Godwinks

00:01 - Speaker 1 And this is how wonderful the Lord is. He actually gave me a talent to do these voices so I can get in front of audiences and be able to talk about the Lord. I ended up being on Women of Faith for a year as a guest speaker, but I got to talk about the very thing God wanted me to say. 00:19 - Speaker 2 I was always a faith-related guy at the network. 20 years at ABC, I always felt as though I had to really stay on that line and remind myself I'm the guy who brought you Schoolhouse Rock. 00:30 - Speaker 3 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys, through their ministry work and everyday life Brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders. Learn more at faithly.co. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired on the Faithly Stories podcast. 00:58 - Speaker 4 All right, there we go. It works Well. Welcome to Faithly Stories. SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt. Oh thank you, we're so thrilled to be with you. 01:12 - Speaker 1 I love your podcast. Yes, I really do. 01:15 - Speaker 2 I love the name of your podcast. 01:17 - Speaker 4 I do too, I love the name too Faithly, yes Well you know what you got to put the faith right in there. So everyone knows what this is all about. And what I learned is when you add the Lee L-Y to anything, well, it makes it more high tech. So how about? 01:32 - Speaker 2 that oh. I see yeah. 01:34 - Speaker 1 We should say God wink Lee. There you go. 01:40 - Speaker 4 Well, that's the perfect way to start this conversation. As I was saying to you two before we started recording, I've been looking for this word for a long time. I don't believe in coincidences either. I believe that the Lord is in everything, and I've always struggled with the words for it. You know it's not a coincidence. Is it a God incidence? God wink just captures it perfectly. So, SQuire, maybe we can start with you. How did you come up with it? When did you come up with it? 02:10 - Speaker 2 Well, it was over 20 years ago and it was the same struggle that you're having. Because I was running Good Morning America, I would stand in the back of the control room and every time I'd hear a reporter starting a story with ironically, today I'd wonder is it one of those little coincidences that isn't a coincidence story? And then, as we gathered the thoughts about doing maybe doing a book, we went out and we started talking to people about it and many people would say, well, what do you call a coincidence that isn't a coincidence? Talking to people about it? And many people would say, well, what do you call a coincidence that isn't a coincidence. So we spent six months praying and talking to everybody, standing still and asking what is a coincidence that isn't a coincidence? And one day that little word just floated into mind God wait. We thought, wow, that sounds like fun. It doesn't sound churchy, doesn't sound threatening. 03:07 And the first manuscript for the first book that eventually was called when God Winks, which is over 20 years ago now, because it was just before 9-11 that that book came out, when we were just sending the manuscript in, and so we took all the coincidence words and basically threw them out, put in the Godwink name and it fit. 03:32 But, even more important than that, Alicia, people found that it fit immediately into the language. They knew what it was for and it just fit. They knew what it was for and it just fit. And so it has been drifting and dripping and dropping into the language for 20 years now, and we've helped it, along with the Today Show series, for five years, with four Hallmark movies, the fifth one on the runway, our Netflix movie and 13 books our 13th book, of course, just out. And so we've. We really believe that god has been preparing us for a time such as this, that this is the time that the culture is really ready for an explosion of godliness and faith and, and, and the great awakenings, and um, and that it is, it is time for god to introduce this new word in a big way. So we feel as though we're right at that tipping point I'm getting excited to hear all of that SQuire. 04:40 - Speaker 4 Now tell me, is it true that Godwinks is in the dictionary now? 04:44 - Speaker 2 In some. 04:44 - Speaker 4 Yeah. 04:46 - Speaker 2 Although our trademark attorney said don't do that, Don't do that, but we're working for God. That's right, and our job for God is to get that word into the language. You know. I should say that Godwinks are like gifts left at your doorstep Our job is to get you to open the door open your gift. 05:13 - Speaker 4 Yeah, that's right. And something you said SQuire, as you started to describe Godwinks really struck me. You said it's not churchy. 05:21 - Speaker 2 No. 05:22 - Speaker 4 That's important, right when you're trying to draw people in, you're trying to get them to open the door. It can't be too churchy, it can't be too corny and it would make sense that, like you would get that as someone who's been in television and media for a really, really long time. 05:38 - Speaker 2 Well, yes, I was always a faith related guy at the network 20 years at ABC and I always felt as though I had to really stay on that line and remind myself I'm the guy who brought you Schoolhouse Rock, so everything should be simple, very simple. 06:00 - Speaker 4 Of course it never is, but it should be Of course it never is, but it should be Now, Louise, can we turn to you? You're a comedian and an impressionist, and I've heard your Joan Rivers impression. 