The story of Freedom Film Distributors is just beginning, and there will be many chapters written in the coming years. This is an attempt to add one of the initial chapters to that story, in the form of my story of how I came to be involved with the Freedom Film Distributors team.
The essential aim of Freedom Film Distributors is to change the culture through the permeation of God-honoring films in our society, to supplant the God-hating films that currently predominate. This effort will largely be worked out in families, and the effect desired through our films is that of family reformation. The family is the primary institution of human government, and is the building block of both church and civil government. It is therefore of primary importance in its need for reformation.
This is important, because the journey to my current involvement with Freedom Film Distributors began with a family reformation. While I was excelling in a military career as an Air Force pilot, on a path for early promotion and command, God turned my heart to my family and grounded there a realization of the importance of establishing the foundation of a godly heritage for my children and grandchildren. What quickly followed was a 180 degree turn of my life course, with the realization that in order to disciple my children most effectively, I needed to homeschool them; in order to homeschool them most effectively, I need to be home as much as possible; in order to be home as much as possible, I needed to become an entrepreneur that was able to decide my priorities and time commitments. So I determined to leave active duty after over 11 years and strike off with my clan into the uncharted waters of entrepreneurship.
After God’s great providence in giving me some wonderful mentors and opportunities to quickly learn many aspects of entrepreneurial business, I have developed some important skills in the use of information technology and its application to many business challenges, among them marketing, sales, training, planning, and business processes. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to lead a turnaround of a troubled computer training organization for my primary mentor and spearhead the launch of a social media marketing service for a successful internet marketing entrepreneur. Networking, and social networking especially, has been very important in my development as a business leader, and it was through networking that I found and worked on both of those former efforts.
So it should come as no surprise that I learned of and was offered a role in the launch of Freedom Film Distributors through a connection initiated on Facebook. Steve Morales, the founder of FFD, contacted me after seeing interactions that I had had with some of his friends on Facebook and he noted our likemindedness on some important issues, as well as my background in social media. After a short conversation and reviewing a description of the business model and goals, I was immediately interested in the opportunity, even though my background was not specifically in the film industry.
Freedom Film Distributors is rather unique, because in an age of mega corporations with their vast bureaucracies and where a growing role of ecommerce in product sales has marginalized many traditional sales channels, it seeks to go back to the old paths by offering entrepreneurs a chance to run their own businesses and impact their communities through a local distribution strategy. This is not only unconventional, but also somewhat counter to the trend occurring with media sales in general. And it is precisely because of that counter-cultural nature that it will succeed. By relying on independent distributors across the country that operate as entrepreneurs, many of the constraints on the creativity and resourcefulness inherent with a smaller team will be eliminated and allow these distributors to do what works most effectively in their territory. Furthermore, since the distributors are members of a network that will utilize collaboration tools and have the support of a corporate office that provides training and support resources, the advancements made by individual distributors will be shared, used, and improved by others in the network, leading to greater effectiveness for the whole. A distributed entrepreneurial effort in this Freedom Film Distributors network will be a key to our success. We will be a family of families, all providing mutual support for each other. And our efforts will be impacting families in our local communities and throughout the nation, as God uses relationships with our distributors and the medium of film to communicate His message of hope, and thus cause reformation in those families, then in the church and civil society as well.
After quickly realizing all of this, and having recently freed up some time for a new venture, I accepted Steve’s offer to join the team with great excitement and anticipation for the things that God will do through Freedom Film Distributors. We have found others that have likewise caught the vision and enthusiastically raised their hands to join the team. Would you prayerfully consider the opportunity to join our team and let others know about it as well?
