William Ryan Helps Plan “The Chosen” Sermon on the Mount Filming Event

Now, this is a special, personal story that we had the honor of being a part of! The first-ever multi-season show about the life of Jesus Christ, “The Chosen”, is currently being filmed here in Texas. William was brought on to help plan and organize the filming of the Sermon on the Mount scene!

William’s friend is the producer for the series and reached out to him to see if he could help plan this huge event around the filming of this iconic scene. Instead of only hiring professional extras for the scene, they wanted to invite the fans that have supported the series. Over 2,000 people came from all around the world to be a part of this incredible scene. With his production background, William worked alongside the crew on a full day of entertainment leading up to the final shot. William shared, “with the low temperatures and being filmed in the middle of a pandemic, this was definitely a challenge to pull off, but we did it!”

TMZ interviewed Dallas Jenkins, the director of the show, to chat about the remarkable day and the precautions taken to ensure safety for everyone on site. He shared, “every single person, all 2,000 people, were not only PCR tested before they came, but they were also tested the morning of… we thought that we could really pull this off and we did… It was for sure worth it.”

So the people were coming, but “The Chosen” team didn’t want to just film a scene, they actually wanted it to be a “blessing” for all who were coming. In the middle of the field, before Jesus spoke his words for the scene, Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes along with their friend, Phil Wickham sang “The Blessing” over the entire group and it was such a special performance for everyone in the field that day. Check out a clip that we captured below:

Each of the artists performed a few songs throughout the day during filming breaks, so while dressed in first-century Biblical costumes, the extras got to worship alongside Phil Wickham, Cody Carnes, and Kari Jobe!

But, even with all the planning, what we just couldn’t plan for was the frigid temperatures that Texas never saw coming! Phil Wickham shared this post on Instagram about the memorable day:

But Phil, along with so many of the extras that we have heard from, shared that despite the cold, it was such a blessing to be a part of this incredible day and important scene and they would do it all over again if they had the opportunity!