Barnes & Noble. Yes. And our website, kevinandsteph.com. And what happens if they buy it off our website? What do they get? An autograph from us. Yes. Who wouldn’t want that? So listeners, if you’ve already read the book, thank you so much. We’ve had such good feedback. One thing that helps us, if you can give us a review on amazon.com, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. And thank you for listening.

[12:39] So Phil, you are one of, I believe, four repeat guests of Tell Us a Good Story. Okay. Okay, so on that very first episode, and Grant, we’re 224 here. On the first episode, the thing I learned from you was you had said, everyone has a story, but everyone can’t share their story very well. Few people actually do a good job of sharing their story. And we’ve actually learned that. Yes, we have. Sometimes the hard way. So how you share your story matters. So can you talk a little about, I know it goes into your book as well, which we’ll get to in a few minutes. But can you talk about how telling your story matters, whether it’s at the PTO meeting, whether it’s at the church board, whether it’s at church media? Can you share a little bit about that? Years ago, I used to host a media conference here in Hollywood called the Biola Media Conference, Biola University sponsored. My wife, Kathleen, and Peggy Ruppel co-directed it. And I would host it. And we would have major, major producers, studio heads.

[13:39] We had the chairman of Walt Disney Studios there one time. We had just the Lord of the Rings guy. Oh, my God. Winter, who produced X-Men, Wolverine, Planet of the Apes. Major speakers. What we found out there was very often the most high profile people with the most amazing stories and the most incredible careers could not articulate that at all. I mean, they were horrible speakers. Yes. And so in those cases, I would interview them because I could pull things out of them that they weren’t capable of delivering. And so I learned early on that no matter how great your story is, if you can’t express it well, you fail. Yes. So I think that if we spent more time learning how to speak well. I’ve got a whole library of books on how to do presentations well, how to speak well, how to be more comfortable on the stage. I’ll tell you, if we would take the time, and it’s hard, but to take the time and learn to do it, it would transform how we tell our story and it would transform the impact that story has on people. Yes, 100%. Because Phil, I’ve been in the business world pretty much my whole career, right? I can’t tell you the number of times, Phil, where I’m in meetings with executives, I’m I’m in meetings with senior management and then they get on stage for a town hall or a quarterly earnings call. And it’s like, what happened to this person? Right. What happened to this big personality I saw two hours ago? And then they get on stage and they can’t share their story very well. So true.

[15:03] Yes. And you know what? It’s not just on the stage. It’s anywhere. I was partners in a TV commercial company a number of years ago here in Santa Monica.

[15:10] And we did Super Bowl commercials, super high end company, super high end commercials.

[15:15] But we had one director who was a genius behind the camera. He was brilliant. I mean, absolutely brilliant. Every agency that saw his reel and saw his work wanted to hire him. The problem was he was so inarticulate. We could not allow him to be in a conference room with our clients without one of us partners being there. We couldn’t allow him to be on a conference call with a client without one of us being on the call. He was so terrible expressing himself. And so even though his reel was amazing, once an agency worked with him, they would never work with him again. So he was just so difficult to communicate with. And he could not express his ideas well. We worked with him and struggled with him, but he wasn’t really interested in learning. He thought he was past that because he was an artist. And it was tragic because now his career is pretty much over simply because he won’t take the time to learn how to tell a story.

[16:11] If you like what you hear please tell someone about us as soon as this episode is over go tell your spouse your closest friend a parent a co-worker or share one of our posts on social media however if you don’t like what you’re hearing please do not don’t tell anyone don’t tell anyone don’t tell anybody just disregard this message don’t worry about it about us yeah go on with your merry day and to get more information about us or our entire catalog of episodes be sure to check us out at kevinandsteph.com thank you for listening to to tell us a good story.

[16:41] All right, Steph, let’s pivot here. Okay. All right, Phil. Yeah, that was depressing. That’s depressing. Let’s move on to something else. No, I love that! No, not at all, Phil. I loved it. All right, Phil. For all of our guests, I like to give a list of fun facts to let listeners know what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished. And Steph is not aware of any of these, okay? So you’re going to see her genuine reaction, and this should spurn some fun conversation here, some stories. All right, Steph, you ready for this? All right, fun fact number one. Phil is rare. He is a working producer in Hollywood with a PhD in theology. He has three degrees, like you mentioned earlier, Oral Roberts,

[17:19] Oklahoma, and then his PhD in theology at Trinity College and Seminary. He’s lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, and Yale, and is a visiting professor at Oral Roberts University.

