BURLESON  Filmmaker Jarod O’Flaherty didn’t intend to produce a television series for streaming on Amazon Prime.

O’Flaherty, who wrote, directed and produced the award-winning faith-based 2013 film My Son with the talented congregation of Retta Baptist Church in Burleson, planned to use funds designated for video and film ministry left from My Son DVD and ticket sales to create a short film for the festival circuit.

O’Flaherty did that, writing, directing and producing a film using as many professional actors and crew members as possible, supplementing the budget with private donations. Michael Dennis, a minister then on staff at Retta, served as a co-producer.

“We wanted to take the production quality of My Son up a notch, enter the short in festivals and see what God would do with it,” O’Flaherty told the TEXAN in a recent interview.

The result, a 26-minute film called Vindication(its name would be changed to “Alibi” for the series) was accepted into a dozen secular and faith-based film festivals across the country, garnering nominations and awards, including best short film of the 2017 Christian Worldview Film Festival.

With the film’s success, the distribution company Vision Video reached out to O’Flaherty and Dennis, who had planned simply to post the video on YouTube and end the project.

Distributors asked about the film’s main character, Gary Travis, a police detective in the fictional town of East Bank, Texas. They wondered if he might have more cases.

With the demand in place, O’Flaherty and colleagues started creating new cases for Detective Travis, played by Dallas actor Todd Terry.

They scraped together funds to shoot episode 2. The production quality, acting and writing convinced additional donors to come aboard, and financing for a full 10-episode season was arranged, although O’Flaherty admitted that the budget per episode was a “fraction” of what Hollywood would spend on a similar show.

Hence, there are few bells-and-whistles, no frantic car chases or fiery explosions. Compensation for actors and professional crew was generally above industry standards, but some volunteers were not compensated and other crew members were “undercompensated,” O’Flaherty said, adding that if there is to be a season 2, he wants to see all involved receive proper compensation.

“We wrote the stories to fit our budget,” O’Flaherty said, adding that story arcs involving the main characters begin largely with Vindication’s third episode.

Low budget did not mean low quality. Producers used proven industry professionals including cinematographer Ron Gonzales and his camera, sound and lighting crews. Gonzalez’s resume includes projects for ABC, FOX, HDNET, DISCOVERY, TRAVEL, BIOGRAPHY and the DISNEY Channel.

Veteran actors Terry, alum of Breaking Bad, and Peggy Schott (Fear the Walking Dead) lend believability to their roles as the nominally-Christian detective and his devout wife. Emma Elle Roberts (Unplanned and I’m Not Ashamed) flew in from Los Angeles to play the couple’s troubled daughter.

Many cast and crew are believers, O’Flaherty said.

AlthoughVindication features professionals, volunteers from the church and area helped, appearing as extras or supplying homes for location shoots or meals for cast and crew. The church let filmmakers use its vans.

Connor Watkins, a law school student and graduate of Boston’s Berklee School of Music who scored My Son, wrote original music for the series.

Church member Tammy Ricketts, whom O’Flaherty called “extraordinarily creative,” handled all the props and set designs. “Most shows have entire prop departments. We had Tammy,” he said with a chuckle.

The Retta congregation and pastor were “100 percent” supportive, O’Flaherty added, noting that the Retta Vision name first used for My Son appears at the beginning of each episode of Vindication. Ed Lowe, Retta’s pastor, served as executive producer of episodes 8-10.

“The series reflects real life scenarios, offering hope that Jesus is enough to make a difference,” Lowe said, praising the professionalism of O’Flaherty, cast and crew.

 “Being faith-based, the series does not focus on heinous crime scenes,” O’Flaherty said. While gory autopsies are absent, episodes do explore serious crimes and their consequences: date rape, substance abuse, pornography and teenage sexting, human trafficking, even murder, achieving a level of good taste and a notable absence of cursing. O’Flaherty’s brother-in-law, a Burleson policeman, gave technical advice as did a licensed counselor who attends Retta.