06:16 - Speaker 1 Oh, stop, don't, don't even ask me, Alicia, please. I can't, I won't. You can pull every hair out of my head. 06:29 - Speaker 4 I am not going to do Joan Rivers for you. No, no, no. I mean, I was the biggest fan. And when? I heard you do the impression I thought wow, that's a whole lot of talent that the two of you are each acting, I never know who. 06:40 - Speaker 2 I'm waking up next to Alicia. 06:44 - Speaker 4 Hilarious. Now, Louise, I could have asked SQuire this question, but I'm going to ask you this question how, in the entertainment industry, as a comedian, as an impressionist, how do you balance bringing your faith into a space that's really quite a secular space? 07:01 - Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that's a very interesting question because it is a balance. You know, we live in the world, but we're not of the world. And years ago, when I was praying, I had another husband who left me and I said to God God, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? I want, I want to do something for you, lord, and as clear as day. He said do I want to do something for you, lord, and as clear as day he said I'm going to give you new voices and I thought that was strange. 07:29 I thought, oh, I'm going to have a voice for God. But I heard new voices to reach many people and this is how wonderful the Lord is. He actually gave me a talent to do these voices so I can get in front of audiences that then I can, you know, do television shows and be able to talk about the Lord. I ended up being on Women of Faith for a year as a guest speaker and I got to talk about, I got to do some of my act, but I got to talk about the very thing God wanted me to say. But I had to have those voices to do what I did for him to be able to work through me. It was just. It's bizarre how we work sometimes. 08:08 - Speaker 4 Wow. So did that come to you a little later in life, or had you practiced voices and done some of that work earlier on? 08:15 - Speaker 1 Well, again, you know, all things work together for good. I was brought up in a very strict Italian household and my mother would say to me and my brother you kids, you know, remember children should be seen and not heard. So she was very domineering. So my brother became a stutterer. What I did is I kind of escaped and became other people and I'm almost ashamed to say this on your show. But when I was in elementary school I could impersonate my friend's mothers and I could get them out of school for the day by calling up the nurse's office. You know, this is Bernie Weinstein's mother. He can't come to school today, he's got menopause. You know, sometimes I get mixed up, but anyway. So I did have a talent and I became very popular. 09:01 But it wasn't until later on, when my husband again thank you, jesus, that he left me, because look what he gave me waiting in the wings. My husband leaves and all my friends on the street in Woodland Hills. I said what am I going to do? How am I going to pay the mortgage? They said why don't you go down to one of those comedy clubs and do those funny voices that you do for us when we're having coffee? Well, I thought this was crazy. But I went to bed that night and the Holy Spirit worked in my heart, worked in my heart and it was like I had to do it. As scared as I was, I went down to the comedy store on Sunset Boulevard, got on an open mic night. They called me up on stage. I started. I think I did Fran Drescher, I did a little Cher, you know what I'm saying. 09:49 And I even did a little George Barnes. I did the hundred-year-old man George Barnes and, unbeknownst to me, star Search scouts were in the audience. They saw me and instead of the other comics they were there to see. They put me on the show. Donna Summer was switching the channels that night. She sees this crazy woman on Star Search, calls her manager, says get me that girl to be my opening act. And that's how my career started. Now, donna was a great mentor for me because she loved the Lord and I traveled with her for over two years and it was just a glorious time. The Lord just did amazing things. 10:27 - Speaker 2 So many God winks, oh yeah. 10:29 - Speaker 1 Oh yeah. 10:30 - Speaker 4 Wow. Well the Lord certainly lined things up for you. That is so clear. So do you, I mean. I know you probably don't like to play favorites, but do you? Have a favorite character to do. 10:43 - Speaker 1 Well, I'm in the business, I believe because of Carol Burnett. I used to watch the Carol Burnett show and you know, Alicia, I always just loved her. You know she's one of my favorites and I love when she did that little Tarzan yell. I'll do it for her Love when she pulled her ear. And as a little girl growing up, my Italian mother used to bring me to the Catholic church and she'd say to me in her thick Boston accent here's a quarta light, a candle for the souls in purgatory. And I knew I only had one prayer and I'd light a candle. And I'd always say the same thing Please God, I just want to meet Carol Burnett. Please God, I just want to meet Carol Burnett. Years later God answered the prayers of that little girl because I was doing a variety show on TV and I was doing an impression of Carol. 11:37 The next day the phone rang. It was Carol Burnett and she said hi, Louise, this is Carol Burnett. I got your number from your agents and I would love to meet you. I went to meet her. It was the greatest day of my life and when I went into my car and I just looked up to heaven and I said, oh God, if I could just meet Tim and Harvey now and another God wink, tim called me. He and Harvey were doing a show together. They asked me to be on the show and I did that for 12 years working doing sketches. I wasn't be surprised if people thought well, your gift is in speaking. 