[17:32] So what is it like, Phil, to be a person of faith living in Hollywood around very liberal, very agenda-driven society, right?

[17:42] This isn’t like you’re in the middle of Franklin, Tennessee. to see. You are literally right smack dab in the middle of it. So what is that like living there? You know, I’ll tell you something. I tell people that are Christians and are coming to Hollywood that I don’t think Hollywood is anti-Christian. They’re just not, they don’t know anything about it. They’re completely ignorant of all things Christian. These are people for the most part who didn’t grow up in church. They didn’t have a Christian family. They just don’t understand it. So one thing I’ve always learned is that don’t lead with your faith, lead with your skill. Yes, yes.

[18:30] They get respect first. And once they get that respect, then they’ll listen to anything you have to say. Just be who God has called us to be. I just have discovered that it’s not as weird as people think. I mean, actually, there are people in Hollywood that worship rocks and hug trees. So being a Christian is not that weird.

[18:49] But if you’re good at what, if you’re great at what you do, that respect will win over people. And then they’re happy to listen to whatever you have to say. So that’s the key for me. Oh, that’s good. That is so true. Like you don’t have to project, you know, what your faith is, but eventually people will just see a different side of you. They’re going to see the proof. They’re going to see the evidence. They’re going to see the evidence. I wrote a blog post years ago. I wrote a blog post. You don’t have to have a fish with a cross on the back of your business card. Yes. Just be a Christian and people will notice. So yeah, I think you’re exactly right. Hey, Phil, before you go on, I just need to let you know, since you said blog posts, your Instagram is my husband’s favorite Instagram of all time. Phil, I was telling Steph, you and I must have a very similar sense of humor because everything you post on Instagram, I am dying laughing. It is so funny to me. It may not be funny to my wife, but it is very funny to me, the stuff you put on there. So well done, sir. Well, thank you. Instagram is my therapist. I just have fun. Even when I teach social media, I tell people just whatever I talk about, what I teach, disregard when it comes to my Instagram account, because I just have fun with it. I had a woman, I spoke at a conference in India a year or so ago, and a woman came up to me and she said, you should know, I get up every morning, I have my coffee, I read my Bible, and then I check what Phil posts on Instagram. That’s my daily routine. What?

[20:13] Yeah, it’s pretty funny. That’s amazing. Part of her daily devotions is Phil’s Instagram. It’s Instagram.

[20:22] All right, Steph, I’m going to test you again here. What is your favorite book of all time? Obviously, it’s the Bible, Kevin. Yes. Nailed it. Very good. This time you didn’t say the book we wrote called You Met Her Where. But it’s still a really good book. That is true. And it would make a great gift for friends or relatives on their birthday or for Christmas. Friends, you can order your copy of our book titled You Met Her Where at kevinandsteph.com. And we will make sure to personally sign a copy for you or whoever you want. And as always, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.

[20:53] Next fun fact earlier in his career phil worked closely with john ostein joel’s father okay, phil helped john set up lakewood church’s tv production down in houston texas so phil do you have any good stories about setting that up back in the day because i think joel was actually part of the media team and behind the scenes back then he didn’t have any clue that he would eventually potentially be behind the pulpit speaking. So do you have any good stories from those days and setting that up?

[21:23] Oh yeah. Yeah. We did a Christmas special one time, Joel produced the program and he would ask me to come in and direct, you know, special events, big shows, a new show, open, closing, things like that. And maybe some commercials. And we did a Christmas special at Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And it was, you know, we did, we had to shoot it early, um, just to get it on all the TV stations by Christmas time. And it wasn’t snowing in many places, but they’d had a big blizzard and Steamboat. So we, I had this great, great idea for a shot where we put John an opening shot, where we put John on this peak of this mountain and it’s all snow cap. And we get in this helicopter and we fly up the side of this mountain with the camera. And we get this sweeping shot of John standing on this pinnacle of the mountain in the middle of all this snow. It was a great, great idea.

