An Abbreviated History

by Cristóbal Krusen

I had every reason to be happy. I had a good job, a good marriage, a beautiful eight-month old son (my firstborn), and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not only that, it was the day after Christmas, and we were having a wonderful time at my mother-in-law’s home in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In the midst of the festivities, however, I was restless, unsettled. I had been in turmoil for months. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important, vital, was still missing in my life. In the short time I had been a Christian, I had learned to bring my problems and concerns to God in prayer. The best way for me to talk to the Lord – really talk to him – had always been to go on walks.

Behind my mother-in-law’s house was a long stretch of woods. A few days earlier, I had walked along a rough path that ran through these woods, and I knew this would be my refuge, my place of prayer. It was mid-afternoon when I set out, the temperature in the 20s, and the sun beginning its descent. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets and merged with the woods. I found it easy to talk to God in nature. It seemed (and still seems) my instinctive response to his creation. Before long, I found myself reaching the crux of the matter. Behind my restlessness, my uneasiness, was the question of what God wanted me to do with my life. So I asked him: “God what do you want me to do with my life?” I felt as if I was somehow off the mark – not completely out of his will, but off the mark. As I stood watching the sky turn deep blue in the twilight, it seemed I could discern God’s voice speaking to me, answering my question with a question of his own: “What do you want to do with your life?” Our conversation continued roughly as follows:

- Well, Lord, I would like to make feature films for your honor and glory. 

- Then go ahead and do it.

- Well?

- Well, Lord, I really can’t do that. I mean, how can I do that? The only way I could do that is if you were to be my executive producer.

- As I was the friend of Abraham, so will I be your friend.

I continued to walk through the woods and pray. Eventually, darkness came and I made my way back to my mother-in-law’s home. Over the succeeding months, I prayed and fasted about my future life of “making films for the glory of God”. It was interesting to think how not long before, I had concluded that filmmaking had no relevance to the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth.

As a boy, I had dreamed of being one of four things: a filling station attendant (I liked the smell of gas); a garbage collector (they got to ride standing up on the back of the garbage truck); the President of the United States; or a writer. I did eventually gravitate toward writing, and in my college years, this metamorphosed into a desire to be a filmmaker. After attending several colleges, I managed to stick with one school long enough to graduate – NYU – where I earned my BA in Film and Television. I worked in New York City for several years after graduating from NYU.

Then, in my mid-twenties, I began a self-proclaimed “search for the truth” that led me to study the world’s major religions. I was dismissive of Christianity, but research for a screenplay led me to pick up the Bible and read the Psalms. That in turn led me to read Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Job, and the Gospels. When I read the Sermon on the Mount, the beauty of the language and the power of Jesus’ teachings affected me deeply. In time, the Bible began to replace all other reading material in my life. One day, a co-worker asked me if I was “born-again”. I wasn’t sure what he meant. I wasn’t attending a church at the time and wasn’t versed in religious terminology, but I did know I was drawn to Jesus Christ and his teachings.

Eventually, I began to attend a church on Staten Island, my mother-in-law’s church. I don’t remember much of the preaching, but I do remember how moved I was by the love the people showed for one another, and to my surprise, the love they showed my wife and me. I continued to read the Bible and I continued to go to church. I got into the habit of taking a handkerchief with me on Sundays because I knew I would end up crying (sometimes weeping) before the service came to an end.

It was hard to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. I was drawn to Jesus, but I refused to call myself a Christian if I couldn’t “make sense” of every aspect of Christianity. This created a big problem because God can never be understood in his fullness by a finite mind, regardless of the brilliance of that mind. I came to understand that the final step toward becoming a Christian must be a step of faith, a step based on belief in what one could understand, and trust in the sufficiency of God for the things one could not understand. Was Jesus divine? Was he on a par with God? Was he God in human form? Intellectually, I didn’t have the answers, and importantly, I finally concluded I never would discover the answers through my intellect. Nonetheless, I felt I must surrender my heart to him, my will to him. I could not deny that somehow, I knew this God loved me and had forgiven me, though my sins were many. I finally gave my life to the Lord while meditating on the Scripture: Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. (Matthew 18:3)

When I made the decision to surrender my life to Christ, I thought my life was over. And it was over. The old life of “selfish ambition and vain conceit” had been swallowed up by new life in Christ. All things had become new. Immediately, I resolved to become a missionary. I imagined myself in the mold of Albert Schweitzer, the missionary doctor to Africa. At the time, it never occurred to me I could serve the Lord as a filmmaker. But on December 26 th, 1983, all that changed. From that day on, I began to push, scratch, and pray to see just how I could bring what I considered a “heavenly vision” to fulfillment.