12:30 - Speaker 4 But there's something, there's a connection between speaking and listening, and it strikes me that you're a really incredible listener, like you have to listen so well and so deeply, to imbibe these voices and then to speak them and that is very perceptive so true very perceptive, yeah, yeah, and so I just I wonder if you might just be like your gift might really be listening right and that really is the heart of this, that this gift that you have in doing these impressions and your voice gift well, it's embodying the person it's like you have in doing these impressions and your voice gift Well, it's embodying the person. 13:07 - Speaker 1 It's like you have to. When I know, when I've got it, it's when I can think like them. 13:13 - Speaker 2 Yes, you know when. 13:13 - Speaker 1 I started doing Catherine Hepburn. I just, you know, I just did the voice, and then after a while I could start thinking like her. I was quite frightening at first. You know, it's like you, you just embody them and you do. You start thinking like I kind of know how Joan Rivers would have thought, unfortunately well. 13:35 - Speaker 4 so I wonder if you and SQuire might actually share this gift of embodying people, of really understanding them, of listening deeply them. And now I'm going to transition to your new book God Winks for Moms, because as I was reading it I thought, man, these two really understand moms. I'm a mom, I've got little little kids. I've got a seven, five and two-year-old. 13:57 - Speaker 2 Oh great. 13:59 - Speaker 4 I'm really in the thick of things right now, but as I was reading it I thought, like these two really get the heart of the mom, you can really embody it. What made you decide to? 14:13 - Speaker 2 write this 13th Godwinks book for moms. Well, you know, we usually listen to God to ask him what he needs to have us do next, and this particular time we were listening to God and I felt that he was saying I think it's time for you to do a book about God wink principles, because you've been on this journey for a long time. Your readers have been contributing all kinds of important principles, such as during times of uncertainty, a God wink is a tangible connection to an unseen God. You know principles like that. 14:48 So we went into our publisher, simon Schuster, and we told them that's what we wanted to do. And then they said God told us that he wants you to do a book called God Winks for Moms. And of course, we jumped up and down and said whatever you want. And we came back and we didn't know if we could, if we had a lot of mom stories. But, as with every single book, when we're given the assignment, god just opens the doors and Godwinks start coming to us. Godwinks stories start coming to us on that particular topic and over the next weekend we spent, you know, a good number of hours searching through our files and our Facebook communications and we had 40 stories that were on the list of possibles. Not all of them are in the book, but we found better ones along the way, and so forth. But that's how it evolves. 15:48 - Speaker 4 Wow. And so the Lord confirmed for you through these wings, while you were preparing the book, that, yeah, this is the path. You're doing what he wants you to do. 15:58 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, and when we started writing it it was a pretty easy book to write it was. Yeah, we had four months to do it and we pretty much got it done within that period of time. 16:10 - Speaker 4 Yeah, would you mind sharing maybe one of your favorite stories from the God Wings for Moms book? 16:18 - Speaker 2 Well, let me do the Mary Alexander story. It's a beautiful story and it's also kind of tight and sometimes I go a little long. So let's do the Mary story. 16:31 Mary Mary was approaching Mother's Day with great sadness. She was the mother of two sons and she knew that this year she was only going to get one Mother's Day card from her children. And she was so sad because her son, jason, had died suddenly. He had a heart condition that nobody knew he had and she just was so devastated by that. And as she was thinking about it, she thought he was the son who not to put down the other son, but he just happened to be the one that always fussed over Mother's Day. He was the one who made these little, you know, craft things when he was a little kid and then he became a teenager. He'd spend an hour at the drugstore in front of that card counter picking out the exact one. 17:26 She felt so bad. She thought I've just got to get this off my mind because it's going to devastate me this coming into Mother's Day. And so she thought I know what I'll do. I will dive into drudgery. 17:40 There's that closet downstairs that I've been threatening to clean out for 10 years. She went down to the closet and she saw this old cardboard box and started reaching in and throwing magazines and things on the floor. And then her hand touched something. She pulled it out. It was an envelope unstamped to the local newspaper that had gone out of business 20 years ago and it was in a child's handwriting. She sat right down on the floor, she opened it up. It was a contest form. My mother is the best mom because and she thought, thought, oh my gosh, who wrote this? And she, she, she rushed her eyes down to look and see it was jason, age 12. She thought, oh my gosh. She looked up and she read what he had written I'm getting caught up in this moment and she cried and she thought oh my gosh, this is the most wonderful God wink that I am experiencing Because, with God at his side, jason in heaven has directed me to this card that he had written to me after all, so many years before. 19:07 - Speaker 4 oh, wow, yeah got the mother's day card yeah, wow, um, like I said as a mother myself, like that story hits right here and it's, it's really these stories, right, that lead us to the Lord. 19:24 - Speaker 2 Yes. 19:25 - Speaker 4 Stories and you know, to use a more churchy word for it testimonies. 