[22:09] So we got, we rented a helicopter for a few hours. We got John, Joel and I, and my wife, Kathleen got in the helicopter and we’re taking it. We’re going to take and drop him off in the the snow so we didn’t realize we thought it was just maybe a foot or two of snow it was like 12 or 15 feet of snow i said we hovered over it so we wouldn’t leave any trash in the helicopter i said john you have to jump out he said okay okay okay he jumps out and disappeared just literally and so joel and i take a dive in there and we find him we pull him out we create a little place for him there and we fixed it up so it would look natural and then he said now hold it a sec aren’t there bears up here and so i said well yeah i guess and he said well i’m not going to shoot this so they’re bears and so my wife we taught my wife this is the sacrifices a wife makes we talked her into getting out of the helicopter and going and standing behind a nearby tree so i guess if a bear came she could fight him off and save john we don’t know thank him but we did and that satisfied him enough that he stood there and so joel and i went down with the camera. We did the sweeping breathtaking shot and it was absolutely amazing.

[23:19] It is funny when we picked him up and on the way down in the helicopter, John leaned over to me and said, Phil, that’s the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. And so he loved it, but he was terrified the whole time. I bet that’s hilarious. Kathleen’s on bear duty. On bear duty. Bear watch. Yes, she is. Okay, that gives me a question for you. That’s so funny. Because that’s kind of crazy. Any other crazy things? Like you have this vision. You’re like, I think I want to do this. And then you have your person. It’s a great idea. dropped 12 to 13 feet into the snow. Any other crazy stories that you’ve had where you’ve had this brilliant idea and then- It does not work out. No. So I’m in Kingston, Jamaica. This is years ago. I’m in Kingston, Jamaica, and I was there to film a big evangelistic crusade in the outdoor stadium in Kingston. And about halfway through the day, it was an evening event. And about halfway through the day, I realized, man, this stadium’s going to be completely full and it would be very cool to shoot this from the air. Now, this was was before there were drones and I had to use helicopters back in those days. And the only helicopter in Jamaica at that time that could possibly do this was owned by the Red Stripe Beer Company in Jamaica. So I went racing across the island and I literally talked their executives into letting me have the helicopter for an hour. And so we took the door, it wasn’t rigged for photography. And in those days, portable cameras were big. So we took the door off. I sat on the the side of the helicopter with my feet on the runners out there. And the pilot tied me in with a rope.

[24:48] And it was all good because we’re going to tilt, you know, and shoot down at the stadium. And so I want to make sure I was tied in. And we didn’t, neither one of us noticed there was an extra loop in the rope. And so we took off, he turned sharp to go out over the Kingston Bay.

[25:04] And I literally slid out of the helicopter and I’m dangling by a rope under this helicopter. And all I could think of was keep the shot in focus. and um he saw it and jerked me jerked the helicopter back and it literally threw me back in any harder and it probably thrown me in the blades but i tightened that rope up like crazy and i’ll tell you it’s amazing you get right with god when you’re dangling from a helicopter above kingston jamaica and uh we we went and got the shot it was an amazing shot and it worked beautifully so yeah that a lot of things happen like that phil i’m amazed at filmmakers because i’m seeing a pattern here. The extremes that filmmakers will go just to get a shot, to get one shot, to get one thing on camera, what you do to just get a shot. So are there any other examples where you’ve had to negotiate with somebody or what you have done to the extreme to actually be able to get something on camera? Yes.

[26:02] I was in another helicopter shooting in the old city of Jerusalem one time, and I wanted a closeup of the city wall. And they’re very protective about the old city wall and the city itself and um they thought i was getting too close and so they told me we needed to back off the tower and i said no no let’s kick i kept telling the pilot no come on get a little bit closer i need to get this one particular shot and um i kept pushing him and pushing him and they scrambled the israeli air force they scrambled the jet to come shoot us down and i know the pilot said i’m out of here i did that’s it and so we ended up uh we did get the shot i grabbed it right a split second before he pulled away and it was a great shot being shot down in the Israeli Israeli desert is not a real desire of mine so I acquit I we asked and we went back do you see a theme with Phil Kevin and Steph I have an idea let’s get a helicopter we say no oh my gosh say no Phil how many times yeah would Phil have scared his wife, Yes. I mean, everything he’s just said, you would be freaking out with me about it. That’s why we pray before you leave. Kathleen’s like, Phil, we’re praying before you leave. That’s why we don’t always tell her till afterwards. So that’s another thing.

