Quentin Schultze
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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. One common life lesson in the movie is be a good neighbor. You got these neighbors, the Pomposes, with their million hound dogs, not very good neighbors. But of course, for us to be a good neighbor means a lot more.

I'm Wayne Shepherd and welcome to First Person where we'll meet Quentin Schultz who will outline some important life lessons from a favorite movie. You'll see what I mean as you stay tuned.

If you ever miss a program from week to week, please join us online at FirstPersonInterview.com where you can easily listen and even download programs. Another convenient option is to subscribe to the podcast found on just about all of the available podcast apps. Just search for First Person with Wayne Shepard. And please interact with us at Facebook.com slash First Person Interview.

Well, we haven't talked at all in recent years, but there was a time long ago on radio when Dr. Quentin Schultz would join me live to explain this new thing called the Internet. Today, Quentin continues to be a popular writer, speaker, and communications professor. We'll talk about his latest book of observations from the movie A Christmas Story. But we began thinking back to all those early 1990s conversations about the emerging Internet.

Yeah, I remember those days well. In fact, I hosted OpenLine a few times because I pitched whoever was in charge, Chris Fabry or somebody was doing it. And I said, here's a deal. I'm going to do the program. I did it from RBC Ministries. And what I'm going to do is people can ask questions through the internet. And they said, what? I said, yes, I'm going to give them my email address. What's an email? Yeah. What's an email? Yeah.

And we'll see what happens. And I started getting all of these comments and questions live while I was doing the show through email, and it convinced the powers that be that the internet was going to be something. Oh, man. That is so fun to think about now. Can you imagine life without it now? Yeah. And here's another part of that, Wayne. I got the idea one day of putting the Bible on what was then called the World Wide Web. Okay.

So I went and met with some local donors here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And I said, listen, there's this worldwide web out there. I said, what is that? And I had to set up a computer with a 56K modem and show them. And I said, I'd like to get the Bible out there. And I had a friend who was already putting a one older version. I think it was the King James on there because it was free. And I said, let's get something a little more contemporary because in places like

where they have access to the World Wide Web that are not native English speakers, they may not be able to do well with that version. So I contacted the International Bible Society, got rights to put the NIV on, and that began, hang on to your seats, gang, that began what is now called the Bible Gateway. Oh my goodness, wow. Yes.

Yeah. Which we all use. Which we all use. Well, you were an early adopter of all this stuff. I was. And it was interesting because typically Christians do not get involved in new media too quickly, except maybe for evangelistic purposes. Right.

There's this worry that these new media are going to bring the outside world in. And of course, it's true. Yeah. And if you look at what happened to the Internet and all the pornography and everything, it's just right. Very difficult. But if we're not there with a real lively, holy presence, then we are not doing our job, I think. And we're probably at the same point today with artificial intelligence, A.I.,

Right, and I'm following that pretty closely, and I've got some friends that are involved in designing some AI stuff, and it's very scary. Well, you were so helpful to me in those early days of the Internet and all that went with it. Blogging, what was blogging?

So, Quentin, it's great to have you in the conversation here today, but I want to talk about your book. You'll shoot your eye out, Life Lessons from the Movie, A Christmas Story. But before we talk about your book and what you've done with it and your relationship with the screenwriter for that movie, let's talk about your own faith story. Yeah. So I grew up in Chicago. I still have somewhat of a Chicago accent, and it was a very bad situation. My father was an alcoholic.

My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and the two of them fought practically every night, fisticuffs, yelling, screaming. The police would come. It was very, very difficult situation. I had two brothers, but they were much older, nine and 12 years older. And before long they were gone. And then my father died when I was beginning high school, really. But by that time, my parents had divorced when I was in fifth grade and I was living with my mother and

We lived in a trailer. We were what used to be called white trailer trash. We were extremely poor. I had just a couple of sets of clothes, one set of shoes. I was very embarrassed about going to high school in particular. I couldn't do any of the fashion stuff. I never went to a single social event.

in high school. And there's an irony there too, because not too many years ago, I got the alumni award from that high school and met with the principal and some faculty and the principal said, well, what did you do, Quentin, when you were here as a student? And I said, nothing. So, but I also met with a group of the most troubled students at that high school now.