19:30 - Speaker 2 Yes, of course. 19:31 - Speaker 4 They really, they increase faith. They increase faith, yeah. 19:35 - Speaker 2 And another nice churchy word is parables. They're like little parables of today. 19:41 - Speaker 4 Yeah, that's right. So gosh 13 Godwinks books For readers who have been reading along with you all along through your series. What do you hope they get out of this one that maybe they haven't gotten out of previous Godwinks books? 20:00 - Speaker 2 Well, I hope we touch their hearts more than we have in the past, because that's always a major goal to touch their hearts. We learn things when we have our hearts touched. We, even if we have a hard shell around us, that shell starts to crack and open when we are touched in the heart. And I think, because mothers are universal, they are even though it's a Mother's Day kind of book, and it's an evergreen book and and these stories touch your heart and and I hope that every single one touches everybody's heart, and you know, moms pour out their hearts. 20:42 - Speaker 1 They just pour everything out to their children, to their you know their family, to their church, the community. And we believe that moms have more God wings than anybody because they're always so open. They're open to is there something wrong with my child or my husband? They're very sensitive to that and so they're sensitive to God wings and our goal has always been to just let them know. They are on a GPS God's positioning system. He's never going to leave them alone, no matter how tired they get, whether they're in joyful times or the depths of despair, god is not going to let go of them. He's always with them and he loves to give us these God wings, these little signs of hope along our path, letting us know that, like when you're, like when you were a little kid, at the dining room table and all the big people are there and grandma, someone you love, gives you a little wink. You didn't ask what it meant. You knew it meant I'm thinking about you, I love you, and that's what a God wink is. 21:44 - Speaker 4 Yeah. 21:45 - Speaker 2 I love that. 21:45 - Speaker 1 So beautiful. 21:48 - Speaker 4 If I may, I'd love to shift gears now and ask about another ministry that you're spearheading Pray Together. I'm really intrigued by this essentially marriage prayer ministry because, as I mentioned to you before we started recording here on the Faithly platform, in the Faithly community, there's been a real interest in marriage ministry and marriage ministry resources. So I'd love to hear more about this. How did this start for you two? 22:19 - Speaker 2 Well, you know, it really started, probably by my wife and God working as a conspiracy. 22:26 - Speaker 1 Well, it started early because SQuire was married twice before. 22:31 - Speaker 2 Yes. 22:32 - Speaker 1 Mrs Rushnell, the third, and because I was married before and so we had broken marriages, and when we came together, yeah. We just started praying. 22:44 - Speaker 2 We started praying together and those words husband and wives praying together had never been spoken anywhere that I had ever heard it. I had never heard that in a church. I know that churches promote prayer, but I think the culture of our churches is to promote the women's Bible study and the men's Bible study, women of faith and the promise keepers. And there is just this culture where it isn't a habit for pastors to encourage husbands and wives to pray together. And that is what we found out quickly the moment we started going out to churches. We'd often see very quickly as we'd go to a church the size of Lakewood where they would bring in 30 or 40 pastors to visit the lady that does funny voices and the guy who brought you Schoolhouse Rock, because they had something to say, and we'd say you know, given our background, I'm not so sure that we should be qualified to come here and talk to you about prayer. But wait, we're talking about partnered prayer, husbands and wives praying together, family members praying together, friends praying together. But our main focus is on couples who pray together and because we have discovered that when you do pray together, you stay together. And that became the name also of our 50, Louise and I, when we started praying together, it was like throwing a sponge in a bathtub it expanded. It wasn't the sum of one plus one equals two. It was greater than that. It was one plus one equals a lot. And maybe we were more conscious of the prayers being answered. But we certainly saw that there was a cause and an effect. And then, as we talked to people about it people in the church, they'd say gee, how do you do it? We'd say what do you mean? How do you do it? Well, how do you pray together? Do you have a room you go to? You have secret words, you say, and we realized that we needed to take people by the hands and say it's a simple process, and usually it's the woman who is gung-ho, they're ready to go. 25:19 Because women are always ahead of men. You know that little girl toddlers walk before male toddlers. There's a reason for that. God made them that way, okay. So women are always ahead of men, and so women are always kind of at the forefront of this idea of partnered prayer, and the men are always kind of. I wonder what this sounds. Vulnerable, you know I. Vulnerable, you know I, I don't know. I don't know, I'm good, I'm good, and so it's always a challenge. The man thinks that it's a bridge uh, like the golden gate bridge you're asking him to walk across and I I don't know about that, I I don't know. But once you put your foot on that bridge, instantly it becomes a footpath. It is nothing but a little bridge from your heart to your spouse's heart. 