Mike Joens
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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. There are 16 episodes in Theo. Each volume includes the good news. It's a shorter version, but it basically, in a nutshell, teaches children how they can come to Christ. ♪

Coming up now, we'll learn how a Marine named Mike Jens gave his life to Christ and now has created an animated series for children that tells the gospel story. Welcome to First Person, I'm Wayne Shepherd.

These weekly interviews introduce you to people who are giving their life in service to Jesus Christ in some unique way. Some names you may recognize and some you won't, but each person has a faith story to tell which can serve as an example for us. We keep each interview in an online archive for easy listening. Just go to FirstPersonInterview.com to view the list of past programs.

Mike Jens has a powerful story to tell of his own coming to faith and also stories to tell children that reflect the teaching of the Bible. Mike is a successful animator, very experienced in his field, who now has created the animated series titled Theo, Teaching Children God's Word. There's additional information about Theo on our website, FirstPersonInterview.com. To begin, I ask Mike to describe this series of DVDs.

Theo is an animated series, and the purpose of Theo is to teach children God's word and how they ought to live in the light of it.

And it is designed to entertain, but the primary emphasis is on teaching. It is entertaining, and that's what keeps the kids watching and listening. I hear numerous, and if you were to go to our site, you would read reviews where parents just love Theo because...

Theo teaches their children simply the fundamental truths of the gospel. And so, and we've had, you know, children respond to the faith, you know, and it's, that's what's most blessed blessing to me is, uh, to know that children, not just here in the U S but around the world are watching Theo and,

and coming to a knowledge and understanding and faith in Jesus Christ. Well, we're going to circle back on Theo and talk much more about it, and we'll have information in our program notes where people can find Theo and watch for themselves. So all that's ahead, but I want to hear your story, Mike. You've got an interesting faith story to tell.

Where does it begin? Does it begin in the Army? Sorry, does it begin in the Marines? My mistake. That's a terrible mistake to make. Those are fighting words. My faith in Christ began in the Marine Corps. I sensed in my youth the Holy Spirit wooing me at various times, but my actual faith

Coming to Christ and saying, I want to be your child, please save me, was in the Marine Corps. And that took place in 1972 while I was stationed as a Marine at the NATO base in Naples, Italy. Did you have any Christian background at all before that? I was raised a Catholic, and all that that meant, my dad was very devout.

And we would go to parochial schools, and then we would have catechism classes and all of that. But quite frankly, Wayne, it just kind of went over my head. I was not interested in really learning about the faith when I was a young person. It took some downtime, and by that I mean bad time, between the ages of 16 and when I came to Christ in 20 for me to realize that

My life is a wreck. I need Jesus. So this is the, what, early 1970s about, I'm guessing? Yeah. When I came to Christ, I was stationed in Naples, like I said, and it was February 10th. The Lord literally pulled me out of a bar in downtown Naples, Italy.

And took me back to the barracks. And I won't go into all the details. It's not important. What's important is that I was an immoral man and I was a blasphemer. And that he brought me out of that bar and conveyed me to the barracks, back to the barracks where two Marines were there. And those two Marines shared Jesus with me in a way that I had never heard. Talk about an intervention, huh?

It was a major intervention because I was quite hostile to the faith, quite frankly. I was at a previous base in Georgia, and I was told by the platoon sergeant that was taking me around, introducing me to the barracks there. He said, "Watch out for this one here. These are where the Jesus freaks hang out." And my reaction to that was, "Oh my word, you've got to be kidding. These guys are less than vermin."

Of course, this was at the height of the Jesus movement too, right? Yes, it was. It was at the height of the Jesus movement. And I mean, you'd have all kinds of quote-unquote Jesus freaks on the corners of streets playing guitars and things like that back then. And you probably well remember. But no, I was hostile to the faith and it took that intervention, as you say, on February 10th.

to turn my head around. And literally it was like when I came to Christ that next morning, it was like I had been looking at the world through a clouded binocular, you know, pair of binoculars. And all of a sudden it was like someone did a quarter turn on those binoculars and everything came pristine clear.

