Eden: You guys have blessed our family and I know are blessing many people around the world through your music. I’m excited to talk to you a little bit about the movie that you’re coming out with and the hard work that went into that.

Luke Smallbone: Well, thank you for the kind words. That’s very, very kind of you. We appreciate it.

Eden: I usually like to start interviews just asking, what are a few things that bring you joy?

Luke Smallbone: A few things that bring me joy. Oh, man. My wife and children. Courtney and I, we got four kiddos, and so honestly spending any time with any of those little rugrats—I enjoy it. I try to bring one of them with me virtually everywhere we go, because life with kids is just that much more joyful, you know?

I don’t want to sound overly—it shouldn’t be overly religious, because it just shouldn’t be that way. Man, the deepest part of my joy is when I feel the love and affection of a heavenly Father. To be honest, I feel like you can go through a steel wall when you feel that joy, you know? And so those would be some of the things that I would say bring me the most joy.

Eden: Wonderful. Well, our website is created for people that didn’t grow up in church, and we’re trying to encourage people to get in God’s Word. I know that many of your songs are inspired from truths that come from Scripture and that your faith is deeply important to you. Is there a part of God’s Word that’s especially precious to you, either in this season, or over the course of your life?

Luke Smallbone: Yeah. I often say, if you want to learn how to follow Jesus, read Romans 12, and you just read it over and over and over and over again. Whenever someone wants me to sign something, and if they want some Scripture, that’s pretty much always what I put because it’s that transformative, you know. So, yeah, I think especially for new Christians, I would say Romans 12 is a particularly powerful passage of Scripture.

Eden: So you’ve come out with this movie called Unsung Hero. We’re going to talk about that a little bit. But for someone that may not be familiar with your music or what you do, tell us a little bit about what your day-to-day life looks like, and where the Lord has you serving him.

Luke Smallbone: Yeah. So I was originally born in Australia. My brother Joel and I make up a band called for KING & COUNTRY, and we’ve been doing that for, man, like 12 years now, which sounds very odd to say because it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. And then, I’ve actually told our family story at virtually every performance that we’ve done as a band. And I felt like I should approach a Hollywood producer about working on a script about particularly our parents’ story. Joel and I were very, very little. It’s more mom and dad than it is us. And at the end of the day, Joel and I, we were homeschooled, so we didn’t grow up learning how to read books or write books very well, you know what I’m saying? So making a movie sounds a little bit more fun. I’m kidding. That’s not totally true.

If there was a thesis statement really behind the film, it would be this: Mother Teresa says, “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” And my hope is, that this film will infuse the love of family…Family is hard, you know, and it’s hard because it matters. I think you can apply that rule to almost anything in life. If it’s easy, it’s probably not worth much time or attention. If it’s hard, it’s probably very valuable.

Eden: Throughout the film, there’s a line that’s repeated about pursuing your dreams but not letting them become your master. Can you expand a little bit of that sentiment throughout the film?

Luke Smallbone: Actually, I was just looking this up. I was watching a movie with my kids the other day. Do you remember the bobsled movie Cool Runnings? You may have not seen it, but it’s a pretty interesting movie. It’s a Disney movie. It was probably in the late ’90s, early 2000s that it came out. Actually, no, early ’90s.

There’s a quote in there that I think actually sums up the poem that you’re talking about. And the film is about a Jamaican bobsled team, which doesn’t make any sense. But this coach says to kind of the lead character, he says, “A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without one, you’ll never be enough with one.”

And I think that’s actually what that poem is saying. Man, it’s great to chase your dreams, but if the dream is your master, you’ll achieve the dream, and you won’t be satisfied. Because what happens is—people forget this—when your dreams become a reality, in the middle of your dream becoming a reality, you dreamt up another one. And so, all of a sudden, you’re like the rabbit with the carrot in front of its mouth. You’re just never enough.

And so to me, the hope is that for all of us, you can dream up these—hopefully—God ordained dreams. But don’t ever forget that it’s not the achievement of a dream that makes you valuable. It’s not the achievement of a dream that makes you worthwhile. That has already taken place. You’re already loved. You’re already good. That’s one of the things I think in our family that we’ve always struggled with. Am I good enough? Well, the truth is, Jesus says you are. So you can live with that every day.

