{"id":10038,"date":"2020-10-05T12:55:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T16:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=10038"},"modified":"2020-10-05T12:55:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T16:55:52","slug":"the-amazing-true-story-behind-the-book-praying-for-emily-small-group-film-finds-humor-in-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2020\/10\/the-amazing-true-story-behind-the-book-praying-for-emily-small-group-film-finds-humor-in-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"The amazing true story behind the book &#8220;Praying for Emily&#8221; + &#8220;Small Group&#8221; film finds humor in Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith and media: 10\/05\/20<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe title=\"7 Year Old Girl Beats Acute Lympoblastic Leukemia: Emily Whitehead&#039;s Immunotherapy Story\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sz11e0r2L_s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"preview\" src=\"https:\/\/apis.mail.yahoo.com\/ws\/v3\/mailboxes\/@.id==VjN-nbjfKfdH3WtKREBa4f9Jx_MLCcQqMtWgueC-s8ala3alpBep_j-zpzZqL-lFk8g4pXSQPIt7834jXjyRXCwNNg\/messages\/@.id==AM971EJBJDMmX3NWDA5-8MyCL70\/content\/parts\/@.id==2\/thumbnail?appId=YMailNorrin&amp;downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&amp;pid=2\" alt=\"PFE. 8 yeas caner freerjpg.jpg\" width=\"229\" height=\"229\" \/><strong>In <i>Praying for Emily: The Faith, Science and Miracles that Saved Our Daughter<\/i>, Kari and Tom Whitehead share their story of God&#8217;s power through science, doctors and a miraculous experiment.\u00a0<\/strong>Diagnosed with leukemia, five-year- old Emily was facing a grave future. Yet the combination above shed light on a new CAR-T cell therapy that saved her life and has gone on to save the lives of many more. Their story is timely &#8212; the power of God combined with science and doctors &#8212; provides life-saving solutions. Thankfully, Emily is now fifteen and eight years cancer-free.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hachettebookgroup.com\/titles\/tom-whitehead\/praying-for-emily\/9781546034124\/?utm_expid=.OyywKgKNQfKo0ZgN1WBZtg.0&amp;utm_referrer=\"><em><strong> Praying for Emily<\/strong><\/em><\/a><strong> releases tomorrow (10\/06) wherever books are sold.\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\nI recently had the opportunity to speak with Kari and Tom Whitehead about their inspirational story. They told me that, before beginning the clinical trial that would ultimately save her life, three and a half pounds of her approximately seventy pounds was comprised of cancer and she was not expected to survive. The Whiteheads refused to give up though and credit Emily&#8217;s medical caregivers, the experimental therapy (which she was the very first person to receive) and the faith of all those who were praying for her (including 29,000 people on Facebook). Tom, himself, believed that he had received a sign from God that Emily was going to survive despite the dire medical reports they were receiving. The story of Emily&#8217;s miraculous survival is one of harrowing ups and downs that, in the end, people of faith are apt to see as a testament of how God uses faith and scientific talent to achieve awesome ends.\u00a0 It seems to me there could be a very good movie here.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif;\"><br \/>\n****<\/span><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><br clear=\"none\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallgroupmovie.com\/\"><strong><em>Small Group <\/em>drops on digital and DVD tomorrow (10\/06) for rent or purchase via Amazon and other platforms.<\/strong><\/a> The Christian-themed comedy tells the story of a filmmaker hired to infiltrate clandestinely film a documentary about life among an Evangelical Christian community.<\/p>\n<div align=\"left\"><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> <em>Documentary filmmaker R. Scott Cooper (Sterling Hurst) moves his family from Los Angeles to Athens, Georgia, after being hired to make a film about the dwindling influence of Christianity in America. Upon arrival, he learns that his producer, Ballard, intends to make a cheap hit piece rather than an objective documentary. Scott turns the job down to protect his journalistic integrity, but financial difficulties force him to negotiate with Ballard, who deceives Scott into believing that he will, in fact, tell an honest story.<\/em><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><em>To dive deeper than a public worship service will allow, Scott and his wife, Mary, infiltrate a small group at a local church, finding a group of imperfect people doing their best to live for Christ. As the Coopers\u2019 relationship with their group grows, Ballard isn\u2019t pleased with the direction of the documentary and exposes their infiltration, leaving viewers to see how the small group will react to such an intense betrayal.