by Dale Reeves
Story Pastor
Several weeks ago, I was invited to a screening of the upcoming movie entitled Unsung Hero. I loved the movie because I had experienced some of it years earlier when I worked as an editor at Standard Publishing. To know some of the story is one thing, but to see it portrayed on the big silver screen is something exponentially more moving. Admittedly, I am a visual learner, but the power of what is depicted in this movie is something I believe every family I know needs to see today.
If you’ll allow me, I’d like to press the rewind button and take us back a few years. It was sometime in 1994 when I first met the family I want to talk about today. I had done an interview with the band DC Talk (TobyMac, Michael Tait, and Kevin Max) for a magazine I edited for teens at my job at Standard. I worked with some kind folks at their record label, ForeFront Records, to acquire some images of the band I could use in the story. Along the way I got to know one of their label execs, Greg Ham, who first told me of a new artist they had just signed to ForeFront. Her name was Rebecca St. James. They had high hopes for her career.
I didn’t waste any time planning a trip to Brentwood, Tennessee, to interview Rebecca for a future article for our magazine. She was sixteen years old at the time. I got to meet this Australian family comprised of her mum and dad, and her six younger siblings. We quickly forged a unique bond that has lasted for thirty years. I watched my friend Bec, her father/manager David, her mum Helen, and her siblings all assume whatever roles were necessary as Bec’s career in Christian music began to take shape. As she started touring across the country in churches and schools, David would always lead the band and her family in a time of devotion before the concert every evening.
Looking Back
One day the family shared with me that they had been looking for a family devotional to use and they had noticed there weren’t many out there. They had given some thought to writing their own devotional. Because I had been impressed with Rebecca’s passion for God at such a young age, I asked her what she thought about writing a book that would not only show people something of her relationship with God, but also challenge many others to grow along with her. The way that book came together was evidence of God’s working. Whenever Bec and I would begin to work on some of the content, she would always start by asking, “Do you want to pray first?” I have heard a number of Bec’s interviews in person and on the radio, and she has always made this request first—even with journalists and media who weren’t necessarily believers in Christ.
Before you know it, I was on the road with the family in their van, traveling in northeast Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania. I don’t know if they’d ever seen that much snow before. Each day we would get up and head to the next concert venue with David driving, pulling a trailer of sound equipment behind them, while Helen shouted homeschool instructions to the kids, and Bec’s youngest brother Josh sat next to me eating Cheerios while I was pecking away on my B & W laptop. “Joshie” is now the general manager for Smallbone Management/for King & Country. He, along with all his siblings, learned his trade while traveling with this family-run ministry as a child.
They learned about sound mixing, setting up and running lights, setting up and running the merch tables, partnering with Compassion International, making some awesome videos, singing background vocals, and interacting with people before and after concerts. I still chuckle about the time we were in the United Center in Chicago where Michael Jordan played basketball. As the show was being set up, a couple of union guys asked me about the stage manager, Joel, who was twelve years old at the time: “Does he know what he is doing? He’s just a kid.” “Yes,” I said, “he absolutely knows what needs to be put where. He does this every day!” Joel is now known as one half of the lead vocalists with his younger brother Luke in the highly successful band “for King & Country.”
Coming Soon
The result of my first travels with the Smallbone family culminated in a book that Standard Publishing released in 1996 that was entitled, 40 Days with God: A Devotional Journey. In the foreword of the book, I wrote these words:
“I have seen firsthand how her intimacy with God is her strength and her inspiration. What you see on stage is genuine. With Rebecca, there is no pretense. She has opened herself up to God and has asked Him to direct her every step. . . . She really desires that what she says to others be God-directed, and not self-motivated.”
Those words are as true today, almost thirty years later, as they were then. Rebecca’s heart and message resonated with many people. She received thank-you notes and emails from teenage girls and guys, college students, moms and dads, and even some grandparents who loved the book. She also received many heartbreaking stories of the trials so many young people were going through. Rebecca read each of those notes and responded as time would allow. And many of their thoughts helped inform the content as we wrote a follow-up, You’re the Voice: 40 More Days with God.
All together during the years when Rebecca toured extensively before becoming a wife and a mom of three kids herself, I was Rebecca’s co-writer on five books. What an exhilarating journey it was. I could tell you about the time their front of house engineer, Ralph Rivera, and I thought we were going to die as we hiked up and down the sand dunes with the family on a road trip near Coos Bay, Oregon. But that’s for another day. So, now, we fast-forward to next weekend.
I write all of this to let you know why Rebecca St. James and her parents David and Helen Smallbone will be with us at Christ’s Church on Sunday, April 28, at 10:30 am. They have an honest, authentic, life-changing, miraculous story that you need to hear. The movie Unsung Hero officially opens nationwide in theaters on Friday, April 26. I would highly encourage you to go see it before Sunday, or the week after, as the success of a movie like this greatly depends on box-office sales the first weekend it is out. Check out the trailer here.
You can find out more info regarding local theaters here:
Joel Smallbone plays the role of his father David in the movie, and one of the executive producers is well-known actress Candace Cameron Bure, who also stars as a neighbor of the Smallbones, who becomes the hands and feet of Jesus to them in their time of need. Bure comments, “When they came and shared the script with me, and I heard their story—it’s unbelievable! . . . The film is about miracles, it’s about the unsung hero. . . . April 26 can’t come soon enough!”
When you see the movie, I believe you will see why I’m such a fan of this family and their incredible story. We are looking forward to talking with them about God’s miraculous intervention in their lives, his constant provision and protection as they were scattered abroad, just as we’ve been studying in the book of 1 Peter. Hope to see you at the theater or in church soon. I can’t wait!