The Courageous Love

New Documentary on Abolitionist Adam Crooks Jul. 26, 2011 - by Jerry Brecheisen Adam Crooks died in 1874, but his determination to spread the gospel message of freedom for all through Jesus Christ lives on. Filmmaker Aaron Mullins has produced a documentary based on the story of Adam Crooks in cooperation with the North Carolina East District of The Wesleyan Church. Aaron, the film’s producer, is the son of NC East Assistant District Superintendent Rev. Ernest Mullins and his wife Susan. The documentary, The Courageous Love, which was premiered during the July 2011 NC East district conference, is in two parts. The first is a dramatization of Crooks, a young anti-slavery pastor who built Freedom’s Hill, the first Wesleyan Methodist (now Wesleyan) church in the South. The second part is a profile of five Wesleyan church planters in North Carolina who are carrying on the Adam Crooks legacy. Q: Aaron, what prompted you to film this documentary? A: I kept hearing the name Adam Crooks. When I looked into his story, which is the story of the first Wesleyan Methodist Church being planted in the American South, I was intrigued. It read like a Clint Eastwood western. At the same time, I was randomly spending more time in North Carolina with some of today’s church planters and quickly realized that these young men and women and their ministries were carrying on the spirit and tradition of Adam Crooks in today's society. It seemed to me an important piece of history both past and present that needed to be documented. So I presented a proposal to the NC East Wesleyan District to create a film that would tell the story. They accepted, and pre-production began in late 2010. Q: What about Adam Crooks’ life intrigued you most? A: Adam Crooks was a young man of twenty-three when he accepted the call to plant the first Wesleyan Methodist Church in North Carolina. No one else wanted to take the chance. It was very dangerous for a minister to openly preach against the evils of slavery in the pre-Civil War South, much less attempt to plant a new church. But Adam Crooks said yes. He showed up in North Carolina during a tough winter and immediately planted the first church with a small congregation and called it Freedom’s Hill. He didn’t back down or try to soft sell his message. He was immediately attacked, literally. He had death threats; local mobs dragged him from the pulpit; he faced hanging; he was jailed; there were attempts to poison him—and yet he stayed, preached louder, and planted more churches. I mean, what kind of man does that?! As I read about his life, it hit me that there was a correlation between his story and church planters in The Wesleyan Church today. Q: Tell us about the production team. A: I wrote, produced, and directed the project. District Superintendent Rev. Dan LeRoy and my father, Rev. Ernest Mullins, were executive producers. A good friend and talented filmmaker, Phil Bailey, helped shoot part of the production and played a major part with the editing and sound. As these things go, I relied heavily on other family members and friends. Without them, I could not have done the project. I didn’t really have a budget, so I had to shoestring the whole production. I begged and borrowed my way through. The actors made their own costumes, volunteers did hair and make-up, and someone let us borrow a horse. We used the district’s Victory Mountain Camp as a location spot, and purposely used volunteer, non-actors from The Wesleyan Church to give our re-dramatization of Adam Crooks a certain authenticity. Q: What is your professional background? A: After getting my undergrad degree from Liberty University, I worked eight years in Congress for two U.S. senators. From there, I started my own small consulting business and did that for several years before deciding to change my career and pursue filmmaking full-time. I'm currently a digital film student at Boston University and have been working this past year on several commercial and narrative films, in addition to other short documentary projects while wrapping up the Adam Crooks documentary. Q: What would you say is the bottom line purpose of “The Courageous Love”? A: The purpose of this film is to inform and enlighten viewers about Adam Crooks in an entertaining fashion. Along with others involved in the project, I feel that it is extremely important to document this story—it tells Wesleyans where the Church has been and where it is going now. Q: How is the North Carolina East District directly involved? A: I had a lot of discussions with the district’s leaders before starting. They were very clear in letting me know what direction the film should take. We agreed that a majority of the profit would go to Wesleyan projects. From there, they have been 100 percent supportive, allowing me to create the film artistically as I saw fit. In addition, the film will be distributed online via our website. We are partnering with a really cool company, IndieFlix, to make that happen. Individuals and organizations will be able to buy the DVD online and have it shipped directly or view it instantly online. Click here for article: http://www.wesleyan.org/doc/news_article?id=1621&src=news –Jerry Brecheisen, brecheij@wesleyan.org