<\/em><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif;\">Writer-director Matt Chastain (who also has a role in the movie) says he hopes the film defies the expectations most people have for faith films. He says <\/span>\u201cI got the idea from my own experience in a small group. The less formal, more real and raw nature of small group culture just lends itself to more genuine storytelling that tends to be a bit of a surprise and a huge relief to viewers who are a bit skeptical of the genre.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong><em><span class=\"st\">Encourage one another and build each other up &#8211; <\/span><\/em><span class=\"st\">1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith and media: 10\/05\/20 In Praying for Emily: The Faith, Science and Miracles that Saved Our Daughter, Kari and Tom Whitehead share their story of God&#8217;s power through science, doctors and a miraculous experiment.\u00a0Diagnosed with leukemia, five-year- old Emily was facing a grave future. Yet the combination above&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,13,9990,14,16,9247,24,1031,1],"tags":[10071,102,10077,10068,10074,10080,10065],"class_list":["post-10038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-christianity","category-family-matters","category-fear","category-gratitude","category-humor","category-miracles","category-movies","category-science","category-uncategorized","tag-small-group-film","tag-facebook","tag-kari-and-tom-whitehead","tag-matt-chastain","tag-praying-for-emily-the-faith","tag-science-and-miracles-that-saved-our-daughter","tag-sterling-hurst"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The amazing true story behind the book &quot;Praying for Emily&quot; + &quot;Small Group&quot; film finds humor in Christianity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The amazing true story behind the book &quot;Praying for Emily&quot; + &quot;Small Group&quot; film finds humor in Christianity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith and media: 10\/05\/20 In Praying for Emily: The Faith, Science and Miracles that Saved Our Daughter, Kari and Tom Whitehead share their story of God&#8217;s power through science, doctors and a miraculous experiment.\u00a0Diagnosed with leukemia, five-year- old Emily was facing a grave future. Yet the combination above&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2020\/10\/the-amazing-true-story-behind-the-book-praying-for-emily-small-group-film-finds-humor-in-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-10-05T16:55:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apis.mail.yahoo.com\/ws\/v3\/mailboxes\/@.id==VjN-nbjfKfdH3WtKREBa4f9Jx_MLCcQqMtWgueC-s8ala3alpBep_j-zpzZqL-lFk8g4pXSQPIt7834jXjyRXCwNNg\/messages\/@.id==AM971EJBJDMmX3NWDA5-8MyCL70\/content\/parts\/@.id==2\/thumbnail?appId=YMailNorrin&amp;downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&amp;pid=2\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The amazing true story behind the book \"Praying for Emily\" + \"Small Group\" film finds humor in Christianity","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The amazing true story behind the book \"Praying for Emily\" + \"Small Group\" film finds humor in Christianity","og_description":"Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith and media: 10\/05\/20 In Praying for Emily: The Faith, Science and Miracles that Saved Our Daughter, Kari and Tom Whitehead share their story of God&#8217;s power through science, doctors and a miraculous experiment.\u00a0Diagnosed with leukemia, five-year- old Emily was facing a grave future. Yet the combination above&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2020\/10\/the-amazing-true-story-behind-the-book-praying-for-emily-small-group-film-finds-humor-in-christianity.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2020-10-05T16:55:52+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/apis.mail.yahoo.com\/ws\/v3\/mailboxes\/@.id==VjN-nbjfKfdH3WtKREBa4f9Jx_MLCcQqMtWgueC-s8ala3alpBep_j-zpzZqL-lFk8g4pXSQPIt7834jXjyRXCwNNg\/messages\/@.id==AM971EJBJDMmX3NWDA5-8MyCL70\/content\/parts\/@.id==2\/thumbnail?appId=YMailNorrin&amp;downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&amp;pid=2"}],"author":"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10038"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10062,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038\/revisions\/10062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}