A documentary about Pastor Richard Gazowsky of the Voice of Pentecost Church in San Francisco and his attempt to launch himself into the entertainment industry for the Lord, Audience of One is not only a story of filmmaking but of faith, its followers, and quite possibly its fallacies.

When the documentary begins, Gazowsky has already used donations from his congregation to establish a fully-functioning movie studio called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). In production is the project Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph, a multimillion-dollar epic that Gazowsky describes as "Star Wars meets The Ten Commandments." And as Gazowsky and his crew of family members, church members, and various volunteers set to work to fulfill what they believe to God's call, what we are confronted with is the unsettling sense that, while there may be a God, and while He could call us to embark on certain tasks, the translation of His wishes by the humans who seek to follow Him is often far from perfect.

Although there are many issues and ideas within Audience of One that could be debated, one that really cannot is that Gazowsky doesn't exactly succeed at creating the greatest epic film ever made. From the beginning of Gazowsky's project, Gravity is plagued by problems (not the least of which is that next to no one on Gazowsky's crew has any filmmaking experience). When our observation begins, they are already hopelessly behind and almost maddeningly uncoordinated. Even when cameras finally begin to roll, cables snap, cameras jam, and the team barely manages to capture two scenes on film after flying all the way to Italy for what is presumably principal shooting. When they arrive back in San Francisco and lease a warehouse-sized studio on Treasure Island, there's also the small matter that despite the large donations that have already been made to the project and the sizable sums Gazowsky says are on the way, they cannot even pay their rent.

But while most men might have given up on such an endeavor, the difference between most men and Gazowsky is that he still believes the film he is making to be a mandate from God. As he sees it, to give up on the project would be to deny God's leadership over his life. Even when all is going wrong, he and his crew continue to pray over their sets and roll cameras. Although he may have no money and next to nothing to show for his efforts, Gazowsky continues to expect God's miraculous hand to swoop in and make everything right. But at least to the outside observer, the problem is that while Gazowsky may repeatedly proclaim his undeterred commitment to the project in the name of God's glory, under the banner of His power, and for the benefit and enlightenment of His people, the making of Gravity almost contradicts those very principles more than it supports them.

Perhaps the most glaring contradiction between Gazowski's reasoning and his actions is in his commitment to making a movie of a quality that will bring glory to God and the way he actually carries out the making of the movie. From the moment production begins, he is insistent about everything being just right and the best, but as he even says himself, there are others who would do a better job of making of the film than he. Although he repeatedly seeks out high tech equipment, he does nothing to make sure anyone knows how to use it or that it is actually the best equipment for his purposes. And although he and his crew are consistently behind schedule and without a plan, at least from where we stand, he does nothing to try to come up with a plan that will actually result in forward motion.

Gazowsky's excuse: Miracles. God will give him the talent, and in turn bring Himself glory. God will fix the camera they broke, and in turn bring Himself glory. God will provide them the money, and in turn bring Himself glory. But as much as to deny that God is capable of miracles would be to deny His power, I pose the question: Isn't one of God's miracles that He created a world full of people with unique talents and abilities for us to collaborate with? Isn't one of His miracles that He gave us brains capable of learning and retaining education? And as much as God delivering a chunk of money into our hands could bring Him glory, when we claim the hand of God over our finances and incur debts everywhere we go, I wouldn't exactly call that a pursuit of excellence in the name of God's glory.

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