The Beacon

AMTC applauds God in Tyler Perry. We commend Mr. Perry for giving God the credit for his success and for giving Godly advice to dreamers everywhere.

Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.

Isaiah 62:10 (NIV)

Announce and proclaim among the nations, lift up a banner and proclaim it; keep nothing back…

Jeremiah 50:2 (NIV)

On January 1, 2010, AMTC’s 28th year in business, we sang a new song unto the Lord. AMTC’s banner name became its legal name: Actors, Models & Talent for Christ, Inc. We raised His banner higher.

On January 1, 2012, AMTC’s 30th birthday year, we sing a clearer tune. AMTC turns completely non-profit. We become more transparent and more mission-minded. His banner is raised still higher, as He builds up a highway to Hollywood.

AMTC is a ministry, a mission, and a movement. God calls His performers to sing, dance, act, and model on stages all over the earth. They follow His great commission to come out and go forth. They are irresistibly talented and beautiful. They prepare for the starring roles that will chase them down.

God’s stars will ignite an army of new Christians who will abandon the ‘next new thing’ and stand for the one thing that matters: truth. People are urgently seeking something real, and it’s hard to find in today’s hit parade. Many have been wounded. Many have been led astray.

Yet countless prodigals will turn toward home, longing for the truth, love, and family that will never disappoint them. Their eyes will open, and their ears will turn toward a sound so compelling it cannot be ignored.

The voices of God’s performers will pierce the enemy’s armor. As with the Apostle Paul, the lies that blind them will fall away, and true sight will be restored.

A born-again AMTC stands squarely on The Rock. We say with appreciation and full hearts: ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15). We will follow God to our best abilities, confident that He will guide us and perfect us.

We will not be ashamed of Jesus—only of a world upside-down without Him.

We are Actors, Models & Talent for Christ.

Dr. Bryan Crute

Austin Crute on Majors and Minors

by Bryan Crute, Senior Pastor, Destiny Metropolitan Worship Church, Marietta, GA

I grew up watching my Mom prepare hundred and hundreds of meals for any and everyone who stopped by our home. Sunday dinners were the highlight of the week as she prepared a feast fit for kings. However, I noticed she would rarely measure the seasonings. A pinch of this, a dash of that, scoops of sugar or whatever she was using always left us full and looking forward to her next “labor of love.” Even the leftovers tasted better once the seasonings had really permeated the food.

Salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, paprika, and so many other wonderful seasonings must be poured from the shakers. They have to be integrated within food that is to be eaten. Left within their shakers, they have no effect. I think the same is true for Christians who are called to the arts/entertainment sphere of influence.

When I think about Jesus’ description of the church being salt and light, (Matthew 5:13) it’s very easy to see the application as it relates to the music and entertainment industry. What I love about AMTC is the seasoning that it provides for the actors, models, and varied talent of its family members. That’s why our church decided to partner with AMTC. They helped provide seasoning for the talent we have within our church family and community.

Our family has been members of the AMTC family now for a little over a year because of our 16 year old son, Austin, who aspires to “change the world through his music.” After participating in the Winter 2011 SHINE showcase in Florida and receiving at least 25 callbacks from the agents who were there, he is on his way to presenting a well-seasoned bevy of options to a culture who is hungering for “the next.” See Majors and Minors

The culture is hungry for the “next” in the arts and entertainment industry. What will it be fed? Who will feed it? I think, more times than not, the church offers “values meals” that are too bland for the culture to even appreciate. Sadly, much of the marinating talent that is within the church lacks the industry standards of excellence required to even be options for the culture. C’mon church folk. Let’s unleash those within our congregations who have been well-seasoned to provide wholesome, healthy, flavorful, nutritious, delicious tasting options for the culture.

Yes, there will always be critics in the church who believe that to feed the culture with palatable menu offerings created by committed Christians is compromise. I think it’s strategic, godly wisdom. At the end of the day, I say to the committed believers, who are often maligned and criticized for wanting to present their gifts and talents to a hungry culture that would devour their well-seasoned songs, scripts, and strolls, let them “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

We live in an age where truth is spun like Russian roulette, where people-pleasing determines conscience, where political correctness hides righteousness in the closet, where Christians turn wine into water.

How? Diluting the message of Jesus.

Christians profess to follow Jesus Christ. As a man, He began a fireball rally that burned away the political correctness of His time – and for all time to follow. He not only walked against the flow, He changed it forever.

I am sad to see the 57 year-old trail-blazing Campus Crusade for Christ shorten its name to CRU, and the 160 year-old Young Men’s Christian Association go from YMCA to “The Y”. Both esteemed service organizations were begun by devout Christians: Christians who believed the youth of their worlds needed the truth of Jesus.

Do our kids need it less today? Witness a universal loss of innocence where child merchandising is sanctified by media without conscience. Therefore, people who love God, including Christians, must stand strongly for Who is right and what is right – even against the hurricane winds of political correctness.

Pushing against this wind is AMTC, a company I love. For 25 years, AMTC was a successful talent development convention. But everything changed for me and AMTC when I became a late-in-life committed Christian. I was transformed from a burned-out 51 year-old CEO into a 56 year-old girl on a mission.

Against a flood of advisers predicting imminent demise, AMTC turned Christian, too. We changed the “C” in our name in the opposite direction of “CRU” and “The Y”; we turned from “Actors, Models & Talent Competition” into “Actors, Models & Talent for Christ.”

The result? A company that stands for clean faces, positive programming, and performers who are role models. We condemn no one and love everyone, because that’s what our Boss, Jesus Christ, told us to do. We hope to lead young people in a better direction—even to rescue them.

Our path is clear, strong, and exciting, and there’s nothing politically correct about it.

Yes, water can still turn into wine. We thank Jesus for that opportunity.

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The Bible gives us many scriptural messages about a time such as this, a time when deep darkness covers the people (Isaiah 60:1-4), a time when “naughty” behavior is so publicized and glamorized that lawlessness is the new standard. The result? Children lose their innocence by the millions, and the merchants of media are laughing all the way to the bank.

But why are Christian performers rising at a time such as this? Maybe like Esther, they were created to rise to the top in an alien empire; maybe like Esther, God’s stars are meant to save His people.

Only recently did Taylor Swift thank God first at the Billboard Awards; Scotty did the same on American Idol, “because without Him I would not be here.” Oprah closed her final show saying, “to God be the glory.” The View’s Sherri Shepherd is vocal in her testimony as a born-again Christian. Even Reese Witherspoon said on the MTV Awards, “Good girls can succeed in Hollywood.”

AMTC is seeing its new stars supernaturally rising as well.

Here’s the thing: God’s stars have talent, the best motivation, and the right character. Producers and directors don’t have to worry about substance abuse, diva behavior, or the “Charlie Sheen” syndrome. Christians stars rock on set — and especially off. They have no skeletons hiding in their closets.

Secular producers and directors have discovered something else: God’s stars aren’t entering their land to condemn them, the industry, its rulers or reigning stars. God’s stars are coming in cool, joyful, colorful, diverse, helpful, gifted, and prepared for hard work. They are coming in love like Jesus.

Hearts and doors are opening. Christian performers rise.