You know, I’ve been joking around a little bit lately. Man, following Jesus is like you’re playing with house money every day. You cannot be defeated. You can have the worst of circumstances go on, and you’re still as loved as you were the day before, and nothing that you achieved or failed at today makes you any more loved or less. So every day you kind of live with this grand freedom, you know? And I think that that poem is trying to illustrate that point.

Eden: And how did your parents’ faith in you and encouragement of your gifts play into you pursuing music and getting to the career that you have now?

Luke Smallbone: Yeah, I mean, my parents were always big on exploring the different talents that you’re given and seeing where some of those things can go. I’ll never forget the first time—I remember where I was, actually—when I was asked to lead worship by myself at church. And I said no. Originally I said, “No, I’m not going to do that.” You know, I don’t have blah, blah, blah, and I can’t do blah, blah, blah. And I went back home and mom heard about the call or something, and she was like, “Why wouldn’t you do that?”

“Well, I don’t feel perfectly equipped and I don’t feel blah, blah, blah.”

And she was just like, “Well, yeah, the first time you do anything, you might not feel that way. But Luke, if you look at your training and you look at what you’ve done so far the rest of your life, you are perfectly capable of doing it.”

Parents, when it comes to career things, you’re a guide. You just help shepherd and guide. The moment that you’re the one choosing things for your kids, that’s a mistake. But if parents can be there to help, and apply encouragement when there’s discouragement, and then hopefully, create a little bit of vision when there’s a lack of vision of what things they can do. But it’s not up to a parent to decide for a child what they can and can’t do. And I think our parents were really good at just guiding and applying that. “Hey, well why not? Why not you? Someone’s got to do it, you know. Why couldn’t it be you?” And I think that was very, very helpful in my life.

Eden: Wonderful. And you talked about how knowing the love of a heavenly Father and knowing that Jesus is for you and that he loves you really gives you not only contentment and peace in life, but just the joy and the drive that you need to live life to the full, as he says (John 10:10). When was the first time that you really knew the love of the Lord and came to know him?

Luke Smallbone: Yeah, I was eight years old, actually. I had been a little bit of a naughty boy, apparently. I was lying to my parents about something, and I’d actually gone to church a few weeks prior, and in Sunday school, they went around the class and said, “Hey, if you’ve given your life to Jesus raise your hand.” And the teacher was very, very clear on, “Hey, it can’t be your parents’ faith. This is you individually.” And she’s like, “And if you don’t raise your hand, there’s no judgment there. I just want to know.”

And I recognized in that moment that I couldn’t raise my hand. And so fast forward a few weeks, and I got into some trouble with my mom about lying. My dad had said, “Hey, you got to go apologize to your mom.” And so I went and apologized to my mom. And it was just in that moment where I genuinely realized that I could not personally triumph over sin. And this is not a super flashy, rebellious, prodigal son story. But I think in some cases, what a gift it was to have that be my moment, because some of those other stories come with a lot of other pain, you know, a lot of other heartache.

And for me, it was just in some cases, my parents love for me and in some cases, this Sunday school teacher who I do not know, bringing that up, was something that really made me realize that I needed to do something myself. Not for me. Not based off of my family, but for me.

Eden: Beautiful. So the movie you just made, Unsung Hero, which comes out, I believe, April 26th. Is this right? Excited for that. It brought me to tears. It was beautiful, and just wonderful.

I think one of my favorite things was seeing the way that your dad responded after things were so difficult, and I don’t want to give things away, but I think that was such a beautiful picture of love and forgiveness and what it looks like to trust God through difficulty. But I would love to hear, what are your prayers for this movie like as it goes out? If anything could happen as a result of this movie—What are your big dreams for where you want this to go and how you want it to affect people?

Luke Smallbone: Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you with Evie here, can we do that? Okay.

You know, my hope is that people will look back at their families. And I think if we were to teach people how to forgive a little bit better, I think that’s the most powerful weapon that we are afforded as people. We are “an eye for an eye” society (Matthew 5:38-39). “If you do this, I’ll do this for you. If you don’t do this, I won’t do this for you.” But forgiveness triumphs over all of those things.

And I think if you look at most people, most people have family wounds—pretty significant ones. And if families just learn how to apologize—and look, we teach that as parents all the time. “Hey, learn to say sorry, learn to do these things.” But if it actually becomes really, really powerful and really, really real, it has it has generational consequences when people forgive. And so my hope is, that people will see the value of family. As I said, I hope that people will start to see that Mother Teresa quote become true, like if you want to change the world, go home and love your family!

