The Perfect Stranger

Last night, after a series of great dinners with great friends, we watched The Perfect Stranger, which is the ultimate great dinner! A cynical lawyer gets an invitation to dinner at her favorite restaurant with Jesus Christ, and He answers all of her questions, quite profoundly. I highly recommend it!



I posted about the dinners and the movie on social media, and almost immediately my friend Katie Lentz commented: Rich! In The Perfect Stranger, Nikki is played by my friend Pamela! You met her when we saw you in Revelation. Cool connection!



I'll say it's a cool connection! I got to thinking about it, and when Pamela saw Revelation she watched my character interact with Jesus. So, my mind kept going on this. I first saw The Perfect Stranger in the Philippines while performing and teaching some workshops at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary, where I just found out our host for one of our dinners had taught a few years before I was there. The man playing Jesus with my character in Revelation was played by a Filipino.



So I had a little whoah moment, but my brain kept noodling. That cool God wink wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been in Revelation, which happened because I "happened" to be at the only combined gathering of Mastermedia and The Hang that I'm aware of. That was where I shared that I do a 1-man play about The Revelation, and the producers later called to see if I'd perform the role of John in their Off-Broadway musical.



But Pamela wouldn't have seen Revelation the Musical if Katie hadn't invited her, and Katie wouldn't be alive if it weren't for a series of extraordinary miracles after an extreme car wreck (main miracles, follow-up).



I wouldn't have seen The Perfect Stranger in the Philippines if I hadn't met the folks who invited me to perform there while I was in Indiana, and I wouldn't have been there if I hadn't been invited to teach for one week... that turned into 16 years at the MasterWorks Festival. I wouldn't have been invited to teach for that week if I hadn't been a member of Christians in Theatre Arts.



And you wouldn't be reading this if I wasn't pondering it hours before I'd planned on getting up for my last work day before leaving town for seven weeks. I felt like the Lord wanted me to take the time to write this up. Maybe it was for you.



If you don't notice the profound things the Lord is doing all around you, I invite you to have dinner with Jesus.



I write more about that at www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion.

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I play a lead in Providence, which you can bring to your area or watch at home.

More Divine Appointments!

I didn’t notice it until just now, but less than an hour BEFORE I posted my grandma’s interview about her prison ministry today, I received a link to the testimony of a prison ministry recipient below.



I met Buckie on a train last week. I made the decision to take that train, though it had a longer route than another option, because I wouldn’t need to transfer. I would have been on a much earlier train had I not stopped for dim sum with colleagues after recording a song.



So, on the train and in the car I was supposed to be on, I overheard someone giving his testimony to a friend about having found the Lord in prison. So I was praying. When the Christian got up for his stop I handed him my card and asked if his testimony was online. So it was a #DivineAppointment on the train and in the timing of him sending the testimony! I picked up the baton and kept sharing with the other man about the Lord for a few more stops.



Hope you enjoy it. You can watch it below or if you’re receiving this via email, visit www.Blog.RichDrama.com (Thanksgiving Day).

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See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story in Beyond the Chariots. Watch it online and book a live performance.

Thankful for this memory...

Hope you're having a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This interview with Ruth Friesen and my grandmother, Hilda Miller, is in 1987. I digitized it from a VHS cassette in 2009, and searched the web for Ruth Friesen and her show, Beauty of Life. I wanted to get her blessing to post the program, but there was no online record of the show’s name paired with her name. 

Recently my wife, Joyce, and I have been involved with Christian Union’s Great Experiment. We’ve committed to five disciplines for a month, and one of them is asking the Lord every morning what he wants us to do that day. Joyce calls it a concrete kindness for the Lord. Two days ago I felt like the Lord was asking me to look into posting this interview. This time the internet pulled up Ruth’s name in her obituary. She died this April. I reached out to her family by Facebook and noticed that they’re friends with Grandma’s niece’s husband. I reached out to him, and he said the son-in-law just Friended him on Facebook! Soon the family got back to me with their blessing, and then I saw why the Lord had prompted me now. One of Ruth’s daughters pointed out that this will be their family’s first Thanksgiving without her mother. I'm so glad they'll have this wonderful memory to share today.

The interview is mostly about Grandma’s prison ministry, and it reminded me that I was 10 years old when Grandma first brought me in with her to minister to the first prisoner she mentions. I continued to go with her from time to time throughout the rest of her ministry. 