It was a physical phenomenon. I mean, I could literally, it's like looking at the world. I saw the light and it was like everything became very clear to me. You know what that sounds like? It sounds like the man who said, all I know is once I was blind, but now I can see. Yeah, there you go. Once I was blind, now I see. And the words of Hank Williams, you know, I see the light, I saw the light, are very, very true. Yeah. Well, what was the friendship like with these men? Why were they so concerned for your soul?

And the one guy had been trying, witnessing, he just was, I think, compelled by the Spirit. His name was Mike Jones, by the way, not Jens, but his name was Mike Jones. And he was very, somewhat emotional and kept trying to, over a period of a few weeks, trying to get me to turn to Christ. At one point, I just said, Mike,

Leave me alone. Don't bother me. But he was still compelled to share the gospel with me. And I can't answer that question because I'm not Mike, but I know in my own case, I am compelled to share the gospel with people. Why? Because I know that it is true and that God loves that person and wants that person to come to Christ. Right.

And truly, when you've walked in darkness and you have seen the light, that is something that really compels you. Well, did there immediately come upon you a hunger for the Word? How did that happen? Great question, because as soon as I came to Christ, I started reading. I had never read the Bible before. I started reading the Living New Testament first.

And I got about halfway through the gospel of Luke one, two, I went Matthew, Mark and halfway through Luke, all of a sudden it's as though a fire got turned on in my, in my soul.

to to know the bible and i put away this i called the the living bible the training wheels i put away the training wheels and picked up a king james version of the bible and i mean i just devoured it it was a tom chin chain bible i don't know if you're familiar with that i am yeah sure but i could not get enough of the bible i would read it every day um

WHEN I WAS ON POST, AND I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DOING THAT, BUT ANYWAYS, I WAS READING THE BIBLE CONSTANTLY. I COULD NOT GET ENOUGH. AND I WAS READING COMMENTARIES AND SO ON. I FELT AT THAT TIME IN MY LIFE, IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT A CALL,

I didn't identify it as a call, but I felt a call to want to be in full-time ministry. And after I got out of the Marine Corps, I immediately went to Bible college and wanted to further my education. And my desire at that time was to become a pastor of some kind, perhaps even a chaplain in your traditional type of a pulpit ministry.

God had other ideas. He called me into full-time ministry, but it wasn't a traditional pulpit. Animation became my pulpit. Yeah, I love your story, Mike. I really do. I think it's so remarkable. So you met your wife Kathy there at Bible School, I understand. And was it during Bible School that you felt, maybe I shouldn't be a preacher after all? You know, when I first got there, obviously I was a freshman, and I met Kathy and fell in love.

And it wasn't until like the final year, senior year, I just, that driving compulsion to become a full-time pastor started to wane. Nope, I'm not, no pun intended there, Wayne. None taken. Anyways, I just, and I didn't know what that meant.

And by the time I graduated, I really didn't know what God wanted me to do. I know as a cartoonist, I used my cartooning skills all throughout Bible college, all throughout the Marine Corps. It was something that really identified me as a young boy. I was always drawing cartoons. But I had no idea what that lack of enthusiasm that once drove me meant.

So I got down to Kathy and I decided because of a phone call to her parents who lived in Burbank. They said they were just praying for us that God would bring us down to Burbank. And, you know, there was no doubt.

This is what you're going to do. It was kind of like the Spirit spoke to both of us and gave us a sense that that's where He wanted us to be. What we were going to do, no idea. We went down to Burbank, packed up our things and moved down there, and that is where God opened up a whole new world. And we'll explore that whole new world with Mike Jens when we continue this conversation on First Person.

Hi, I'm Ed Cannon. And as you know, situations around the world are changing quickly. Stay current with FEBC's ministry and get a deeper understanding of people who need to find hope. Hear how you can feel the pulse of God's Spirit moving through the hearts of believers dedicated to reaching the lost. Be sure you join me for the podcast until all have heard. Discover how the gospel is making a difference around the world.

