2 Latter-day Saint Bishops Executive Produce “The Chosen” | An Interview with Derral Eves and Brad Pelo

Brad Pelo has been a lifelong member of the Church and has served
as a bishop twice and most recently as a counselor in the New York
City YSA stake presidency. He is currently executive producer and
president of The Chosen and was executive producer of the feature
films Forever Strong and The Legend of Johnny Lingo. Brad is
married to Melody Allen and they are parents to 12 children and 17
grandchildren. Derral Eves is a family man of great faith. He
earned a bachelor's degree in communications at Southern Utah
University. Professionally, he has been on YouTube since 2005,
where he has helped generate nearly 86 billion video views, and his
book The YouTube Formula is a Wall Street Journal bestseller. He is
currently the CEO and Executive Producer of The Chosen. Derral is
also founder of Creatus, a marketing and consulting company, and
VidSummit, an annual video conference. He served a mission in
Paraguay and has since served in several callings including as
elders quorum president, bishopric counselor, bishop, and counselor
in a stake presidency. Derral and his wife Carolyn live in La
Verkin, Utah, and have five amazing kids. The Chosen is a
television series about the life of Jesus Christ that broke the
all-time crowdfunding record in film and television. Their 2021
Christmas special broke box office records and was the #1 movie in
the country at its theatrical release. Highlights 02:00
Introduction to Derral Eves and Brad Pelo, producers of The Chosen.
03:00 Derral shares his background story and how he came to work on
The Chosen. 18:50 Brad shares his story and how he got involved
with The Chosen. 29:40 The story behind the Goshen set, where The
Chosen was filmed. 31:10 How would you create a ‘Chosen-like’
experience on Sunday? Focus on relationships with Christ in every
talk, lesson, and discussion. The new generation wants authenticity
and nothing sugar coated. 41:10 How do you encourage people to
focus more on Jesus in Sunday meetings? Remember that you set the
tone. Be very specific with topics for speaking. Let people know
what you want to accomplish. 45:50 As members we feel obligated to
accept callings. We should let our leader know what is going on in
our lives before accepting a calling. While it’s important to serve
we need to avoid burnout. 48:00 Derral shares a story about a
meeting with Elder Renlund and getting to ask him leadership
questions. 52:20 Avoid burnout. It’s ok to say no. This is God’s
work and we are just assisting Him. 54:45 Brad shares his own
perspective on creating a ‘chosen like’ experience at church. He
believes that it’s important to not only create content but also
context. 56:30 The gathering of saints is a community experience
not a social experience. The body of Christ requires us to
experience Him together. 1:00:00 As leadership we need to look for
opportunities for people to experience Christ as a body. Gathering
should be more than reviewing the doctrine. Everyone should be
speaking of Jesus and participating. 1:00:50 Brad shares about a
documentary they filmed having nine Gen-Zs watch The Chosen
together. How they reacted and their experience. He shares what can
be learned from this experience. 1:05:00 If you want people to open
up and be vulnerable then you need to model it for them. 1:08:10
Derral shares a story of what it looks like to be real and
authentic. 1:17:30 We often make the mistake of showing people who
appear to be as perfect as Jesus when we need to model people that
are broken and have a relationship with Jesus. 1:18:30 In our
church culture we create this false facade. We think that because
people are called that they are perfect. 1:20:20 Brad talks about
what he has learned from the interfaith effort working on The
Chosen. 1:24:30 Because of our religious persecution we have
sheltered ourselves away from others of the Christian faith.
Bringing people to Jesus doesn’t mean handing out the Book of
Mormon and converting people to our faith.