To receive daily emails from Breaking Christian News to your inbox CLICK HERE

End of the Spear, a new $20 million film to be released on January 20 about five missionaries slain in Ecuador in the 50s after daring to make contact with one of the most violent tribes ever documented, was made by Mart Green, a man who never set foot in a movie theater until a few years ago. The film demonstrates the remarkable way God "altered the tribes brutal behavior." Trailers of the movie, available on the internet, give a glimpse of the powerful spiritual message exuding from the screen's incredible photography and gripping dialogue.

"I was raised not to go to movies," says Green, founder of Every Tribe Entertainment, and son of the man who founded the chain store Hobby Lobby. His parents and grandparents never set foot in a movie theater either, and he maintained that standard with his own children.

Having himself launched a chain of Christian bookstores, Green recalls going on a trip to Guatemala where he watched a man receive a Bible for the first time from Wycliffe Bible Translators. "This guy waited 40 years to get his Bible and he wept and wept," Green recalls. Green woke up that night about 2:00 a.m. with a sense of conviction, says reporter Mark Ellis. "I wasn't reading God's Word on a consistent basis," he admits. "I made a vow to read God's Word consistently for the rest of my life."

It was shortly after that, a friend invited Green to get involved in a marketing effort for the Bible patterned after the "Got milk" campaign. As he sought the Lord about it, Green says he pulled out a tape he had lying on a shelf. It was about the five missionaries to the Waodani tribe of Ecuador who were killed in 1956: Jim Eliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint and Roger Youderian. In the tape, Mincaye, one of the tribesmen who took part in the killings, says: "We acted badly-badly until they brought us God's carvings. Now we walk his trail."

"I started weeping in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot," Green recalls. He suddenly phoned his friends and said: "I'm working on this 30-second commercial, but someday there's going to be a movie to help our cause!"

Seven months later Green's friend called and urged him to make a film about the missionaries. "I said, 'Whoa, I do Christian bookstores -- I can't really do two jobs.'" He said he thought of every excuse he could muster to dissuade his friend, even telling his friend: "I've never even been in a movie theater. How in the world would I get the rights to do a film when I've never even been in a theater?"

But just as God led Peter to overcome his revulsion toward Gentile foods, says Ellis, God slowly overcame Green's resistance to movies. He says his first foray into the "forbidden realm" was a Jim Carrey film. "I appreciate my upbringing," he says. "But we should have said there are a lot of movies you shouldn't go to. Because we took a hands-off approach, the world embraced movies. Instead of saying 'don't go,' we should have said 'let's create.'" (More...)

Steve Shultz, Managing Editor
Founder and Owner

Aimee Herd, Editor