LifeLine Productions Trivia Page

People ask us how we come up with the ideas we use for our Christian radio messages. Here is a trivia page that looks at the inspiration, history and stories behind many of our messages.

Title	Trivia
House on Fire	This is probably the clearest description of some of our attitudes about evangelism we could write. Many other spots reflect the same type of situation.
But They Look Really Comfortable	This is very similar to the above script, "House on Fire", except this shows the trend we took of being more bold of talking about the eternal punishment to come.
Hello, This is Heaven	This Gospel spot started the LifeLine Productions ministry. We had one station playing our material. Pretty soon, several people called and requested the transcript of this Gospel spot. It never occurred to us that people would want to use our scripts, so we started selling them to finance the radio ministry.
Good Deeds	When we first wrote this, it was a '57 Ford Mustang that got smashed, until someone told us that there were no Mustangs in the 50's.
Background Music	A majority of the time we use sound effects to accentuate the idea. This time we were out of ideas and were sitting around listening to our sound effect library when we started listening to the musical section. We knew we had to figure out a way to use them, so we came up with "Background Music."

Title	Trivia
Backgammon	I have a friend, who became the Best Man at my wedding. We used to work alone in a warehouse together. Every day, we would spend our break time and lunch time playing Backgammon. To make the game more interesting, we added the rule that you could move backwards when rolling snake eyes. After my friend moved several states away, he asked me to write him a spot that, when he heard it, he would know I was thinking about him and our friendship.
No Problem; Finally, I'll Be Happy; Greetings; God Called, Call Him Back	Kirt and I work at a big company. Many of the Gospel spots we write reflect the corporate attitude. As far as the 'Greetings' spot, life really is like that at a big corporate company.
I Want to Serve God	We thought the closing description of what this man really wanted to do was hilarious, until we realized that it was a good description of LifeLine Productions.
Won't Order That Again	Our biggest argument at LLP was over this spot. Do pickles taste sour or bitter? After an hour of intense discussion, we decided to call information. We gave the operator two options on the taste of pickles, sour or bitter. Sour won...thank you.
Change Course	This was something I read on the internet. I'm SURE it's true. Note the generic description of the ship we use, "Large naval ship". When we wrote this radio spot, our material just started to be aired internationally, so we felt we needed to generalize the description. We face many choices such as this. Do we say miles or kilometers? We usually end up saying, "Very far."

Title	Trivia
Honesty, Wealth, Listening	When we first started out, we wanted to present the Gospel in such a way that a secular audience would listen and not turn us off. We felt that meant we couldn't use Christian words like Jesus, Bible, God, Salvation, Cross, etc. These were the first three we came up with. Wealth was the first one we wrote. After much frustration, we decided to just go with whatever idea we had. It was then that the ministry started to grow.
Model Airplane Instructions	Okay, we know it's not called a panorama, it's diorama. A panorama is a two dimensional picture, a diorama is a three dimensional picture.
Car Radio Ultimatum	It struck me one day that once we hear the Gospel message, we will be judged by what we do with that information. As Christians, we can't assume everyone has heard the Gospel, so we just wanted to make a radio spot that presented the Gospel and the choices or dilemma that it posed to the listener.
Scoop Walker - John 3:16	Okay, every third letter does not spell "FORGOBLOTTEN", but it was late and we were tired and that just sounded like the funniest word in the world. We get more calls about this spot from people who are ardent supporters of the "Bible Code", which claims to look for modern day prophecies by analyzing the patterns in the letters of the original Hebrew. They believe this spot is a jab at them, but honestly we wrote this long before we ever heard of the "Bible Code".
Jake Savage	Yeah, I know, no one really changes their name to do away with their sin, but really, isn't Jake Savage a cool name?

Title	Trivia
The Birthday Party	To drive the point home, we purposely named the mother and father in this Christmas spot Mary and Joe. I struggled with the lines: Mary: Where is the birthday boy anyway?" Joe: I don't know. He's your son. I thought you invited him. But, then I realized that almost half of the kids in America are step kids. I thought they could relate better to Jesus if they knew he was raised in a step family situation.
Driving Lessons	Like most of the radio spots we write, we get our ideas from real life. Both Kirt and I have kids who are starting to drive. I had to tell my boy that, "It really wasn't that bad" so he wouldn't get a complex. He got his license and I'm closer to God, so it all worked out well for everybody.
Lunch with Ex-Girlfriend, Donut Diet, Moving Day	After a Bible study in John's first, second and third letters, I got the feeling that there was a big expectation from God for our obedience. These spots marked a push to convict Christians.
Why don't you Help Me?	This script was almost written verbatim by Ann Graham Lotz. In an interview with Larry King, she responded to the question "why," referring to the events of 9/11. She responded, "You know, we've turned back to God in a way. We're calling on Him. We have a little phrase 'God Bless America' everywhere, which is refreshing, because after 1963, basically we've told God to get out of our schools, and we've told Him to get out of the marketplace, get out of our businesses, get out of our government. And you know, it's all right if he stays in church or in a synagogue, but we've not wanted Him on the streets." It was very inspiring to us, plus it was an easy script to write.
Amazing Alan - Roller Coaster Scene	After the events of 9/11, we wanted to create a spot reminding people that we need to focus on God during times of crisis.

Title	Trivia
The Answering Machine	The answering machine you hear is the one we use in our office. And yes, we put on 35 messages and recorded the announcement.
Gotta Tell You This Joke	I got this idea from reading the book, "Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass", a good book if you can find it. By the way, have you ever started a joke without thinking about the punch line first? About mid way through the joke you think to yourself, "Wait a minute! This may not be an appropriate joke to tell my Pastor."

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