Kids & Family
Believe it or Not: 'Heaven is for Real' a Community Discussion-Starter
The movie, in theaters April 16, is about a real-life boy who says he went to Heaven and met Jesus during surgery. We spoke with the family behind the film about how it can help start a discussion in your town.
As a pastor in Nebraska, Todd Burpo speaks every day about faith and the afterlife. Now he hopes the film adaptation of his book, “Heaven is for Real,” can ignite further discussion in communities across the country.
If you aren’t familiar, “Heaven is for Real” tells the story of Burpo’s son, Colton, who said he left his body during an emergency appendectomy around age 4 and visited Heaven. His parents, Todd and Sonja, believed the story after Colton described details about his great-grandfather and miscarried sister about whom he didn’t know.
“I think this movie’s real strength is that it’s a conversation starter,” Todd Burpo said. “I think we have people who would never join us in a conversation about God in a church, but to see in a film that there is a Heaven, I think this movie is a great medium to share the story and get people talking.”
The incredible claim the title suggests is of course divisive, but Burpo said there are messages in the film to which anyone can relate.
“I think this is a movie about family,” Burpo said. “It’s a real mom and a real dad and they’re going to see us struggle, they’re going to see us hurt and work through things. But they’ll also see that we’re honest about faith—faith doesn’t mean you have answers all the time.”
In addition to family, Sonja Burpo believes the film can be an inspiration to anyone experiencing loss. Her miscarriage was the “biggest hurt,” she said, but out of that she’s been able to help others.
“We’ve all lost somebody and everyone will lose somebody, and people wrestle with this whole idea of whether Heaven is for real,” she said. “Many times we think we’re the only one in the world with a problem, but we’re not. We can pray for each other and support each other.”
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While the Burpo family maintains the validity of Colton’s story, they recognize there are skeptics and people who won’t be convinced. Todd Burpo said he hopes people will still be able to take something away from the film and use it to discuss faith and be good people in the communities.
That sense of community was something Colton said he experienced while in Heaven. Besides meeting family members who had passed, talking with angels and seeing Jesus ride a multicolored horse, Colton shared this about the community in Heaven:
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“It’s a lot like Earth in many ways, but everybody there would help you out just because they wanted to help you out and not because of their own interests,” he said. “So that’s a pretty good community.”
This post is sponsored by Sony's "Heaven is for Real," in theaters April 16.
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