[27:18] All right, Steph, next fun fact. Phil’s client list includes studios and networks like Walt Disney, DreamWorks, and USA Network, as well as major faith-based organizations such as the Salvation Army, Museum of the Bible, and many more. So, Phil, there’s a lot of parents here listening that are familiar with Disney. Of course, Disney, as we all know, has gone woke over the past few years, right? Have there been any projects, whether it’s with them or some other else, where they creatively want you to do something that you’re like, nope, I’m not comfortable doing with that, and you’ve got to pull out? You know, that affects actors more than producers or directors. My wife experienced it a number of times where, you know, they wait till you get on the set. There’s 30 people on the crew standing around. The clock is ticking. Money’s being spent. And then they’ll say, well, you know what? We were really hoping you’d take your shirt off of the scene. Oh no.

[28:10] And particularly for young actresses, you feel the pressure. You’re trying to get your name out there. You’re trying to do good work. And then they pull something like that on you. And I always tell people in those kinds of situations, and it’s really helped me, is make sure you know where your boundaries are ahead of time. Don’t wait until you get on the set where there’s pressure and people pushing you and the clock is ticking. Make sure you know ahead of time, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do this. This is a border I will not cross. And that makes you much more confident. And when you go into those situations, once you get on the set, you feel this enormous pressure to do whatever the director wants. And very often, we change our mind, we come up with new ideas,

[28:49] and sometimes they’re not that pleasant if you have standards and values. So you have to be be really careful and sensitive about that.

[28:57] Steph, what is one of the most asked questions we get about Tell Us a Good Story? Do I really get that excited? Besides that one. Oh, how do we get all these incredible guests? Correct. And some of our best conversations have been with guests who our listeners have reached out to us and said, you should talk to this person. To name just a few, Nick Vujicic, Coach Tom Ryan, Carol Moteca were all recommendations from our listeners. So if there’s someone you would like us to interview and think they might be a great fit for Tell Us a Good Story, please let us know at kevinandsteph.com. You don’t even have to personally know them. True, but do me a favor. Before you submit their names, please make sure they are still alive. That has actually happened, and it is super hard for me to find their contact information. But regardless, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.

[29:44] All right, Steph, final fun fact here. Phil wrote One Big Thing, Discovering What You’re Born to Do, which was named by the Washington Post as one of the top five business books in 2012. His most recent book is titled Church on Trial, How to Protect Your Congregation, Mission, and Reputation During a Crisis.

[30:01] And that’s based on decades of helping churches and nonprofits manage a wide variety of challenges. So first off, tell us more about the book, Phil. And is there a certain story that you have in regards to, without mentioning names, one of the more challenging situations where you go into a situation with a church and and help them navigate something very, very serious, whether it’s a pastor or someone in leadership. You know, this is something I never in a million years thought I would end up doing, but early in my career, I started getting calls because I became known as the media communications guy. And a church would call me when they didn’t know, how do we tell the congregation? Should we talk to reporters? Do we need to release a statement? Because really communicating the story well is the heart of crisis communication. It’s really critical. If you can’t communicate your story well, then you’re going to start getting criticism, misinformation out there, guesses, innuendo, all that kind of stuff.

[30:57] So I would go in to help them navigate that and help them work that because an attorney, you know, I always say call an attorney first because there’s so many legal issues out there today, but then your second call should probably be to someone who understands communication during a crisis. So I started dealing with so many of these situations that I decided to pour it into this book, Church on Trial. But there have been so, so many situations. I’ve had situations where the things you see in the headlines are tragic and they’re terrible, but they’re the tip of the iceberg. Byrne. I’ve been in situations where a pastor of a relatively large church on the East Coast, 63-year-old pastor, had an affair, an abusive sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in the youth group. And he’s going to jail for 35 years. He’s in jail, right? And I think that’s fantastic. But the size of the church shocked me that he was pastoring a church that large and he would do something that stupid and inappropriate and abusive.