And the social worker said to me, can you explain how you got to where you are and a little bit of your background? And I explained my background. Boy, these students were riveted because many of them were living in similar situations. And some of them came up to me afterward and said so. And the social worker said, well, how did you get from there to where you are now? And I paused and I said, God. She said, what? I said, God. I started following Jesus.

And it was a stunning situation to be there back at that high school where I was such a poor student and so troubled emotionally. I have suffered, Wayne, lifelong from anxiety and depression going back to what I grew up in. And it was so, so difficult. And

Now I've had some great Christian counseling and therapy, and I have a Christian psychiatrist, and I don't want people to think that I'm a complete basket case, but the Lord is good. And so I got to college, and at college I made some friends, and I never really had much in the way of friends growing up. I went inside myself. I was a non-communicator.

And we can talk about that too and how I got in the field of communication. But so I went to the University of Illinois. How I got in there is another whole story because my grades were so bad. But went there and started making some friends, wonderful people who loved me and invited me out to things. And we had a great time. And it turns out that they were Christian folks, very involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. And they shared the gospel with me.

And I thought, wow, there was an old expression back then in those hippie days, Wayne, the expression was you're either on the bus or off the bus. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought to myself, this Jesus thing is very interesting.

Am I going to follow him or not? And I said, I better investigate. So I started reading scripture, attending some churches, going to Bible studies and the like. And the Lord grabbed me and said, follow me. Put down all that stuff from your past. That's not what's really important now. What's important is where I am going to lead you.

And so throughout my life, I have talked to people who are not Christians about what the faith is. I said, well, it really begins when you start following Jesus, because that the great follow up with that with nonbelievers is, oh, well, who do you follow then? And that opens up plenty of conversations because we all are followers of something. Yes. Even if it's just ourselves. Right.

And so I began studying engineering, which is what I went there for. But then I realized that I was a terrible communicator, just terrible. I interpersonally, I could hardly communicate all back from my childhood. And I thought I really need communication. So I started taking some communication courses and I said, this is it. I got, I think this is where you want me. I'm going to pursue it in faith.

And I ended up getting three degrees, including a doctoral degree in communication, all from the same school. Very unusual. And most of it by invitation of people along the way, professors who saw something in me beyond what I saw in myself.

And I realized how much that was the Holy Spirit at work. And so I like to say that my conversion simultaneously took place in my heart and my mind because I was studying communication and practicing communication. And Jesus says that our words come from our hearts, ultimately from our hearts, the condition of our hearts. And so I began this lifelong journey.

Following Jesus by studying and practicing communication, speaking about it. I speak a lot, which is so ironic. I could have never spoken. It's kind of like when I was younger, kind of like a God calling Moses, you know, and he says, hey, send Aaron, send somebody else, you know, get my brother involved. I was thinking the same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so my life has been one of learning how to communicate faithfully, the way God would have me communicate in many, many different situations, and then helping other people through teaching and workshops and lecturing and speaking at churches. I look back at the records, Wayne. There were times where I spoke to as many as 40 churches a year. Wow.

about communication of one kind or another, about the media, about raising children in a media age and all. And then I think back on my childhood and I say, this is a God thing. And whenever things have gotten difficult for me because of my past, which creeps up on me and drags me down, this anxiety and depression, God has been there bringing in other people

to turn it around. Our guest is Dr. Quentin Schultz and we'll continue talking with him and learn about A Christmas Story Movie Lessons coming up.

Here's Ed Cannon on the vision for FEBC's weekly podcast. The primary purpose of Until All Have Heard, of course, is to share the experience that FEBC has because we have staff on the ground in so many oppressive places. But in addition to that, we're trying to speak to you in a way that only the kind of testimonies you'll hear from around the globe can do.

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 Dr. Quentin Schultz. He is a professor, a speaker, an author,

You've contributed much to the kingdom through your speaking and teaching through the years. Quentin, we're just happy to have you in first person today. What a story you told us a few moments ago, though. It says only God, right? Only God could redeem a life the way that your life has been redeemed, the way it has. I rejoice in hearing that story. I really do. You've written a number of books, but the latest is called You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, Life Lessons from the Movie A Christmas Story. Now, A Christmas Story, I mean, is there anyone who's not seen this movie?

