\u201cWhen I left, I felt more confident in what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how freshman film major Alexa Blankenship felt as she exited Benson Auditorium Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called my mom crying,\u201d Blankenship said. \u201cI was like, \u2018This is it. I\u2019m confident now. I\u2019m good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The American Studies Institute (ASI) hosted Christian filmmaker Alex Kendrick on Tuesday as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series. Kendrick is behind movies such as \u201cFireproof,\u201d \u201cWar Room\u201d and the recent \u201cOvercomer,\u201d which was released in August. Originally a pastor from Georgia, Kendrick spoke on the topic of pursuing dreams with God\u2019s guidance \u2014 a topic that rang true for many in the audience like Blankenship, who grew up watching Kendrick\u2019s movies.<\/p>\n
Executive Director of ASI Kim Kirkman said she received more positive feedback after Kendrick\u2019s lecture than after any previous speaker, even though multiple lectures have been more heavily attended.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the real deal,\u201d Kirkman said. \u201cHis message was true. You know, he\u2019s not a perfect person because he\u2019s human, but he lives the message he preaches, which doesn\u2019t always happen. People always preach a good message, but they don\u2019t always live it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendrick has spoken in many different venues over the years, but he said there\u2019s something special about academic settings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love high schools and colleges, especially from a Christian worldview,\u201d Kendrick said in an interview before the lecture. \u201cI love investing in that group of people, because I was [a student], and people invested in me. It\u2019s an honor to be here and speak here. Campus is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendrick arrived on campus the night before the lecture, giving him the chance to see the Christmas lights, which he said were beautiful. The next morning, he spent several hours on a conference call; it was the first day of official work on Kendrick\u2019s seventh film project, set to open in theatres Oct. 20, 2021.<\/p>\n
Kendrick said his film career only took off when he gave control to God and shut down his own pride. He said he knows how fortunate he is to have been given these opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very aware that God gave this platform to me and he can take it away, you know?\u201d Kendrick said. \u201cMy job is to seek him and to honor him with what he\u2019s given me to do, because I want to finish well. I want to finish whatever season \u2014 however long the season is for me to do these movies and invest in other people \u2014 I want to do that well. So that when I\u2019m done and pass the torch, he says, \u2018Well done.\u2019 That\u2019s my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Author Stephen M. R. Covey will be the next speaker in the Distinguished Lecture Series on Feb. 20, 2020, and NFL tight end Benjamin Watson will speak on April 21, 2020. In addition, ASI is partnering with the Honors College to host investigative journalist and Harding alumnus Jerry Mitchell on March 24, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhen I left, I felt more confident in what I was doing.\u201d That\u2019s how freshman film major Alexa Blankenship felt as she exited Benson Auditorium Tuesday night. \u201cI called my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15102,"featured_media":14055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14056,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions\/14056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}