Not unlike the large corporations retooling to deal with impending bankruptcy in the current economic depression, a small Madison media production company is retooling to confront the moral depression caused by the bankrupt values of today’s ubiquitous media culture. They’re launching this new media ministry under the umbrella of Advance K, a church/outreach located in a former laundromat at 555 W. Mifflin Street.
Marv and Beth Turner returned to Madison from a trip to Africa two years ago with a hunger to walk closer to God and allow their faith in God to direct their lifestyle. The vibrant faith they had encountered among the African people and missionaries working there was convicting. "Coming back to western church was very difficult," Marv said. "We didn’t think we were serving God by going to church once a week and going to a Bible study."
Marv and Beth met at a Florida television station 16 years ago. After they married their television news careers took them to major media markets, five years in Chicago and two years in San Francisco. Dissatisfied with the lifestyles they saw at that level, and desiring to get their lives and their growing family grounded, they landed back in Madison where Beth had started her TV news career as a student at the UW-Madison.
"If we didn’t come back here the marriage wouldn’t have lasted," Beth said. "There was no foundation." But what they found back in Madison wasn’t what they expected either. Beth left her job as a TV news anchor and Marv founded his own video production company but eventually they confronted the fact that they needed to focus more on their foundation: yield their desires to God’s will and work as a team, not as individuals.
Their 2007 trip to Africa was one of the final steps in their process of spiritual maturization. Paying for their plane tickets, cash in advance, was an exercise in faith. "We didn’t have $8,000 dollars just lying around," Marv said. "So when I got the money together and wrote the check I was very nervous." As he walked through the garage on his way to the post office, he received unusual confirmation about the trip. "I heard a bang and I heard a voice. It said, ‘Now you’re working for me.’ I haven’t God audibly speak to me before or since." But when he arrived back at the house a short while later he was surprised to find in the mail a check from friends that covered almost half of the purchase price for the airline tickets.
"God has given us a talent and we’re together for a reason," Marv said. While the ministry of several local church communities was helpful to Marv and Beth, helping them mature in their faith, they’re now drawn to Advance K, a ministry on the edge of the UW-Madison campus that Marv describes as being all about "taking the Bible and just doing it." The Advance K slogan is "Advancing the Kingdom of God with Love, Grace and Power."
Marv and Beth are converting their former business, Yellow Dog Productions, into a ministry called Triple 5 Productions. Some of their projects include a documentary about a missionary whose imprisonment in Mozambique 32 years ago planted the seeds for an explosion of ministry today. They’re also planning on working with various ministries on promotional videos, similarly to projects they’ve already done for local ministries such as CareNet of Dane County.
But their most exciting outreach is aimed at redeeming culture through video by training the younger generation how to use video tools for redemptive media projects, here and abroad. Part of this vision is a "guns for cameras" project in Africa.
"We were in the media for 15 years," Beth said. "We don’t want to be about entertainment, lulling people to sleep with a false sense of security. We want to take media to a more redemptive level."
A providential meeting with SONY executives at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas in April opened doors for the use of cutting edge video production tools. They believe such corporate support may lead to more open doors. But ultimately they have put their faith in God to open the right doors for video projects that will have an impact for good in a culture that doesn’t realize it’s hungry for God.