PWJ: S2E18 – AA – Justin Thomas

In today’s “After Hours” interview, I speak to Justin Thomas, a Pastor at Calvary: The Hill in Seattle. Justin’s congregation was behind “The Great Divorce Project” YouTube channel. These are the videos I’ve been talking about over the course of this Season which Matt keeps forgetting to watch beforehand.

In this episode, I sat down with Pastor Justin and asked about the origins and goals of The Great Divorce Project.

S2E18: “After Hours with Justin Thomas” (Download)

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Time Stamps

In case your podcast application has the ability to jump to certain time codes, here are the timestamps for the different parts of the episode.

01:49 “Please introduce yourself…”
04:20 “What has been your relationship with C.S. Lewis?”
05:23 “What was the genesis of The Great Divorce Project?”
09:05 “Is engagement with the arts part of your congregation’s charism?”
12:25 “How did you decide which scenes to portray?”
13:50 “Which is your favourite conversation in the book?”
17:40 “Where was ‘The Artist’ episode filmed?”
19:45 “Upon completion, how were the videos shown?”
22:30 “How did this project change your perspective on this book?”
25:58 “Is there anything else you’d like to say about the project?”

Show Notes

• The quote-of-the-week:

“[Christianity] was never intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts and sciences: it is rather a director, which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life, if only they will put themselves at its disposal.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 3)

• Justin lives in Seattle, together with his wife and five children. He is a pastor of a Calvary Chapel congregation in the Capitol Hill region of Seattle called Calvary: The Hill.

• I asked Justin about the role which Lewis had played in his own Christian journey. He mentioned reading Mere Christianity and this lead him to all his other works. He even named his son “Ransom” after Lewis’ Space Trilogy!

• Justin spoke about a theater production he had seen at The Tap Root Theater. His church had initially thought of doing their own stage production, but eventually it transformed into a series of seven vignettes with the help of Artist Reformation. 

• The sermon series is available on the church website:

1. The Moralist
2. The Intellectual
3. The Artist
4. The Controlling Wife
5. The Self-Loving Mother
6. The Addict
7. The Victim