Throughout my career I’ve performed and taught in a few prisons, and I know that was on my heart because of Grandma's prison ministry. My most dramatic encounter was earlier this year in the gang unit on Riker’s Island. 

Grandma talks about how much energy the Lord was giving her, but within a year she sensed him telling her, “Get your affairs in order.” As a high schooler I remember thinking, “Does God want her to clean her room?” July of 1988 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The Lord kept shining through her right to the end, which was three months later. She was a tremendous witness to the doctors and nurses attending her. One of the nurses told me how she was feeling a bit down one day, and there was Grandma, jaundiced and taking her final breaths to encourage her. 

I count Grandma my greatest spiritual mentor and pray I can encourage others right to the end.

For those of you who watch this who aren’t family, I can’t expect that you’ll be as blessed as we are by this interview. I’m writing this after just having seen it for the first time in eight years, and I’m a blubbering mess! I do pray it will give you a sense of gratitude for family members and friends who have represented the Lord well to you. 



Watch the video below, or if you're receiving this via email go to www.Blog.RichDrama.com (Thanksgiving Day).

For more information on Grandma’s mission work in Kenya click here.



To read about the miracle that kickstarted Grandma's ministry click here.



To find out more about a relationship with the Lord, visit www.RichDrama.com/MyPassion.

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See the rest of Olympic champion Eric Liddell's Chariots of Fire story in Beyond the Chariots. Watch it online and book a live performance.

Conservatory Report

This morning I got to share a report about the Salvation Army's Territorial Arts Ministry Conservatory, and I made reference to a series of Divine appointments that occurred yesterday, which you can read about here.

Pastor Jim Warren preached on Haggai 1:1-15, 2:15 and 18. Pastor Linda Warren opened with prayer and later led in commissioning new board member Eva P.



Click the arrow below, or if you're reading this in an email you can click this link, to play the service:







This service is available for download free on iTunes, where you can also subscribe to our podcast. Search for "Westchester Chapel" on the iTunes Store.



If you want to more about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ visit www.WestchesterChapel.org/Salvation.

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I teach annually at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp. Subscribe to get a note that registration is open.

God just blew my mind!

We never got all five faculty members

who were my former students together

for a single photo, but this is

Jonathon Shaffstall, Brad Cain,

and Kathryn Ballantine. 

All week I've been performing, teaching and directing at the Salvation Army's TAM Conservatory, where we've been meditating on Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."



This morning during the send out I shared with the community how the Lord had been speaking to me about his long-term plans with the Conservatory. The Territorial Commanders, William and Lorraine Bamford, addressed our students after many faculty and students shared, and Commander William Bamford pointed out that we're approaching 1500 students who have been trained at the Conservatory, and many have gone on to do great things for the Lord. This year four faculty members had been my students at TAMC years ago, and one other was a student at a Christians in Theatres Arts event in Puerto Rico. I asked faculty members to stand who had previously been a student at TAMC, and I believe there were nine!

We had a BLAST catching up with

Sean and Cath Gaffney, who

taught me so much about writing,

acting, and teaching!

So, this morning I was on faculty at TAMC with Brad Cain, who had been my student at TAMC 15 years ago. Then, tonight Sean and Cath Gaffney messaged me that they were in NYC and asked if we were free. Sean was on the faculty at Regent University while Brad and Cath (Sean loved being a professor dating a student!) were working on their M.F.A.s in acting at Regent together.



But wait, there's more! Sean and Cath were in the city to see Samantha Sturm, who the three of us taught...wait for it... about 15 years ago! Samantha is now in her sixth Broadway show, CATS, and that's the Broadway show that brought Carol Jaudes, the founding director of TAMC and Susie Somerville Brown into their first collaboration.



OK, so now it gets really interesting: Samantha was 14 when we worked with her. On Thursday Susie worked with my students, who were 14 and up, and this morning a 14-year-old student of mine at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp a month ago was staying with her family at our place while we were at TAMC.



So the only four 14-year-olds I believe I've ever worked with were connected by this day.

Ryan Livingston was my student for

acting, and though he was on faculty

to teach visual arts he used his flair

for performance in the presentation

of their artwork.

Lord, raise up all of our students to co-create with You, the only One who could have even thought of arranging that many Divine appointments in a single day to blow my mind and encourage me to pray all the more diligently for my students, no matter their age!





#PowerToBe

#smallworldBIGKINGDOM

I teach annually at the Rocky Mountain Christian Filmmakers Camp. Subscribe to get a note that registration is open.