'A Great Awakening' Premiers Good Friday

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The intriguing connection between religious skeptic Benjamin Franklin and evangelist George Whitefield will hit the big screens on April 3 in A Great Awakening. The five-star movie, produced by Sight & Sound Ministries (S&S), spotlights a piece of American history that is often unknown or ignored. These two men sparked a Christian revival dubbed the First Great Awakening, which paved the way to the United States Declaration of Independence.

A Great Awakening is fully entertaining, historically accurate, and biblically sound. The acting is superb, and the production elements are top-tier.

Producer In The Making

“I was always passionate about films,” recalls Joshua Enck, “and I thought I’d go to Hollywood or New York and be a filmmaker or an actor.” Anck was sharing in a recent interview with co-host Nathan Harper of Exploring Missions on American Family Radio. However, Enck said that his heart turned in another direction after he met Christ and was saved at age 19. Then he discovered Sight & Sound Theater (S&S), 30 minutes away from his Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home.

He went to an S&S stage production and was stunned at his first glimpse of the 300-foot wrap-around stage – long as a football field!

“I felt something different,” he remembered. “I looked at my mom and said, ‘I want to work here!’” And he did that – abandoned his dream of making movies.

That was 31 years ago, and he’s still at S&S. And S&S Ministries is premiering A Great Awakening, produced by Joshua Enck.

Yes, after decades of working only on stage productions, Enck is finally a filmmaker! It’s a double blessing for him because the outspoken purpose of S&S is to carry the gospel clearly in everything they produce, stage, or screen.

Piece Of History

A Great Awakening offers many insights into how the gospel spread through the colonies so completely because of the relationship between Franklin and Whitefield. They had each heard of the other and looked forward to a meeting. But both knew from the beginning that they were not of the same mind when it came to the Christian faith.

Whitefield had gone to Oxford to study acting as a career, largely because of his extraordinarily powerful voice. There he met brothers John and Charles Wesley, who had organized the Holy Club, and he became a Christian. At first, he went to the poor, the coal miners, the slaves. As a minister in the Anglican Church, he carried biblically sound revivals all over Great Britain.

However, he also began preaching from Anglican pulpits things such as, “I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher!” Or, “How many of our congregations are dead because they have dead men preaching to them?” Predictably, he was soon disbarred from preaching in church pulpits.

Thus, he set his heart and mind on the American colonies. Whitefield knew of Franklin’s far reach as a colonial writer and printer, and he looked forward to the printer’s help in spreading his revival schedules. Franklin’s rationale that “religion sells papers” made him unintentionally spread the gospel across the land, sending both copies of Whitefield’s sermons and dates of upcoming revivals.

Production Par Excellence

Various scenes in the film illustrate how their relationship could be challenging at times.

“A match made in heaven!” Whitefield declared in one of their conversations.

“Or just a deal made in a print shop!” Franklin grumbled back.

In another scene, a very frustrated Whitefield barked, “Why can’t I get through to you?”

“I choose evidence over faith,” Franklin fired back, “and I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop trying to change me!”

But they persevered because each needed the other – one to sell papers and one to save souls. Through decades of “working together,” Franklin and Whitefield cultivated a deep respect for each other. It is said that Whitefield became the most famous person in the colonies. Some historians say that 85% of the colonists heard him preach in person.

One especially heart-stirring scene in the film portrays thousands of colonists packing the streets of Philadelphia and singing Awaken Us Today, a powerful hymn that S&S commissioned just for A Great Awakening. It has the qualities of hymns from that time period. With its breathtaking lyrics, it should become the anthem for the body of Christ in our nation today. It opens with these prayerful lyrics:

From the ocean to the valley,

From the mainland to the shore,

Let Your kingdom be awakened,

In the hearts of man once more.

Come awaken Holy Spirit,

Come awaken us today.

Learn more about this phenomenal film and find theater sites and tickets by clicking HERE.

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