The other thing I love about this movie is my mom, for the most part, has never tried to…she really is the hero in this film. She’s never really tried to be something other than what God called her to be. And it’s not something that’s really been on a platform up until maybe the last few years. It’s just her being faithful. And I think that people need to understand that that can have an absolutely huge impact in people’s lives, just to be faithful with what God has given and in some cases, being an unsung hero. That’s the story of Jesus. He came to serve, not to be served (Mark 10:45). If we can get those things through our head and our families, I think there will be massive, massive impact.

The worst thing that could ever happen is that we make a movie about families and our family doesn’t feel loved, you know? And my hope is that they will genuinely feel all of those things.

Eden: Yes. Wonderful. Is there a way that you practically practice forgiveness in your own home or try to relay these same things to your own kids? Just for dads or moms that are curious about, “how would I implement this in my own home practically?”

Luke Smallbone: I think that there’s this temptation for parents to feel like, “I’m right. You’re wrong. You’re wrong because you’re my child and you’re a kid.”

I think that if I was being totally honest, my wife and I, we have made mistakes in moments of parenting. One of the greatest things that my wife particularly is better at than me is when that happens, she just goes and says, (you know, I got four kids Jude, Phoenix, Leo and Evie.) “Jude, mom made a mistake. I got angry and I’m really, really sorry.”

Sometimes people get so caught up in the mistake that they made. But when you’re teaching your kids forgiveness, that is far more powerful than the mistake you made maybe five minutes earlier, if there’s an apology. If there’s no apology, yeah, your kids just remember that pain. They just remember that, “hey, dad got upset and he shouldn’t have, and I took the brunt of it.”

But if dad gets upset when he shouldn’t have, and an hour later or 30 minutes later goes and apologizes to his kids, there will for the most part, maybe not always, there will be no recollection of that mistake. All that they will remember is a father humbling himself to say, “Hey kids, I’m sorry. Just because I’m bigger does not mean that dad can just lord over you and make mistakes and not apologize. Dad needs to apologize as well.”

Eden: In closing, there’s a proverb that says that “the memory of the righteous is a blessing” (Proverbs 10:7). And so can you think of maybe two different times, one for mom and one for dad, that the memory of them and maybe the way that they parented you or spoke to you was a blessing to you that continues to bear fruit.

Luke Smallbone: I would say this. When I was in high school, I would play on a basketball team, and a senior in high school (I was a freshman) came to me and he—

I worked my whole life, so I was known as the guy on the team that had money. And it may have only been a couple thousand dollars, but I was known as the guy that had money. And so the senior in high school came to me. He said, “Hey, can you pay for my phone bill? My parents won’t pay it.”

And I went to my dad and I was like, “Hey, dad someone came to me and asked to borrow some money for a phone bill. I’d always read that you don’t lend money to friends, you know? I read it in a book somewhere or something like that. And I just don’t know what to do in this situation because I feel like I should and I can, but I’ve just read this thing.”

And he just looked at me and he said, “Man, Luke, if you’re ever given the opportunity to help someone, just do it.”

Obviously there’s times with addicts and things where helping can be hurting and there’s obviously scenarios where that isn’t universally true. But I think most of the time it is true. Most of the time, hey, just go and help people. Because sometimes us as Christians, we talk ourselves out of doing the right thing because of what we’ve heard or what we’ve read. Sometimes we just need to go do the right thing and allow whatever happens to be the outcome.

And look, from my mom? There’s seven kids and particularly for the five boys, our mom has our utmost respect, because she has lived what she has preached. And my mom, it sounds weird to say, but my mom always disciplined me appropriately. And I’m a different person because of it.

And when I say appropriately, you know, some people are like, “oh, is that spankings or whatever?” Well, maybe. Yes, maybe it was. But I’m more talking about when I needed my mom to be a mom in the big moments of life, she didn’t fail me. When I needed a mother to counsel me through heartbreak, or whatever it might be, she was there in those moments. My mom was not a perfect mom, but she was one that when I needed her to show up, she slayed it. She was batting a thousand.

Eden: Wonderful. Well, such a pleasure to meet you. We’ll be cheering you guys on as you continue to put out wonderful, beautiful things into the world.

Luke Smallbone: Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.