Q&A: ‘Courageous’ Executive Producer Discusses Rite of Passage

When Jim McBride, executive producer of the new movie COURAGEOUS,
walked his oldest daughter, Victoria, down the aisle on Father’s Day
weekend, his eyes brimmed with tears and his heart overflowed.

But
it wasn’t just the significance of her marriage that stirred his
emotion. McBride found the experience especially profound in light of a
rite of passage he conducted years earlier with his daughter.

When
she was a teen, McBride presented Victoria with a crown to symbolize:
Proverbs 12:4—“A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown.” He
blessed her and told her that just as she has been a crown to her
father, she will be one for her future husband.

At the rehearsal
dinner the night before her wedding, McBride’s daughter reminded her
father of the blessing and thanked him. Victoria then told her
husband-to-be how she had prayed over that crown for years. On their
wedding night, she gave the crown to him.

His
daughter’s rite of passage ceremony was the first of four for McBride.
He wanted each of his children to know when they left home that they had
the blessing and love of their father. “They can all point back to a
moment when their dad prayed for them and told them they were a man or a
woman.”

Before McBride accepted Christ as his Savior, he said
he “bought into the lies of the world and climbed the corporate ladder.”
After giving his life to Christ in his early 30s, he received a fresh
vision of his responsibility as a husband and father and “made a
conscious decision to allow my heart to work outside my body.”

He
also realized that although his parents had always encouraged him and
cheered him on, he personally had not experienced “that moment of
spiritual blessing” from his own father. “I never had that moment where I
knew he supported the direction I chose in my life.”

A Ring of Blessing
That changed a few years later, when McBride was in his late 30s. He and his family were visiting his father who
works in the carnival business. “Late one night,” he recalled, “while I
was helping under the tent, my dad called me to his side and put his
arm around me.”

His father said he knew about a special ring
McBride had given away. It belonged to the great uncle who started the
carnival business and McBride felt led by God to give the ring to his
great uncle’s daughter.

“I know what you did with that ring,”
McBride’s father said, “so I had this ring made especially for you. It
is a symbol of your father seeing you loving and living for God.”

McBride
said the night “was a rite of passage that I will never forget. He not
only acknowledged me as a man and said he loved me, but he said he was
excited that I served Christ.

“It’s a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life,” he added.

The
concept of the rite of passage became so important to McBride that he
penned a new book, which came out Monday, that encourages fathers to be intentional
about passing on a blessing to their sons and daughters. Rite of Passage helps parents with wisdom, experience and practical examples in leading young adults through a real-life rite of passage.

For
generations, other religions and cultures have put their children
through a rite of passage to adulthood. Many people are aware of the
Jewish practice of the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, for example. The reality,
however, is that many children today don’t learn how to become adults on
purpose; rather, they ride the wave of adolescence toward an unknown
adult future.

“Moms, dads and other adults have the unique
opportunity to guide the teenagers in their life toward adulthood,” said
McBride. “This is not a privilege to be taken lightly, but neither is
it an impossible task. That’s my desire for this book.”

Courageous Fathers
The
busy executive pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., has
been immersed in all things “father-related” the last couple of years.
McBride has been serving as executive producer of the
soon-to-be-released COURAGEOUS movie, which tells the story of four men
struggling with the challenges of fatherhood.

As law enforcement
officers, they are confident and focused, standing up to the worst the
streets have to offer. But when tragedy strikes home, these men are left
wrestling with their hopes, their fears, their faith and their
fathering.

“In the movie,” McBride said, “there is a scene where
the men try to remember when they first thought of themselves as men.”
One character said it was when he moved out of the house. For another,
it was when he turned 21. The third thought it was when he got his first
job. Only one character heard from his own father that he was now a
man.

The friends then come up with an idea that will affirm their
commitment to being fathers of courage. You can find out more when the
movie opens on Sept. 30, said McBride.

Around
the nation, individuals, churches and groups are forming Action
Squads—purchasing blocks of theater tickets, buying out COURAGEOUS
showings or committing to 1,000 tickets to secure the film in formerly
unscheduled communities. Learn more at courageousthemovie.com.

Used with permission of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.