The characters ring true. Travis is not as religious as his wife and he experiences no “come to Jesus” moment when he miraculously transforms into an all-wise Bible-quoter. The gospel comes across in conversations and actions, not in overt proselytizing.

“Weshowfaith to you,” O’Flaherty said.

Vision Video negotiated streaming deals and the entire series premiered on Prime in August, although episode 1 had been on Amazon since March 2018 and on PureFlix since March 2017.

The streaming deal was one of the many “miracles” of production, O’Flaherty said.

When a downpour threatened as a key outdoor scene was shot, the rain held off till after filming, although cast and crew dodged lightning. Schedules meshed as actors and crew came from across the country. An area hospital agreed to the use of an empty floor as a set at the last minute.

Ricketts’ husband became severely ill and eventually died three days before an episode was to be shot. Not wishing to bother her, O’Flaherty started scrambling for items, only to receive a call from the prop lady herself, assuring him that all was ready to go.

The casting of Austin actress Venus Monique as Travis’ trainee/partner in seven episodes occurred after O’Flaherty and Dennis met her as she hosted Austin’s Christian festival, the Attic Film Fest.

As for the future of Vindication, O’Flaherty, cast, crew, producers and Retta Baptist hope for a second season. The next six months will prove pivotal, as people watch. Or not.

When episode 1 appeared on Amazon Prime as a solo short, viewership soared to 100,000 after Amazon promoted it. O’Flaherty hopes a similar bump will occur for the series.

“Every few months, a new Christian movie comes out,” O’Flaherty said. “Binge-able faith-based TV series are very, very rare.”

The series DVD was released Oct. 15. Negotiations have been concluded for airing in Australia, the Middle East (including 25 Muslim countries), South and Central America and some parts of Europe. The series has been translated into Spanish, Farsi, Arabic and Turkish.

“We’re just a little country church, not a multi-million dollar church,” Lowe said. “This is exciting for our congregation.”

WithVindication, Retta’s congregation of around 200 is poised to make a worldwide impact in a “new” old genre: Christian television.

Niagara Falls is more than water drops, but it isn’t less. And global missions is more than you and I, but it isn’t less. When we all work together our cooperation enables what happens downstream in global missions.

Wave after wave rushes over the brink of Niagara with the thunder of a river falling, and all that water comes from somewhere. It comes from farther upstream and farther still, from raindrops and small streams. Even Niagara can’t run on its own. Even Niagara needs water.

And even global missions needs you and me. During Lottie Moon Christmas Offering season we talk a lot about our Southern Baptist missionaries and their work—and we should. I just spent two years overseas with them and in my short time I saw our brothers and sisters faithfully sharing the gospel from Spain to Ethiopia in the face of serious challenges. I’ve spent some time downstream in global missions, and I have seen young families and 20-something singles and retirees struggling to learn a new language, to find where the grocery store is, to make friends—and all this while searching constantly for opportunities to share Jesus.

This Christmas season your church might play a video or hand out brochures from the International Mission Board, filled with colorful stories about how God used this person to plant a church in a hard place or how he used that person to lead someone to Jesus. But mud huts and megacities are pretty foreign to most of us in places like Tyler and Toyah, and the edge of Niagara can feel very far away indeed. And yet even Niagara needs water.

You and I from all the way over here in Texas fit into God’s good plan for global missions the same way all the waters above Niagara fit into all the waters at Niagara. We are a part of global missions by nature and by action.

When you give to Lottie Moon, if you want to picture the kind of people that your money goes to, the kind of people who are missionaries, you might start by looking around your church on Sunday morning and picking someone who is fun to be around and who loves Jesus. Missionaries might be superheroes, but probably not in the way we normally think of them. They’re often very normal folks whom God in his planning just decided to relocate overseas. It turns out that healthy missionaries look an awful lot like healthy church members. We are a part of global missions by nature because the stuff at the edge of the falls is the same stuff upstream, water—it’s just in a different place.