26:14 - Speaker 1 And you know we talked about Donna Summer before who is just such a great, wonderful Christian woman. She and Bruce, her husband, did take we called it the Praise Day Challenge. She said what they did is they would leave their weapons outside the door and they would go into this sacred place and become spiritually naked. She said where they were so vulnerable to each other and just opened up to each other and obviously it because God was in the center and it just changed their whole dynamic of their marriage and we hear that all the time. It's just incredible what happens, yeah. 26:54 - Speaker 4 I love how you described or how maybe Donna described being vulnerable as being spiritually naked. 27:00 I think that's so important and I sense that in you two, as you shared why you started Pray Together, stay Together, sharing your own marriage pain, your own marriage history. I think it was Pastor Rick Warren who said out of your greatest pain will be your greatest ministry, and it really. I mean I see that again and again from those who are leading great ministries like the two of you. Now, when you two started your marriage, did you pray together right away, or is it something that you found along the way? 27:38 - Speaker 1 No, we prayed right away. 27:40 Right away, yeah, right away. I knew, because I had prayed for 20 years for my other husband to come to know the Lord, which you never did, and I just wanted someone I wanted my husband to pray with. They used to take my kids to church and I would look at these couples and they they'd have like this silent communication, this love, this like love language. That was silent, but you knew it was there and I said, god, I want that, I want that so much. And God gave me the husband that I prayed for. It just wasn't the one I thought it was going to be. 28:16 So, when SQuire came into my life, right away we started praying and right away we started seeing his direction or clarity. We started seeing prayers, we started seeing miracles happen and he wants to do that for everyone. That we call. Our first book was called couples who pray the most intimate act between a man and a woman and it really, really is. 28:40 But when you invite god into a, you will people. It blows their socks off. And what we did is that we knew there had to be like research about this. We went everywhere. Finally, we come to Baylor University and Baylor is doing with us the first empirical study of what happens when couples pray consistently. And the preliminary studies are phenomenal. 29:04 - Speaker 2 Yes, appreciation delight go up by 30%, romance goes up by 21%, arguments crumble. The fear of divorce goes to zero. 29:16 That's just the preliminary data, right, and we're actually we've been the gathering source, mom and pop ministry here to gather the data and pour it into Baylor. And when we get to 5,000 or 10,000 surveys, that's when we're going to say, okay, now let's open this up and really analyze it all and see what the results are. But Baylor has been great, let's open this up and really analyze it all and see what the results are. But Baylor has been great. But it's phenomenal that the first place we went was to Barna, who does all of the great church surveys and so forth, and he said in 25 years I've never done a study on what happens when couples pray together. Well, how come, george? He said well, nobody ever asked me. Well, we got to Baylor University and they said the same thing. Nobody ever asked him. But they said we're going to come alongside you right now. And so it is. 30:19 As I mentioned before, it is the culture. It's the culture of churches and it's almost a discovery. When we talk to them about partnered prayer, it's like my gosh, that sounds like a new idea. Well, we didn't come up with this idea. Jesus did. It was in Matthew, remember, where two of you agree upon anything, my father in heaven will give it to you. This is Jesus's idea. 30:47 - Speaker 1 You know it was interesting. You mentioned Rick Warren. We went to Rick Warren's church and we were sitting there with pastors and told them what we wanted to do, and someone was bold enough one of the pastors to say OK, be honest, how many of you pastors pray with your spouse every day? And I think there were 15 pastors. There was only about 20 about 20 raised their hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I'm not. 31:16 - Speaker 4 I'm not surprised to hear that I think. Um, we all tend to think about prayer a little bit more individualistically, right? Yes and um. So I'm not surprised to hear that. But SQuire, you quoted matthew or two or more. Right like it's. It's right there in scripture um and and you're gathering the evidence for it with which I think is so phenomenal um there's a story that I want to tell about, about that. 31:42 - Speaker 2 Can I just do that? Yeah, hold your thought. I want, I want to, because, on the same thing about pastors not just not thinking about it you know, one of the greatest pastors in america I think in the last 20 years or so that we've just heard other pastors, masters, uh, admire was tim keller in new york. Tim keller and um, a very erudite. But it was just after 9 11 that there was such a cloud of uh, of discouragement and sorrow hanging over new york. And Kathy, his wife, had suffered from Crohn's disease for a good number of years and apparently one of the issues with Crohn's disease is that it kind of promotes or it invites a darkness, a feeling of of you know being lost and not knowing how to get out of it. And she said to tim I need to have you do something with me, because I don't think I can survive this time of darkness in new