Search for Until All Have Heard on your favorite podcast platform or hear it online at febc.org. My guest is Mike Jens. Mike is a cartoonist, an animator, a producer, director, author, so many titles, so talented, but you always were, as you said, drawing cartoons and drawing things even when you were a kid, Mike. Yeah, my first discretionary choice

thought that I ever had about a drawing was seeing this little blonde-haired girl when I was in second grade right next to me in the next aisle over. And the way she was drawing trees just fascinated me. And I wanted to draw trees like hers. So anyway, my point is, from that moment on until I was, you know, an adult,

drawing became my identity. We moved, my dad was a Marine Corps officer, we were always moving. Every school, every year we were in a new school and it was my way of kind of establishing, this is who I am, I'm an artist, I'm a cartoonist and people would gather around me in a way, draw this for me, draw that for me. So it was my way of really identifying with my culture.

Okay, so we left you off in Southern California, and what was your first job that paid anything being a cartoonist of all things? A little back story. I tried going to all the different Christian mission places, like David C. Cook, Worldwide Vision, all of these with my portfolio. Nobody was hiring.

Then Kathy's mom, Marcine, bless her, she knew a lady in her church named Lloyd Vaughn's wife. Lloyd Vaughn was an animator for Warner Brothers. She says, would you like to meet him? I said, sure. So I went to Lloyd Vaughn's house.

He used to work for Chuck Jones. He was the guy that drew Bugs Bunny. This was a major animator in the industry at that time. And I went over to his house and showed him my portfolio and said, Mike, you need to be in cartoons.

Just like that. You need to be in cartoons, Mike. And here, let me make a phone call for you. Just like that. It doesn't happen, but it happened. And he introduced me to a guy at Hanna-Barbera, the guys that did the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, all of the great television cartoon shows, Hanna-Barbera.

Anyways, I was in, he introduced me to this guy named Harry Love who was teaching an animation class at night. I went there, fell in love with animation because I'd really never animated before. I was just drawing spot cartoons or, you know, things like that.

Anyways, a job opened while I was there in the ink and paint department at Hanna-Barbera. Ink and paint is where you paint the celluloid sheets, the back of them, and then they film those, and that's what you see on television or in the theaters. Fascinating. That was my first paying job. There's a long way around to say that was my first paying job. Yeah. I did that for three months.

And then I got a job at Filmation Studios. A job came open for an assistant animator working on Fat Albert, on Tarzan, on other television, morning television shows. And so I did that for a while. And that was really my introduction into the animation world. So I have to think that God was using those experiences, though, to give you experience in honing your craft and

for something even greater. When did the realization come to you that maybe I should be doing something to use this for God's glory in terms of, I know that you can be an animator in a big company like that and doing it for God's glory, but you wanted to teach God's word, didn't you? Yes, and it took a year for that realization to happen. I was still at Film Nation, but I had become a storyboard artist. And a storyboard artist is a guy who

you know, takes a script and translates it into its visual form. And I did that for about six months. And one morning in 1978, it just occurred to me, you know, Mike, kids love cartoons. Kids around the world love cartoons. It's the universal language. And I just had an idea that, hey, my word, I could teach children God's word and

Create a show, teach them God's word so that they'll want to watch that show over and over and over again, which is what people do when they look at cartoons. I've seen the same Warner Brothers cartoons I don't know how many times. Yeah. Because they're funny. And each time you watch them, you pick up something new.

So I just believe that children, they may not understand every bit of the words, but they'll be coming back to it because of the action, the funny, the humor. And so that morning in 1978, I came up with the idea for Theo. Drew up the big picture.

placards to show people here's theo this is what theo does and i would take that around with me all over the place everybody loves ceo but nobody wanted to pay for it so yeah it would be many years yeah well and uh you stuck to it of course and i'm glad you did now

I'll come back to Theo, but in the meantime, you got to work with projects like Adventures in Odyssey and McGee and Me. These are some of the products that our listeners may be acquainted with. You had a hand in some of those, didn't you? Yes, I was asked because I was a producer at Marvel Productions at this time. I did Fraggle Rock and My Little Pony, the feature film. And I was asked to produce the animation for McGee and Me.