And we’re a part of global missions by action because when we decide to give to Lottie Moon and to pray for our missionaries—and when we don’t—we’re really affecting what happens downstream with all the crashing waters and blowing mists. What we do upstream changes what happens at the edge of the falls. God in his good plan has set up global missions so individuals and churches can take part, not just way downstream in distant and exotic places, but even right here at home. When you give, 100 percent of your Lottie Moon dollars goes to our missionaries. Praying and giving are just two ways that right now, today, before you go to bed tonight, you can join God’s good plan for global missions.

You and I are upstream from global missions, and it doesn’t matter if you’re from a little lake or a rushing river—all the water in a waterfall comes from somewhere. You might be from a big city or a farm, in a church with 50 people or a church with 50 staff. It doesn’t really matter where we’re at or where we’re from, because God’s design is for all of us to join him in global missions.

You can learn more about the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and give online at: www.imb.org/lmco

Editor’s note: This draws to a close our year-long series on many of the SBTC’s founders.

GRAPEVINE — Gerald Smith presented Jim Richards with a pair of custom-made cowboy boots when Richards was confirmed as the first executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention at its inaugural meeting in Houston in 1998.

Smith said later that he and other founders figured Richards, a Louisiana native, needed a pair of cowboy boots, a necessity in Texas.

“After 21 years, my boots still fit,” Richards told the TEXAN in a recent interview. “I still love jambalaya and LSU football, but Texas is in my heart like no other place.”

Richards discussed a few of the issues surrounding his original candidacy.

The fact that he was not a native Texan almost derailed Richards’ chances for the job. Some members of the board of directors of the Southern Baptists of Texas, Inc.—the organization that preceded the then-unchartered SBTC—felt the job belonged to someone from the Lone Star State.

Others charged with recommending someone to lead the new convention were concerned about Richards’ extensive involvement with the national Southern Baptist Convention. Would choosing an SBC stalwart mean Texas was ceding control to the national entity?

Richards’ long SBC involvement included serving on the SBC’s Tellers Committee and chairing the Committee on Nominations, Committee on Order of Business, and the trustee board of the ERLC (formerly the Christian Life Commission) at various times.
Some on the board of directors preferred other candidates.

Richards himself had reservations. He had spent more than two decades pastoring churches in Louisiana and, since 1995, had been comfortably filling a role he loved as director of missions for the Northwest Baptist Association in Rogers, Arkansas.

“I loved where I lived. It was on the side of a mountain in the Ozarks. This was no perk for me to move to the concrete jungle,” Richards said of the 1998 decision that would take him from the mountains to the DFW Metroplex.

Nonetheless, when Richards finally gained assurances of support from the directors of the old SBT and the potential officers of the new SBTC, he agreed to fly down to Houston, where he was elected to lead the new convention on Nov. 9, the day before the SBTC was formally constituted.

A more thorough examination of the circumstances surrounding Richards’ selection appears in Gary Ledbetter’s history of the convention, SBTC: 20 Years of Reaching Texas and Touching the World.

When asked how he feels 21 years after taking the helm of the SBTC, Richards said with a chuckle, “I feel older.”

He admitted to having found a few surprises in his new job in 1998. He was told there were 300 affiliated churches originally; instead there were 120. Criticism from the other state convention came steadily, too.

“In the early days, there were internal forces that could have caused the convention to have been stillborn. Godly men and women stood for principles of integrity and would not let the convention go down the wrong path,” Richards said, adding, “God protected us from making poor decisions when we were very capable of doing so.”

Richards also praised SBTC staff: “God sent leader after leader to serve on staff. They provided sacrificial service to the churches of the SBTC.”

Richards’ threefold vision of the SBTC’s core values remains the hallmark of the convention today. The SBTC was to be a confessional fellowship, with affiliated churches affirming the Baptist Faith & Message 2000. The efficient use of resources was another core value, with missions and evangelism at the forefront. Finally, the new convention would cooperate in friendly partnership with the SBC, contributing significantly to the national Cooperative Program.

The 2020 SBTC budget continues this practice: 55 percent of undesignated CP receipts are forwarded to the SBC while the SBTC invests 45 percent in Texas ministries.