york and without your help. And and he said well, of course, honey, what she said I need to have you pray with me every single day. And he said, well, of course, honey. And she said I need to have you pray with me every single day. And he said well, well, of course you know. And you can just imagine him Well, you know, I'm going to get the weddings. I got the. You know the church lamp we have to fix. You know whatever is going on lamp we have to fix. Or the, you know whatever is going on. And uh and um, and so uh, she says to him wisdom of a wife. 33:41 Imagine that you had an incurable disease and the doctor said take this pill every single day and you will live a long life. Would you forget sometimes? Would you be too busy sometimes? Or would you make room for this pill? Would this become a non-negotiable habit in your life? And Tim Keller said that was such logical evidence right in front of me, that I said of course, we can make room five minutes a day. How much time is that? And so that is what happened. And when I interviewed him for one of the books where we put that story, actually 15 years had gone by and Tim Keller said we still pray every single day and it has taken us through every storm, it has taken us through every joy, it has taken us on this journey where we we just didn't realize that we were not connecting with each other in the way that God wanted us to. 34:56 - Speaker 4 Wow, guys, I'm inspired Like I want to hang up the Zoom, call my husband, drag him out of work and just pray together. 35:04 I mean, it's something that like, as soon as someone says you should pray together as a couple, as soon as someone says like five minutes a day, as soon as someone says like of course, this is the most important thing, I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it's hard and you need to be reminded, you need to be told, and I think you need resources to. You need someone to say well, this is how we did it. 35:25 - Speaker 3 And this is how you might want to do it. 35:27 - Speaker 4 So talk about that, for we have a lot of church pastors, a lot of church leaders, who listen to this podcast. If they're looking for resources, something to put in front of their congregation, what do you have for them? 35:40 - Speaker 2 Well, you can go to praise daycom right now and you can see the survey that Baylor has done. People can take the 40 day challenge right now. 35:50 - Speaker 1 It goes right to we don't even see it. It goes right to Baylor, the social scientist there. 35:54 - Speaker 2 Yeah, we've never seen the any of the surveys, uh we just see the results of it, yeah and uh and and, but when? 36:02 what we built into this is a my prayer score because basically, uh, baylor did the survey, the questionnaire, and um, and then you take the same questionnaire at the end of 40 days and we give you all kinds of reminders along the way, and so on and so forth. But on the 40th day, when you do the second survey, you automatically get an email called my prayer score and they're in simple bar graphs. Remember this, the schoolhouse rock guy simple bar graphs. In the beginning your arguments per week were way up here, but in the end your arguments per week were way down here and that was reversed on things like how often do you say appreciative things to each other and have conversations, and so on and so forth. 36:51 So what we're doing is that we're taking all of this knowledge, all of this experience and everything that we've gathered together, all the testimonies that are on our praystayorg site or praystaycom, either one and we are putting it into a television series called the pray stay challenge and, very simply, we will follow six couples who are in some form of crisis in their marriage. Maybe it's just it's not going anywhere. It's just we we're going through the motions and we, we have a nice marriage, but it's not a great man. But when you go through the 40-day challenge, praying together five minutes a day, I promise you it cannot be bad. It cannot be worse than it was at the beginning. It always is going to improve. And what we're saying is that this television series will reduce the divorce rate in America. When we follow these six couples and then but it's also going to be fun because we'll have a celebrity host talking to him We'll also see the raw part. We'll see the heartfelt part. 38:08 - Speaker 1 We'll see the joy. 38:10 - Speaker 2 There will be counselors We'll have pastoral counselors, counselors, we'll have pastoral counselors, and at the end of six weeks we'll see how everybody has improved. And then we start a new cycle with a new celebrity series, a new celebrity host couples, and we already have one network that is in development with us, that you would know very, very well, that you would know very, very well, and and we're thinking that we can put together a consortium of networks to be able to put this series together and the number of people who are so excited about it is unbelievable. 38:48 - Speaker 4 You know you can add one more person to that list. 38:50 - Speaker 1 There you go Well we, we got a call one day from Church of the highlands and and alabama and they said we, we want to fly you guys out because we have all these, um, small groups, small tongues. 39:06 - Speaker 2 They have such a ton of small groups at the time they had 60 000 members at church of the highlands and they said that over 80 percent of the people are members of small groups and the number one popular small group was Couples who Pray. 39:24 - Speaker 1 Our first book. Yeah, so, because there's a study guide in the book. And so they flew us out there and they brought us to someone's house and they had about 50 couples there. They put us on director's chairs and they said we just want you to hear the testimonies. And the two of us were just like boohooing. 