[31:51] And so financial issues, four out of seven pastors will say they’ve had financial embezzlement or they had somebody stealing money from the church. So there’s so many cases and crises come in all shapes and sizes. They could be an ex-church member or disgruntled staff member who is criticizing your church online through social media or a blog, or it could be a parent who sues the church because their son or daughter broke their leg in the playground. It could be a million things. We do see the sexual abusive stuff in the news most often. And I really wrote the book, up not to protect any kind of perpetrator, but to help the church, help the victim get attention and then help the church navigate through this. Because it really breaks my heart when a church has to close because of something, right? Right. And, you know, as of, I think day before yesterday, I heard that a big church in the Midwest, because the pastor had an affair a number of years ago.

[32:43] He stepped down, but they decided to close the church. And it just, it breaks my heart that a church has to close because of one person’s stupid decision. So yeah, I got, I got stories like crazy. You just, you know, it’s interesting. I have a section in the book on what I call really stupid decisions. You know, for instance, one pastor thought it would, it would be more productive if he had his assistant move into his house with he and his wife. And I mean, hello, you know, I’m thinking, what was he thinking? And was there nobody on the staff that thought, pastor, maybe we should talk about that? You know, another pastor had a vacation home, but he didn’t want his wife to come. He wanted time alone so he could work on his books and his sermons. And well, you know, one thing leads to another. So there’s so many cases where some of these incredibly stupid decisions that nobody would say, wait a second, we need to rethink that. This is not a good choice. This is not going to happen. Those kind of things really bother me a lot. And one of the sections of the book is create a culture of transparency where nobody’s afraid to say, you know, in our company, you know, people are not afraid to say, Phil, let’s rethink that choice about that project or working with that client or how we should do this. So it’s just important to have other people that are speaking into your life. Well, Phil, you just made me feel much better about myself because when you had the chapter, stupid decisions, my stupid decisions don’t look so bad after what Phil just said. Oh, that’s good.

[34:06] I’m not asking for anybody to move in with us. You aren’t, no. No, none of that. But I mean, on a serious note. It is amazing, Phil, what you just said, because if an executive of a Fortune 500 company, if they’re going through a divorce, if they’re going through an affair, they may lose their job. And that’s about it for some unethical decision. However, in a church setting, if a pastor does something immoral, not only is he probably going to lose the ministry, lose his job, but it impacts everyone within that church. There may be people who never go back to church anymore because of the hurt they experienced from an unethical decision, immoral decision by a human being. In the book, I cite research that indicates 27% of people that leave the church for good do it because of a crisis that happened at the church or how poorly that church handled the crisis. Which means they’re not leaving your church to go to another church.

[34:59] They’re turning their back on God altogether. Right. So this is a much more serious issue than we think. We think it’s maybe some bad publicity, but I’ll tell you, you’re exactly right. If you own a pizza company, it’s one thing, but when you’re the pastor of a church or leader of a Christian ministry, you’re held to a higher standard than you should be, actually. You should be. So we have to be much, much more conscious because I know people that have completely walked away from God because of something that happened at their church. And so it really breaks my heart. We need to deal with this better.

[35:28] Well, listeners, for more information about Phil and to get a copy of his new book, you can go to his website at philcook.com. His Facebook is at Phil Cook Page. His Instagram, Twitter, YouTube is all at Phil Cook, and that’s with an E. And we will put links in our show notes on our website, so you can click on those and go right to this webpage and the social media pages. So, Phil, thank you so much, as always. Thank you, guys. Oh, you’re amazing, Phil. It is so nice to catch up with you. I love your stories, right? I would love to sit down and just have a cup of coffee and just listen to stories, just because you have just an incredible amount of stories to share from your experience. Thank you for doing this, Phil. My pleasure. And thank you for having me on. I know this book is not typically, you know, tell your story kind of material, but I appreciate you letting me on and talk about it because it’s such an important issue out there today. And so I’m grateful.

[36:22] Friends, we want to encourage you to please follow us wherever you listen to this, whether it’s on the Apple Podcast app, iHeartRadio, Spotify, or one of the other platforms. You guys, it’s completely free. And while you’re there, feel free to give us a rating or a nice review. Thank you for listening to Tell us a good story.