{"id":13359,"date":"2021-03-24T09:57:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T13:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=13359"},"modified":"2021-03-24T16:42:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T20:42:41","slug":"roma-downey-on-resurrection-and-what-comes-next-prayers-for-singer-b-j-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2021\/03\/roma-downey-on-resurrection-and-what-comes-next-prayers-for-singer-b-j-thomas.html","title":{"rendered":"Roma Downey on &#8220;Resurrection&#8221; and what comes next + Prayers for singer B.J. Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 03\/24\/21<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>For Roma Downey,<em> Resurrection<\/em> is another step in a creative faith journey. <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2021\/03\/roma-downey-talks-about-producing-the-easter-tv-epic-resurrection-for-disovery.html\">In the first part of my interview<\/a> with the actress-turned-producer who first gained fame as the angel Monica on CBS&#8217; <em>Touched by an Angel<\/em>, she talked about the road leading up to<strong><em> Resurrection, <\/em>the Bible-inspired movie dropping on<\/strong> <strong>Discovery+ this Saturday (3\/27).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As our conversation continues (following another look at the <em>Resurrection<\/em> trailer), she talks about future plans for LightWorkers Media, the MGM-based production company she runs with her husband Mark Burnett (<em>Survivor, The Apprentice, Shark Tank<\/em>) and the possibility that you may soon see her starring in a new faith-themed family TV series.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fHBifsyaEmk<\/p>\n<div><strong>JWK: I see that after <em>Resurrection,<\/em> you have a theatrical film on the docket called <em>Redeeming Love<\/em> (starring <em>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina<\/em>&#8216;s Abigail Cowen). What&#8217;s that about?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nRoma Downey: <\/strong>It&#8217;s from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Redeeming-Love-Francine-Rivers\/dp\/1590525132\">Francine Rivers book<\/a> of the same title, a huge bestselling very popular novel<strong>. <\/strong>It&#8217;s an incredible story of love and redemption set during the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/California_Gold_Rush\">Gold Rush<\/a>. I&#8217;m not entirely sure when it will come out because of the pandemic. You know, everything is on hold a little bit but, hopefully, now as we reach the end of that, a decision will be made when that movie will be released but I anticipate that it will be out this year.<\/div>\n<p><iframe title=\"Redeeming Love Movie \u2013 First Look\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c0AaKyoXyBs?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>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>RD: <\/strong>At the end of the summer, we have our new LightWorkers movie that we will start filming. It is called <a href=\"ttps:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2021\/01\/review-finding-ohana-on-netflix-dennis-quaid-to-star-in-faith-themed-drama-film-for-roma-downey-and-mark-burnett.html\"><em>On a Wing and a Prayer<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em>The story is set in 2009. It&#8217;s a true story about a man who gets on a private plane with his family and as they&#8217;re taking off from Miami &#8211; and they&#8217;re, you know, at 20,000 feet &#8211; the pilot dies from a massive heart attack and the man doesn&#8217;t know how to fly the plane&#8230;Dennis Quaid plays the guy and it&#8217;s a fabulous script. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sean_McNamara_(filmmaker)\">Sean McNamara<\/a>, who directed <em>Soul Surfer<\/em>, is directing for us.\u00a0 We will start shooting in September in Atlanta, Georgia. I&#8217;m very excited about that.<\/p>\n<p>And then, meanwhile, LightWorkers has seen tremendous growth on our social platforms across <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LightWorkersOfficial\/\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lightworkers\/?hl=en\">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LightWorkers?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">so on<\/a>. We&#8217;re committed to daily posting of inspirational, uplifting (and) encouraging content. We&#8217;re trying to be a good medicine for all the negative ways that social media has impacted our world. We&#8217;re trying to use social media for good&#8230;We are posting beautiful, uplifting content continually.<\/p>\n<p>On YouTube (we have) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/results?search_query=a+moment+of+light+roma+downey\"><em>A Moment of Light with Roma Downey<\/em><\/a>. These are morning devotionals that I write and record. Then my team sets them to beautiful nature videos and lovely music. They&#8217;re just one or two minutes in length and they&#8217;re very soothing. It&#8217;s a lovely way to start your morning. We release those currently every Thursday (first on) Facebook. All the ones that we&#8217;ve already done &#8211; and there are hundreds in there &#8211; are on YouTube&#8230;I encourage you to check that out.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Lay Down Your Worries | Christian Guided Meditation Narrated by Roma Downey\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b-MJazNzXKU?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<p><strong>JWK: It&#8217;s been about eighteen years since <em>Touched by an Angel<\/em> stopped producing new episodes. I&#8217;m sure a lot of your fans would like to see you in a new show. I know that you were working on developing a show based on <em>The Baxters, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.karenkingsbury.com\/baxters\">Karen Kingsbury&#8217;s bestselling book series<\/a>. Is that still in the works?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>RD: <\/strong>We have made the show and we are in talks (regarding) how we&#8217;re going to distribute the show. We have 34 beautiful episodes of the show ready. We&#8217;re just figuring out the best plan for it&#8230;We&#8217;re talking to streamers.<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>JWK: So, you have 34 episodes in the can. Are these hour-long episodes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>RD: <\/strong>They&#8217;re half-hour episodes. It&#8217;s a beautiful series. We&#8217;ve got a really, really great attractive, lovely young cast. They&#8217;re based on the Karen Kingsbury novels which are huge bestselling books. It&#8217;s a Christian family dealing with all the issues that any (big) family would have to deal with. It doesn&#8217;t shy away from adultery, divorce, alcoholism, the things that everyday people are dealing with. What sets them slightly apart from the usual TV (characters) is that they&#8217;re (clearly) Christian. So, sometimes they&#8217;ll grab hands and they&#8217;ll pray together (or) go to church.