39:42 I mean it was amazing. They were marriages that were basically you know, driving to, you know their lawyer and took them off the cliff. And and then the most precious thing, I think, were the families that said Mike, our children notice the difference. They would say, dad, why are you, a mom smiling so much? Oh, you're laughing a lot. 40:03 - Speaker 2 What happened to you? 40:04 - Speaker 1 It affects the whole family and you know, and I, in the churches, we I know the churches want to do this, but they've got so many things on their plate. But when you think about the husband and wife, that's the nucleus, that's where it all begins, that's the legacy starts, there. We actually, when we were writing this book, we got a call from Denzel Washington's wife, pauletta Washington, not to drop names, but she found out we were writing this book and she said I've got to be a part of this book. She wrote her own story because, she said, when I was a kid, growing up, I saw my parents praying. She said it had such a profound effect on me and now on my marriage and my children's marriages. She said it's a legacy that we leave. And so you know, we're hoping to get her maybe involved in this tv series. We'll see what happens and it would be great if we could get denzel. 41:00 - Speaker 2 Please, jesus, we're praying and other celebrities daryl and tracy strawberry um, they're going to do a, um, uh, some little video for us for the sizzle reel and um. And, of course, daryl strawberry, a huge, huge superhero in the sports world and who had, you know, the greatest highs and the lowest lows, and uh, and it wasn't until he found that that hole that was within him was for god and it wasn't for all the things that he tried to put into it to make him feel comfortable and satisfied, you know and whether it was the big cars, the big house, all the flash, all the whatever, nothing, nothing could fill that hole until he put Jesus in that place. 41:53 And that was the moment that he came to the Lord. And he met in rehab Tracy, who was there, and they were both in rehab, and they came together and they had this faith that they bonded together with it and they made the commitment that they were going to use their faith and their experiences for the betterment of people who are still struggling in some place or another. And so, but what Tracy was telling us the other day was that moment when she wanted to talk to Daryl about praying together. Remember, I said the guys are slow to the party, the bridge is too long, I don't want to be vulnerable. And so she said to him Daryl, we are on the verge of our third divorce. 42:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we're having some issues. 42:56 - Speaker 2 You had three and this will of our third divorce. Each of us we're having some issues. You had three and this will be my third one. We are on the verge of that. We must pray together. And he was stone faced. She said I need to have you pray with me now and she put out two hands. We need to pray together. And he was silent. And then he reached up and he gave her one pinky his pinky finger for her to hold on to, and so she said I think god is telling me to take that. 43:35 And so she took that pinky. They put her pinky in his pinky and within days it started going to a hand, and then it went to two hands and then pretty soon he was laying out the Bible, he was making the coffee, and that's the way it always happens with men they are slow to the party, but once they get to that party they are taking charge out of the family once again. And so Daryl and Tracy, magnificent marriage and great ministry. 44:11 - Speaker 4 Yeah Well. So I started this line of questioning by asking well, what resources do you have to offer what guidance? And we just got it right there. From the strawberries, start with a pinky. That's right so for folks who are interested in bringing praystay to their churches, to their congregations, they should go to praystayorg or praystaycom. It sounds like they can link to your book, which has a study guide it sounds like maybe there's some guidance and other resources there as well. 44:49 Lots of videos, yeah yes, and it sounds like perhaps that people, if they want to, can participate in your survey there. It's a 40-day survey, it sounds like, and not only if they want to can participate in your survey there. 44:57 - Speaker 2 It's a 40-day survey, it sounds like. 44:58 - Speaker 4 And not only will they be a part of the overall results that Baylor University is trying to capture to show the impact of prayer, but they can see the impact of prayer in their own marriages. Is that right? 45:10 - Speaker 2 That is correct. That is correct. 45:12 - Speaker 4 That is wonderful yeah. 45:13 - Speaker 2 And when we do this show, praise day challenge uh, it'll have an app, and one of the features of the app is that that my prayer score is now going to be, um, not just at the beginning and the end, but at various points along the way, so that anybody anybody who has the app can now take the survey and get their score as they are going along. I mean, we all love to to play golf and and and bowl and things like that, but imagine if you had no scorecard. Well, this and now you got a scorecard with the my prayer challenge and uh yeah it's simple. 