StoryTel, a private, non-profit media foundation dedicated to inspiring viewers to restore the sacred, announced today that its latest completed production, a $100K film project donated to St. Peter Catholic Church (St. Peters), of Omaha, Neb., will appear on EWTN, the Global Catholic Television Network on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:30pm ET. The documentary, named “Where Heaven Meets Earth,” investigates how this poor Omaha parish became a thriving and vibrant church again after more than 40 years of decline.

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Where Heaven Meets Earth, World-wide Television Premiere on EWTNSaint Peter Catholic Church (St. Peters) of downtown Omaha, Nebraska will be featured in a documentary called, “Where Heaven Meets Earth." The film highlighting the story of St. Peter’s parish will appear on EWTN, Global Catholic Television Network on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:30pm ET.

The documentary, a $100K film project, produced and donated by StoryTel Foundation, investigates how this poor Omaha parish became a thriving and vibrant community again after more than 40 years of decline. Originally built in 1886, Saint Peter Catholic Church grew to become one of the biggest and busiest parishes in the diocese of Omaha, Nebraska. But in the 1960s, huge chunks of the neighborhoods north and south of the church were razed to make way for the construction of interstate 480, forcing hundreds of parishioners to move away from St. Peters.

In the years that followed, more and more parishioners moved west to the suburbs, St. Peter’s school closed, and the resulting lack of donations led to years of deferred building maintenance causing the church to fall into disrepair.

By the time a young priest on his first assignment as pastor arrived in 2004, no one would believe this place would survive let alone thrive, but Father Damien Cook was inspired with an idea that would prove God had other plans for Saint Peter Catholic Church.

“I’ve been amazed to see the progress people have made over the last few years, and the numbers of people we have had at the masses through mostly word-of-mouth,” said St. Peter’s pastor Father Damien Cook. “The congregations have grown and flourished to the point that at one of our masses the church is completely full with standing room only, which amounts to over 800 people. For our neighborhood, in our situation, in just six years’ time, this is radical growth.”

Created to entertain viewers around the world with an incredible, true story and spur them to action for God, the film has incidentally helped the parish raise $3 million and is expected to raise even more when it airs on EWTN, though it wasn’t intended to be a fundraising video.

It is one of the many projects recently completed by StoryTel, a private non-profit media foundation, as part of their mission to, “inspire viewers to restore the sacred,” says President of StoryTel and “Where Heaven Meets Earth” director, Don Carney.

To learn more about the documentary, Where Heaven Meets Earth visit: www.heavenmeetsearth.tv

We finally confirmed the broadcast date for the premiere our latest film, Where Heaven Meets Earth, Restoring the Sacred at St. Peter Church. 

The film will first air in the United States on EWTN on April 30th. The first showing will be at 3 am, and the next at 6:30 pm Eastern time. It will be broadcast throughout out the week internationally through their various satellite feeds. 

This is our site for trailers and air-date information: www.heavenmeetsearth.tv.

Let's get to work on promoting this thing!

StoryTel is delighted to welcome Phil Halpin as its first full time in-house video editor and Vice President of Production. Phil will oversee the post production process on all our projects, and be responsible for making sure our productions meet their milestones, deadlines and broadcast dates.

We've hired Phil away from a successful, 15-year career as Vice President of Marketing at U.S. Inspect, which included a big emphasis on corporate video production as well as web-based marketing. Phil has also often worked or volunteered his time on Saturdays and holidays for StoryTel, and has been my preferred video editor for over 20 years. He shaped all of the On Assignment documentaries, and was the primary editor on some of our most acclaimed films, such as Saint John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred.

We’re very excited to finally be able to fully tap into his full attention, talent, and creative energy. We look forward to increased output and the development of many concurrent projects.

We've just released a new trailer for our in progress film about Miles Christi. We look forward to completing post rpoduction soon, but couldn't wait to share. 

If you haven't already seen it, here's our year-end report that we just emailed to our donors. 

Full Report

We're so pleased to report that we were recently told that Fr. Cook and team at St. Peters in Omaha have raised over 2.5 million dollars for their restoration effort and that the video we produced for them plays a key role in every fundraising presentation. Here's a quick update video we made about it and sent to our donor base for our Christmas appeal. 

We're really excited about how this trailer turned out and are looking forward to this documentary's premiere. We think it's our highest quality and most accessible film yet. Enjoy!

November 2012 marks StoryTel’s entry into the Spanish-speaking market throughout Latin America, Spain and the US. Some of what I’m going to tell you next may seem exaggerated, but it’s not.

By way of EWTN’s International TV broadcast, Saint John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred was able to reach every single Spanish speaking country in North America, South America and Europe. Our program is being watched in Español in 26 Spanish speaking countries including Spain, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela — as well as the United States.

This didn’t happen by accident. Instead, we made the decision to meet the Spanish speaking homes where they are at — using the same language they hear everyday. It’s easy to understand how the sound of one's native tongue is the sweetest sound. In a world where spoken word is king, we couldn’t rely on subtitles to inspire this new audience.

In partnership with Tom Krol, of Level 10 Sound, StoryTel hired over a dozen talented voice actors to immerse our new audience in this miraculous Chicago experience. The result was our Spanish language dubbed translation, San Juan Cancio: La Restauraciòn De Lo Sagrado.

San Juan Cancio has already been broadcast three times throughout the Latin American world this November and will continue to air in perpetuity, much like the Saint John Cantius program in English.

This means that we've added almost two whole continents of potential StoryTel viewers and expanded our total viewership market by millions. But the good news doesn’t stop there.

Our partnership with EWTN has broken through the glass ceiling of viewership in 2011. We are now reaping the benefits of EWTN’s global market expansion in 2012.

From reaching 160 million homes in 2011 — an impressive number to begin with — to over 200 million homes in 2012, its difficult to keep up with the growing impact our ON ASSIGNMENT documentaries are having given the explosion of viewers craving an inspiring message in a turbulent world.

This accomplishment began with the financial support of our donors. Our donors are a fundamental part of the StoryTel team and we couldn’t have done it without them. So to our donors thank you for all your support and congratulations to you as well, for the fantastic success of Saint John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred!

May God bless you, your family, and your work.

The Archdioces of Omaha just published good article about Sancta Familia, the non-profit clinic located right next store to our main office. Sancta Familia is a medical apostolate in the Archdiocese of Omaha, which means it's a lay organization devoted to the mission of the church in the world.

StoryTel Foundation helps them promote their good work so more prospective patients in Omaha area are aware of them as a resource. Much like we view ourselves as God's tool for mass communication, we appreciate how they view themselsves as God's tool for healing:

Thanks to all at Sancta Familia for their continued good work.