Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 01/10/24

Rise and shine. In part one of our conversation, movie producer Mark W. Koch (pronounced Cook) detailed his fall following the huge success of his 1998 movie adaptation of the classic sixties TV series Lost in Space. Here he talks about his spiritual and emotional comeback and the experience that led to his book The First Hour: Unleash God’s Power.

Mark W. Koch: The Holy Spirit woke me at at 5:55 AM. I’ll never forget it…”Get up and give me your first hour every morning for 30 days and I’m gonna rock your world.” I tried to go back to bed. “Get up give me your first hour.” It was very specific, John. “Give me 30 minutes of prayer and 30 minutes of reading My Word.” So, finally I got up. Okay, now here’s how you know it’s the Holy Spirit. First of all: Thirty minutes of prayer! I’m a new Christian! Like, what am I gonna pray about? Thirty minutes of prayer! Well, here’s what I want all your (readers) to know…It’s not (just) a book you read. It’s something that I did. It’s seven simple steps.

I remember walking upstairs (thinking) “30 minutes of prayer! What am I gonna do?!” As I got upstairs to my office I gasped because my desk is usually full of papers, scripts and everything you can think of. My desk was completely cleared off. My wife decided, I guess, to do a little housekeeping. In the center of my desk was one book:  Prayers That Avail Much by Germaine Copeland. Now, you can’t make this stuff up…Oh, my gosh. It’s a pretty thick book! I go to the index and there’s 267 prayers, 250 pages! Okay, I start looking through the index thinking “Alright, I’m gonna time it! I’m just gonna pick these random prayers. I’ll put a yellow sticky note” – because they’re on all different pages throughout this whole book – “and when 30 minutes are up we’ll see what happens.” So, I started these prayers (that) I thought were random. There were 18 prayers. I marked them…So next was “Okay, I’m supposed to spend 30 minutes in the Word.”

“Give me your first hour, your first fruits. 30 minutes of prayer, 30 minutes of reading My Word.” Well, what am I gonna read? Instantly, I thought the New Testament. Let’s see how many pages are in it? 240 pages, divided by 30. Eight pages a day!…God just put his “boot camp” (in my mind). Seven steps. I spent an hour with my wife with the phone off, a half hour with the children, exercise. It’s a simple check-off list…

…We are in a war. Ephesians 6:11: Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand up to everything the devil throws your way! If you don’t put the armor of God on you won’t be able to. That happens to be the second prayer that God (placed in) my heart…The first prayer is Wash yourself with the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ each morning. Ask for forgiveness and repent. God gives us a fresh start each and every morning. Confess our sins. Repent them…Second prayer:  Armor up! I would say armor up or get slaughtered! Put on the full armor of God! I will tell you where the enemy is getting all my brothers is in the battle for the mind. So, I put four helmets on! I don’t have time to go through (all the prayers) but when I think of the helmets I know that my mind is the number-one target of Satan’s lying, cheating, lustful, joy-robbing, anxiety-filled ways. So, I cover my mind with the powerful helmets of salvation. (I pray) Make all of my thoughts agreeable to Your plans, Your purpose, Lord Jesus. Satan has no authority over my thoughts. I have the powerful helmet of salvation on.

The third prayer is rebuilding of the Holy Spirit. That prayer is simple. Heavenly Father, it says in Your word, How much more will You give the Holy Spirit to those who ask You. I ask You now in the name of Jesus for a freshening of Your Holy Spirit. So, those three prayers – the first three prayers in the book – have radically transformed men’s prayers lives…

…This book – and this tool – is radical. We’ve given away about 400,000 copies (as of this conversation). Our goal is to give away a million. They’re free. The first book’s free. I’ll tell you, my brother, we’ve seen marriages restored, relationships restored. We’re trying to reach a million men so they can continue to share. Just like it says, the Word is alive. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all else will be added. So, I’m a little bit excited about it. We just printed another 300,000 books. We are looking to give them away…I don’t care if it’s 10,000 men in the church. We’ll ship them 10,000 books! We’ll pay the shipping. My burden is to reach a million men in 2024 with this book.

JWK: Getting back to the first part of our conversation, I find it interesting that your wife seemed happier with you after you ran into financial trouble than before.

MWK: Oh, absolutely! Listen, I had an ego. You know what the word EGO stand for – Excluding God Out. Yeah, all I did was shower her with gifts.You know, living a life of sin, come home and buy a her a little extra something. That’s not what she wanted. What she wanted was my loyalty, my faithfulness and my time.

It’s interesting, John, I was on the Huckabee show. It was two years ago on Father’s Day. Huckabee held the book up and said “What a perfect Father’s Day gift! And it’s free! You just pay the shipping!” We had about 13,000 orders go out. As we looked at it, over 60% of the free book orders were from women – not buying it for themselves, buying it for their husbands. The women of this nation are dying for their husbands to become godly men, to become the spiritual leaders of the house, to become faithful and loyal husbands and great fathers. The first part of the book, the mission statement is “If you heal the man, he can heal the family and the family can heal the nation.”

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.