And that was when I first went independent from the secular world, which was in 1988. I went independent doing a bunch of commercials to sustain my little studio. And then I was asked to do "McGee and Me." And I just loved it. It was a fun, fun show. My friend Ken Johnson created it with a guy named Bill Myers. And they asked me if I would be the guy that would produce the cartoon stuff. Had a blast.

All right, let's talk about Theo. This is your baby. This is what God has laid on your heart, right? So what, again, what is Theo? What is his purpose? What's your mission behind it all, Mike? It's to get, I want to teach, you know, it's one thing to look at a Christian show, quote unquote, that just entertains kids with stories. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. It's very, it's wonderful. I wanted to teach children the word,

Different doctrines. It sounds heavy for a kid. Justification, sanctification, how people can be born again. These are very important doctrines in the scriptures that a lot of people, adults included, don't really understand. They may grow up in the church but never really understand what justification is.

I wanted to teach children what justification is and how they ought to live in the light of that wonderful doctrine. And if you look at Theo and you look at that particular episode, it teaches them in a very succinct way what it means to be justified. So I assume you don't use the word justification, but give me an idea what the storyline is like just briefly.

Oh, on justification, the mice start off and they break something. They break a statue that's on, you know, a shelf, and they go, oh, man, now we're in trouble. They shattered it, and they, of course, in their mouse ways, try to...

tape it back together and kind of trick Theo into he'll never notice. Well, of course, Theo uses that as his springboard into what justification is all about. We can't fix ourselves. We're broken. Only God through Christ can justify us, make us right in his eyes in a way that

I'm teaching these kids in the way that they can understand it. Yeah. So how many episodes of this are there in existence? We actually produced 16 episodes and there are, they are like 10 minutes a piece. So they're not, you know, parents can sit down and this is what they do. Our reviews tell us this is what they do. Sit down for 10 minutes watching a Theo episode and then they will go through

the parent guides, showing the parents, teaching the parents what they just learned and how they can make that applicable to their children. So

There are 16 episodes in Theo. They come in five volumes. Each volume includes the good news. It's a shorter version, but it basically, in a nutshell, teaches children how they can come to Christ. What a great tool for parents to have. I just think this is wonderful. Now,

Tell me more about what some of the reviews are saying about this. Tell me some parental feedback, if you would. Seriously, I'm not trying to be boastful here, but if you were to go to our site and look at an episode...

and pull it up and then go to the reviews, just go through the views. The reviews are very similar to one another in that they love what the episode teaches. It's biblically sound, but then they also add that they love how

expertly it was done. It's good stuff. I wanted to produce animation that children would be watching in 100 years from now. Why? Because it's good stuff. Just like we're watching Disney stuff from back in the 30s.

or the 40s. I wanted quality stuff and God thankfully, after 30 years of waiting for this to happen, provided the funding for me to produce it all stateside, that is with American animators which are bar none the best in the world.

We created the medium of, you know, the art of animation, and we have the best. And I'm sorry for being that way. Excellence honors God, doesn't it? That's what I hear you saying. Yeah, excellence honors God. And you'll see that excellence when you view this animated series for children. We'll put additional information about Theo on our website, firstpersoninterview.com. Just click on the Mike Jens interview, and those notes will appear. Theo is available to families on DVD.

I appreciate you taking time to listen to First Person. As I mentioned, our website is firstpersoninterview.com. I hope you'll listen to other interviews which are available there. You can also reach us on social media at facebook.com slash firstpersoninterview. And as always, a big thank you to the Far East Broadcasting Company for helping bringing you First Person. FEBC has great stories to tell from around the world and you'll find many at febc.org. Also, listen for the podcast until all have heard.

Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us next time for First Person. First Person.