45:57 - Speaker 1 You know it's simple. Years ago a pastor said to us one time he said you know, I love you guys because you're so shallow. And he said well, I didn't mean that. I mean you take him in the shallow end. 46:09 - Speaker 2 Us pastors take him into the deep end and that's and we said yes well that's it the lady who does funny voices, the guy who brought you schoolhouse rock. 46:18 - Speaker 1 We're shallow we are shallow. We're very happy about that, you know what you are. 46:22 - Speaker 4 You're people who know how to bring the Lord to where people are and meet them where they are. And I mean, is it safe to say the show that you're putting together? It's a reality TV show right, yes, it is. 46:35 - Speaker 1 It's the opposite of the Housewives of New Jersey. Well, it actually. 46:40 - Speaker 4 It is the exact opposite, but you're bringing faith and prayer and you're saving marriages in reality television. I mean, I don't know anything that could be cooler and more exciting and more relevant than that. So what's the timeline? Talk to us about when we can expect to see this. You know, hit whatever network you end up signing. 47:01 - Speaker 2 Well, we are. I would say that we're very much on a fast track and we have most of the elements that we need to put together. We know that we've got to create the app, we've got to create certain things, but we're pulling together the last of the elements. So and you know, in the television business you kind of move pretty quickly Right now if Hallmark or Netflix gave us a movie pickup, we could have it on the air in January, you know, and and so this kind of a series we could have it on the air in January and we could be, we could be going for or we could back up from 40 days, from Easter and on on, you know, and just start, ash Wednesday started, you know that kind of thing. So I think that it may well be on the air as early as January. 47:57 - Speaker 4 Yeah, Wow, that's so exciting. Well, I'll be really looking forward to that. 48:01 - Speaker 2 Great. 48:02 - Speaker 4 You know I don't want to keep you guys all day, so maybe I can wrap it up with with one question, which is that you two are leading so much. Your ministry is so multifaceted. How can folks track with you and what you're doing? Do you have a website? It sounds like you're on facebook, yeah, yeah we are on facebook. 48:19 - Speaker 2 We have uh almost a half a million followers on facebook and godwinks.com godwinks.com, that's which Louise uh spends uh her primary time on that also, she contributes to the other one and then god winks, and that's god winkers, and then that's a private group, and then god winks, facebook.com/godwinks. Um, that's been a very strong uh storytelling uh base, whereas the god winkers is more prayer based and um, and so we're just just moving quickly together on that. 49:11 - Speaker 1 I just have such a strong feeling the Lord is saying we should do a book about dogs and he says, honey, we don't even have a dog. I said I know, but I said I just feel so, so strong, the Holy Spirit is just impressing upon me. So he said, well, where are we going to get the you know the dog? That well, we could do dogs like as the center of the God wink. But where are we going to get the dog stories? In the very next day, open up my Facebook page, god winkers. But where are we going to get the dog stories? In the very next day I open up my Facebook page, god Winkers, and someone says, hey, did you see this great story of a canine officer who adopts this dog named Ruby? And it was the most amazing God wink story. I read it. I told SQuire. He called the principal people. We sold that to Netflix. That was our first Netflix movie. 49:55 - Speaker 2 Rescued by Ruby, and it is one of the top family faith movies on Netflix. 50:00 - Speaker 4 Your kids would love it. That's how Rescued by Ruby came about. Yes, I didn't know. That's how it started, oh my God yes Through a prayer. 50:08 - Speaker 2 A God wink, dog wink. 50:10 - Speaker 1 Yes, but it was through us praying together. See, when a couple prays because it's like you know, the closer you get to the top radio tower, the clearer the voice comes. And if you pray every single day, you start hearing the voice of God much clearer than you did maybe at the beginning. And that's what we're finding now is that his direction, his clarity, it's like crystal clear now. His direction, his clarity, it's, it's, it's like crystal clear now. And that's why, when he said I want you to do something with dogs, even though we didn't understand it, we knew that, okay, if, if God was impressing that upon us, then we need to do that. 50:46 - Speaker 4 Wow. Well, somehow you've just pulled together like the Holy Spirit nudges social media, using your community on Facebook, You're like you're pulling in Netflix, and, of course, prayer is at the center of it, and it all comes together and you just you have something really from the Lord to offer to the world. It's really so beautiful. Gosh, I could really sit here and talk to you too for like 12 hours. I'll probably leave it there for today. I want to thank you so much for jumping on the podcast. 51:16 It really has blessed me. I've learned so much in this conversation. 51:20 - Speaker 2 There's so much to look forward to. 51:22 - Speaker 4 You two have so much energy, so many ideas, and you're just so willing to be used by the Lord to bless everyone around you. So thank you. 51:32 - Speaker 2 Thank you, and the one thing I forgot to mention is when a Godwinkscom is our website Godwinkscom, godwinkscom, so you can join our wink letter or like a regular newsletter. We call it the wink letter and you can find out what's going on. 51:51 - Speaker 4 Yeah All right, the wink letter. 51:52 - Speaker 2 I love it, I will subscribe as soon as we're done talking. 51:57 - Speaker 4 Thank you, SQuire, thank you. 52:00 - Speaker 1 We appreciate you. God bless you, thanks, bye-bye. 52:03 - Speaker 3 Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. 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