I remember how I was praying one night in my son’s bedroom at our home in Miami. I saw two words in front of me: “Messenger Films”. I excitedly told my wife the name for our new ministry. Then a few months later, convinced I should take Luke 12:33 literally, I divested myself of all our savings and possessions and gave the money to the poor and to Christian ministries. I only kept enough to buy a used motor home, left my job with the mission in Miami, and headed back to New York with my wife and our now 1 year, 4 month old son. I told our pastor in New York, and all our friends, that I had returned to launch Messenger Films, a ministry dedicated to the spreading of the gospel through films.

I began research on a film based on the life of Charles Finney and the great revivals in upstate New York during the early 1800s. Within three months, however, with no income from my “filmmaking” and a family to feed, I began to work as an electrician’s helper for a deacon in the church. During the six months I held this job, I nearly killed myself on two occasions and nearly killed him once. It was clear to everyone that I needed to move on, and I did, but I resisted the idea of taking a job better suited to my college education because I was afraid it would distract me from my mission of Christian filmmaking. Instead, I became a deliveryman for several of the finer pizzerias on Staten Island. This tenure lasted almost three years, during which time I produced no films. I was on the verge of throwing in the towel. I had declared previously that, like Paul, I must be obedient to the heavenly vision. But what if I had misinterpreted the vision? What if I had never heard from God in the first place? Our second child had been born and a third was on the way, and we were living in desperate poverty. My wife’s health was deteriorating. I cried out to God on many occasions, seeking him in the dark solace of yet another forest – this one in Clove Lake Park on Staten Island, where I would go sometimes at night when I had left my job at the pizzeria. I would find a clearing among the trees, look up at the sky, and call on the name of the Lord. I always sought God by hurling myself into the elements – by (or in) the water, the woods, or in large, open fields. I would call to mind Isaiah 50:7: The LORD God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.

I don’t know how I held on, really. God’s grace was sufficient. One day, I heard Derek Prince speaking on Christian radio. I can’t remember the details of his message now, but the “moral of the story” was to not give up on your calling. Through that radio message, and other gentle reminders of God’s presence, I found the strength to set my face as flint again. Several months later, friends at church gave me sufficient money to make a trip to California, where I landed a job with a Christian film company, my first job in Christian filmmaking. A year later, I went to Mexico with my family to make my first film, Ropa Nueva para Felipe (New Clothes for Felipe) which is still being distributed around the world, now dubbed into multiple languages. Making this film also led to the incorporation of Messenger Films as a 501 c 3 corporation in 1988.

CBN (The Christian Broadcasting Network) learned of the film and decided to order film prints for their evangelistic work in Latin America. This, in turn, led to a job offer by CBN, and my family and I moved to Virginia Beach in 1991. In 1996, as a co-production with CBN, we released our second film, also in Spanish, ¿Con Quién Te Vas? (With Whom Will You Go?).

Final Solution, a feature film shot in South Africa, was finished in 2002 and released in 2003. It is now being seen throughout the world. This year, we are celebrating our sixteenth anniversary and planning for the production of additional films in Mexico, the United States, and Australia. Through the ups and downs of life these past twenty years, I can testify to this: Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4) A related verse is this: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. (Psalm 40:8)

There is no question in my mind today that I serve, worship, and honor God by making films that declare his glory, present the gospel, and forge unity among Christians. God has seen fit to allow Messenger Films to stay in existence for nearly sixteen years. I know we have touched many lives around the world, and that many people have come to Christ through the experience of seeing one of our films. My prayer is that God will lead the way as we continue to make films speaking to the deepest needs of the human heart. I do believe God loves the world so much that he has, indeed, given his only Son to save the world. It is this wonderful, sometimes mysterious Son, I seek to show to all people so that “all who believe may have eternal life.” (John 6:40)