Very few. It's seen annually. It is the most popular movie in America now. It's seen by over 50 million Americans every year just on cable TV. Last year, 2023, Warner Brothers sold almost 9 million DVDs. Okay. Tremendously popular. And all of my books on communication are

are from a Christian perspective, some more obvious in terms of the Christian perspective than others. It's always there for those who have eyes to see, let's say. How I got involved with that movie is kind of strange in the

Late 70s, I began as a new professor studying storytelling. And I came to the conclusion that the most potent form of human expression is story. And of course, Jesus used stories to parables. And so I began looking around for somebody who is a really, really good storyteller that I could learn from. Mm-hmm.

And I ran across this guy who ended up writing the screenplay for A Christmas Story and writing many books and had a radio program and all. His name was Gene, J-E-A-N, Shepard. Spelled the same as your name, Wayne. Yeah, no relation, right. No relation. But at any rate, I contacted him and said, I'd like to learn storytelling from you. And I teach at a Christian college in West Michigan, Calvin.

And he was very amazed that a professor would contact him. Is that right? And so... Well, let me pause you because everything I read about Gene Shepard is he was a pretty colorful character. Very colorful and often difficult to get along with. But here's the thing. If you admired his work and you contacted him on the basis of admiring his work and said something along the lines that I understand that your work is parables, he was floored. Hmm.

All of his stories were parables. They worked on two levels. And I began to realize that. And so when I contacted him and mentioned that, he was intrigued that I had picked up on it. And so I invited him to teach with me and to help teach me how to tell stories and to tell parabolic stories, using stories to get at deeper meanings.

And he did this in A Christmas Story, the movie, which we think of with the Red Ryder BB gun and the leg lamp and how do the piggies eat and fudge, all that stuff. And by the way, we're having this conversation on Zoom and you've got the leg lamp shining behind you there. I do. I can see it. Yeah.

Yeah, I put it in the window and I use it in the podcast and all. So at any rate, I taught with him. And then it was around the time that this movie was, he was writing the screenplay. And then the movie came out and the movie kind of bombed at the box office. But later on with the VCR, it really picked up as a kind of family oriented movie. And I had all of these notes about how the different stories in the movie are parables. Yeah.

And I thought eventually the movie's going to die off and I won't write anything about it. I just kept all my notes. Most of the stuff, uh,

from my academic career I had given to various archives, but I kept my notes on this thinking maybe one day I'd do something with it. And last year I felt the spirit moving me to say, you've got to write that up because people need to be better storytellers, especially in the kingdom. Well, let's take an example. We won't have time to talk about many of them here, but they're in your book. Let's take an example of pull something out of the movie and how it teaches a lesson that

And perhaps we might miss it on the surface, but it's there, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So let's take a relatively obvious one, and that is the leg lamp.

They sell hundreds of thousands of leg lamps in one form or another every year. And so the old man wins this newspaper contest with the help of mom. Now, old man is the character's name. He's the father. And his major award is a leg lamp, a big leg lamp that he pulls out of this crate when it arrives.

And he's all excited, super, I won a major award. He's all excited, all excited. And he says, I know just where to put this. He's going to put it in the front window. Yep.

And mom is right there, and she's listening to him saying, well, wait a minute. Can we talk about this? Can we talk about this? And no, he's moving ahead, and he puts that in the front window. Now, let me stop right there and say that what's going on is that Gene Shepard believed that men have a number of fundamental problems in their, I'll use this word, brokenness. Mm-hmm.

living under the shadow of the fall with a capital F, their brokenness. One thing that happens with men is they get obsessed with things. It could be a car.

And I was just listening to a Dave Ramsey show, and he was talking about guys going out that don't really have the money and buying these fancy cars on credit. And I thought, oh, man, would a woman do that? I don't know. Maybe. Or, you know, they get the latest technology, the latest computer, on and on it goes. Guys have this thing about things, and they get obsessed with having to have things.

And that was Gene Shepard's worldview, that this was a downside of being a man in particular. But he also thought that using the leg lamp, he would show that this obsession that the old man had with the leg lamp was kind of weirdly erotic.