Richards admitted he had a goal of seeing 3,000 churches and a $30 million Cooperative Program budget by 2020.

“We came close. By God’s grace, those numbers will be reached in a few short years,” he said.

As for the SBTC’s future, Richards said much will depend upon the next generation. “The rising generation will have to hold the convictions of the founders for it to be blessed of the Lord,” he said, expressing optimism by adding, “I’m excited about the young leaders in the SBTC. I believe they will hold true to our confessional fellowship, kingdom focus and missional drive.”

Richards confirmed the SBTC must continue its commitment to the primacy and inerrancy of Scripture. “There can be no compromise relative to the Word of God,” Richards said. “God blesses his Word. He blesses those who honor his Word.”

Honoring God’s Word is something Richards has done since he was saved and called to preach at age 17. The distinguished alumnus of both New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and Mid-American Baptist Theological Seminary (D.Min.), and his wife, June, have three children and four grandchildren.

Today, even some of Richards’ former detractors have been won over as they’ve seen the new convention flourish.

“You live long enough, you get to see some of these things happen,” Richards said.

CYPRESS — As God was nudging Joseph Ogletree toward church planting, he also was burdening Ogletree about the need in today’s culture for strong families. A result of that dual vision is Image Church in Cypress, a new congregation partnering with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

About four years ago, “God really started putting on my heart church planting and family,” Ogletree said. Beginning with telling Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, “the family was essential to God’s advancement of his will,” he said.

Yet families today are broken. “In order to restore that, we believe that the gospel is a great place to start,” Ogletree said.

He started talking with mentors about possibilities and ended up serving in a residency program at CityView Church in Pearland. “That’s how I got connected with Southern Baptists,” Ogletree said.

“God gave me some clarity of the vision,” he said. “I learned more about church planting, and in November 2016, we were officially sent by CityView, and we just basically had small group Bible study for an entire year.”

During that year, God sent people to form the core team, and Image Church launched in October 2017.

“Our mission was always centered around the family and growing the family of God,” Ogletree said. “We centralize it on two aspects: making disciples and building families. That’s been our mission since day one.”

Much like its attention to the family, the church’s name came from Genesis.

“God made us in his image. We are to be the image bearers of God,” Ogletree said. “In Colossians, Paul said that we would be conformed to the image of his Son. Wherever we go, we are to be the image bearers of Christ. We are his representatives on the earth.”

The predominantly African-American congregation meets at Black Elementary School in Cypress and averages about 75 people. Though the journey is still new, lives have been changed already, Ogletree said.

“One that comes to mind is a guy who’s really just blossomed and grown. He shares that he was lost and he didn’t know how to be a man and lead his family. His marriage was not in the best place. He and his wife came to us, and he got connected, and now he’s serving. He’s leading our men’s ministry, and he smiles every Sunday,” Ogletree said. “His testimony is about how the church has changed his life.

“It keeps you going, stories like that.”

Ogletree is a bivocational pastor, retaining his full-time software sales job while serving as a church planter. His secular career gives him opportunities to share his faith, he said.

“I’m in customers’ offices. I get to demonstrate to everyone who I am as a believer, my journey. From that aspect, I really enjoy the bivocational role,” Ogletree said.

At the same time, being a bivocational pastor is “extremely difficult” because of time constraints. He and his wife, Sherrell, have three sons: Jaiden, Josiah and Jaxon, ages 12, 10 and 6.

“Family is my first ministry, so I do my best to cut out time for family and be available to them, be at football games and basketball games and have our time. I try to make sure ministry and work doesn’t interfere with that,” Ogletree said.

Ogletree is thankful for the relationships he has developed in the SBTC and the resources available. “They’re very missions-minded, and that’s what our church needs,” he said, adding that he appreciates that the convention is supportive of Image Church’s vision.

He wants to encourage other church planters who have to work full time to provide for their families in addition to leading ministries.

“Maybe it’s for a season, but it’s where God has you and you’ve got to manage it to the best of your abilities,” Ogletree said.

Interested in church planting? Contact Doug Hixson at the SBTC.