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JWK: So, are you looking for a streamer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>RD: <\/strong>We&#8217;re still in early talks. LightWorkers is a division of MGM and, with all the brainpower over there, we&#8217;re just trying to figure out where the best home for it will be. But, hopefully, when we find that and we get ready to launch that&#8230;you and I will be able to have a conversation just about that because it&#8217;s a very exciting piece of content for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JWK: Anything else going on that you&#8217;d like to share with the Beliefnet audience? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>RD: <\/strong>I wrote a book that became a New York Times bestseller. My book is called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Box-Butterflies-Discovering-Unexpected-Blessings\/dp\/1501150936\"><em>Box of Butterflies<\/em><\/a>. It was kind of a spiritual memoir, really. It&#8217;s my story and it was a great experience to write. It was lovely to see it do so well. I continue to hear from people who say it&#8217;s really helped them &#8211; especially with grief and loss. I have a lost a number of people throughout the course of my life (which is something) we all share, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JWK: It does seem that you view the media and storytelling as more of a calling than a career. Would you agree with that?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>RD: <\/strong>I feel it&#8217;s a great privilege really to be able to combine what you do with what you believe. Not everybody gets to do that. Most people have their job and then they have their belief system. I have been able to marry them and it&#8217;s been such an honor. You know, for all those years on <em>Touched by an Angel<\/em> (I got) to be the messenger and the message was always very profound and very simple. There is a God, He loves you and wants to be part of your life&#8230;I&#8217;m still delivering that message. It&#8217;s the same message in <em>Resurrection<\/em>. God loves us and He wants to be part of our life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>*Nobody asked me but IMHO&#8230;<\/strong>Based on my conversation with Roma and my reporting on Fox Nation&#8217;s move into scripted programming (including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2020\/12\/fox-nation-unveils-ambitious-slate-of-holiday-programming.html\">original movies<\/a> and, most recently, the Christian-themed TV series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2021\/03\/coming-attractions-fox-nations-easter-slateroe-v-wade-the-movieirish-rom-com-finding-you.html\"><em>The Chosen<\/em><\/a>), I kinda think the streamer would make for a pretty good home for <em>The Baxters. <\/em>Just a thought.<br \/>\n___<\/p>\n<p><strong>B.J. Thomas reports that his doctors have diagnosed him as having stage four lung cancer. <\/strong>The beloved pop, country, and gospel singer is receiving treatment in a local health care facility in Texas, and is hopeful for a complete recovery.<\/p>\n<p>The Grammy, CMA and Dove award winner says he plans to continue to interact with industry colleagues and fans and remains optimistic about his availability to make public appearance, adding \u201cI just wanted to take this unique opportunity to share my gratitude to Gloria, my wonderful wife and my rock for over 53 years, my family, friends, and fans. I\u2019m so blessed to have had the opportunity to record and perform beautiful songs in pop, country, and gospel music, and to share those wonderful songs and memories around the world with millions of you. I ask all of you for your prayers during this time and that my music can live on with you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his 50 years in the music industry, Thomas has sold over 70 million albums worldwide, including eight #1 hits and 26 Top 10 singles. He is one of Billboard\u2019s <em>Top 50 Most Played Artists Over The Past 50 Years <\/em>with a repertoire such classics as<em> Raindrops Keep Fallin\u2019 On My Head, Hooked On A Feeling, I\u2019m So Lonesome I Could Cry, I Just Can\u2019t Help Believing, (Hey Won\u2019t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song, Don\u2019t Worry Baby, Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love<\/em> and <em>New Looks From An Old Lover<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Our prayers for strength and a full recovery do, of course, go out to Mr. Thomas. Here he is singing one of my favorite songs, an ode to the power of optimism that I&#8217;m sure has helped many people (including me) push through tough times.\u00a0 So, thanks, B.J.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Ray Stevens &amp; B.J. Thomas - &quot;Raindrops Keep Fallin&#039; On My Head&quot; (Live on CabaRay Nashville)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eyfjPORyhR0?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>\n<p><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><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 03\/24\/21 For Roma Downey, Resurrection is another step in a creative faith journey. In the first part of my interview with the actress-turned-producer who first gained fame as the angel Monica on CBS&#8217; Touched by an Angel, she talked about the road leading up&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,9619,10,4235,13,1085,238,14,5375,9247,24,25,4206,31,1],"tags":[11271,11286,11283,11262,11277,10986,11274,3544,4981,2204,538,11268,11259,3388,11280,4708,11265,3556],"class_list":["post-13359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-christianity","category-coronavirus","category-current-events","category-easter","category-family-matters","category-forgiveness","category-fox-news","category-gratitude","category-mental-health","category-miracles","category-movies","category-music","category-power-of-prayer","category-television","category-uncategorized","tag-abigail-cowen","tag-b-j-thomas","tag-box-of-butterflies","tag-cbs-touched-by-an-angel","tag-dennis-quaid","tag-discovery","tag-francine-rivers","tag-karen-kingsbury","tag-lightworkers-media","tag-mark-burnett-survivor","tag-mgm","tag-redeeming-love","tag-resurrection","tag-roma-downey","tag-sean-mcnamara","tag-shark-tank","tag-the-apprentice","tag-the-baxters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Roma Downey on &quot;Resurrection&quot; and what comes next + Prayers for singer B.J. 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Thomas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/","name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - John W. 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\/13359","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=13359"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13446,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13359\/revisions\/13446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}