In other words, he fell in love with this thing that he had to have. Now that some of your listeners, Wayne, what I say next is going to be mind boggling here. With that, he was being very Augustinian, St. Augustine. Yeah. Because Augustine said what most drives human beings is the loves that are in their hearts. Yeah.

And as we used to say, that'll preach, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the old man's got this thing and he puts it in the window regardless of what mom wants. And mom knows she has to, quote unquote, stop the affair because he's so obsessed with this. So that chapter of the 20 life lessons in the book, each a short chapter. This one is curtail your obsessions. Yeah.

Well, they're all in this book. And, you know, as I read through it, I mean, there are things there. I mean, I've seen the movie probably, I don't know, half a dozen times at least. Never saw these things. They went right over my head. And yet you pull them out. There's also some great fun trivia throughout your book about the movie as well. So do you have any evidence that Gene Shepard was able to draw spiritual conclusions from these things he was writing about?

Here's an interesting story I tell in the book. He was in town here in Grand Rapids, and I think we were doing some teaching at the time, and maybe he was doing a performance too, but at any rate, it was cold winter morning, and we went out to a diner, and they brought coffee over. It was very cold, I remember that morning, and they brought two cups of coffee, one for him, one for me, and

And he grabbed that little cup of coffee and held it up to his nose and he smelled it. And then he took a little taste and he said, Quinn, you know, when you have a really good cup of coffee, there has to be a God. And he had this sense that there is a mystery in the universe and a greatness in the universe that you can only explain because of a God. There's no other way to explain it. Otherwise it's all meaningless. Right.

Yet whenever it would come down to Gene, are you willing to follow a particular person like Jesus or to join a particular church? He grew up Presbyterian in the Hammond, Indiana area. He would back off from that. And his feeling was that the churches are hypocritical and many of the leaders are hypocritical. And that's sad. Yeah, sad. And I would say to him, Gene, you're right.

But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't follow Jesus just because it's a broken world. Everything's broken. And he used to talk about Hollywood that he was in as being among the most broken of all institutions. I said, well, you're still involved in Hollywood. Why not get involved in a church? But that was a tough road to go with him. Of course, he died many years ago, didn't he?

1999. For you personally, what does it do in your heart to go back over these lessons, Quentin? When I think about the lessons in the book and actually writing the book over the last 18 months, it reminds me of all kinds of things in my life that I have done fairly well, but that I can still do better.

And what happens in the movie with Ralphie, the kid between eight and nine, 10 years old, or I say around that range because I have a grandson who's 10. And I think about, have I been a better father than the old man?

in the movie? Have I lived up to what I know from scripture, but also the life lessons in the book? You know, one common life lesson in the movie is be a good neighbor. You got these neighbors, the bumpuses with their million hound dogs, not very good neighbors, but of course for us to be a good neighbor means a lot more.

And so all of this comes back to me one way or another, but not a day goes by, Wayne, that I don't thank God for the life that God has given me. Wonderful wife, two children, two grandchildren.

And I, to be honest with you, Wayne, I was scared to death of ever getting married. I was a relatively solid Christian by that point, but I never had the role models in my life of parents. And I thought I can't do this. And, but then as my wife to be, and I talked it over and prayed about it together many times, and,

And she came from a wonderful family. I thought, God can do this through me too. And let's make it happen. My favorite scripture is Ephesians 2.10. We're God's workmanship. Creating Christ Jesus to do good works that he prepared in advance for us to do. And that's how I look at my life. God has prepared all this stuff for me to do beyond what I thought I could do.

And it's been fun. It's been amazing. I've enjoyed this first-person conversation with Quentin Schultz, and I hope you did as well. His book is titled You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, a line from the movie A Christmas Story. And we'll have a link to the book in our program notes found at firstpersoninterview.com. Let me take a moment and say thanks to the Far East Broadcasting Company for the help in bringing these interviews to you each week.

FEBC produces amazing biblical content using broadcasts and social media to impact millions of people each day. What is unique about it is that the programming is always in the local language of the listener for a clear gospel presentation. We have a podcast called Until All Have Heard, which tells a few of these stories, and there's even more online at febc.org. That's febc.org.

Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for listening to First Person.