Every Industry is a Ministry with Megan Alexander

“You are going to get a lot of no’s in life…but you have to stay the course.” Megan Alexander, of Inside Edition and UpTv’s Small Town Christmas reminds us that we have to persevere. She is an author, on television, in movies, but what she wants you to know is Jesus comes first. It’s all a ministry to her and you’ll love hearing about how she thrives in her career while staying true to her faith.

Interview Links:

• Follow Megan Online | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
• Books: Faith in the Spotlight: Thriving in Your Career While Staying True to Your Beliefs, and her children’s book, One More Hug
• Christmas Show: Small Town Christmas
• CRISTA Ministries
• King’s Schools

Transcription:

Megan Alexander: If you believe it, and you really feel in your heart, you’re supposed to do it, stay the course. You’re going to get a lot of nos in life, right. And especially in the entertainment industry here constantly getting rejection and nose and putting yourself out there. But if I’d listened to that agent would be where I am now. So we’ve got to push through that again. The Bible is full of those stories, where people were doubted and made fun of, and you got to persevere and keep your eyes on the cross.

Sarah Taylor: Her name is Megan Alexander. Perhaps you’ve seen her on the national news magazine program inside edition. She’s been a correspondent there and we’re going to talk about how she got that job.

She also has a brand new Christmas holiday, special all about small towns across the us. And we are certainly going to talk about that. She is Emmy nominated. She’s a author speaker children’s book, author, actress… The list goes on and on. I actually told her I was going to read all these accolades and she said, try to narrow it down because Megan is down to earth and her faith is first.

We are going to actually start by talking about the last time that we were in person together pre COVID. And so we’ll begin at the beginning.

So Megan, the time I saw you, I remember being outside of my office and you were getting ready to leave after you were doing your book tour for faith in the spotlight, but we’re going to, we’re going to talk about that book in a minute, but you were getting ready to leave and we asked what we could pray for you for, and you asked for prayer because you were hoping to have a third child.

Megan Alexander: Yes. And God answered that. I have a little girl who is now two and her name is Capri and yes, children are such a special gift from God, as you know, they’re incredible. So really lucky, two boys and a girl.

Sarah Taylor: Congratulations. Since this is the first time I’ve been able to talk to you since your pregnancy and the birth of Capri. And here she’s two years.

Megan Alexander: Yes. Thank you so much. How’s your family?

Sarah Taylor: Oh, we’re doing well. Thank you. Same thing, three kids. Our youngest is also a girl and headed into the holidays. So what do you have planned? Christmas Eve? Christmas morning? What’s one of your favorite traditions?

Megan Alexander: Oh gosh. Well, in my family, we always did one present on Christmas Eve.

Right? Carry that tradition over with my kids, which is really neat. And we read the Christmas story, you know, the reason for the season, Jesus’ birth. We’ve, we’ve gone back and forth on going to church on Christmas Eve, or a lot of churches will do it the night before or the morning of but we’re definitely going to go to church.

And my son chase was involved with say a scripture verse on stage last year. So yeah, I just, you know, enjoying music and family and fellowship. And one thing that we do do is a couple of years ago, I started throwing a flashlight candy cane hunt for the children of the neighborhoods. And so that’s something we do every year and it’s really fun.

And the kids helped me decorate and get the backyard ready. And my six year old likes to help me hide the candy. So he knows exactly where they are. So I have to go back out after he does that with me and move him around a little.

Sarah Taylor: Oh yeah. I was going to say, you’ve got a future entrepreneur following in your footsteps right there. If he’s already thinking that way. Well, let’s start at the beginning cause I know you love Christmas and we’re going to talk more about your most recent project, but just to introduce you to our audience. I want to start by just a fun thing about the radio station I’ve been at for 20 years was actually instrumental in giving you that first ping of wanting to go into media.

Megan Alexander: Absolutely. I attended Kings schools at CRISTA, k through 12. And I remember my kindergarten class coming over to the radio station and walking in and seeing the microphone in the studio. And, and just thinking I’d love to do something like this one day, and the radio DJ at the time said, does anybody want to talk on the microphone?

And I raised my hand and may have spoken out on microphone that you’re, you’re talking into right now. And just got bit by the bug and, you know, did plays at King’s and was involved living faith, which is a Christian traveling pop group that would sing in different churches and, and mission trips. And so, yeah, Kings instilled in me that love and also that entertainment can be used for good, and it can inspire people and share the gospel.

So Wonderful happy memories of my time at Kings and CRISTA and all the CRISTA Ministries.

Sarah Taylor: That’s really been one of the themes of the projects that you choose is wanting to do work that’s meaningful and showing people that you can be in media have faith in the spotlight, the title of your book, balancing your career, but also holding onto your values.

So you want to talk a little bit more about How you decided that that was going to be your filter for what gets your yes, and what opportunity gets your no?

Megan Alexander: Yes. Well, Kings and CRISTA did such a good job of instilling us that every person is a minister and every industry is a ministry. In fact, a king student,

nathan Shields, his father said that to me in high school, when I was, we were all getting ready for prom and, you know, taking pictures as a group. And when it was my turn to share I sort of cringed when I shared that I wanted to be an entertainment because some Christian circles haven’t always been that supportive.

I had a family friend say, you know, that’s Satan’s playground. Why would you want to go to Hollywood or New York and a King’s father? Who’s a pastor said every person’s a minister. Every industry has a ministry. Look at the Bible. Is filled with stories of people who were salt and light in a dark place.

God sent them into scary situations, whether it’s Daniel in Babylon or Esther seeking the favor of the king to save her people, or Moses, not knowing what to say. And so I’m reading the Bible and I’m going well, if God plants a seed in your heart, And you feel that you’re supposed to give back in some way, that’s your destiny or your calling on this earth, trust in the Lord,

and he tells us it’s not going to be perfect, but I will tell you what to do or say, just go and follow me. So that was my approach to entertainment. I love to tell stories. I love to tell other people’s stories. And again, I just believe. Entertainment and can be used for good. And so it’s, it’s a joy and a privilege to bring this Christmas show, which is 30 minutes of pure happiness and Christmas.

And every episode of small town Christmas.

Sarah Taylor: We’re going to talk about that. I want to go chronologically with. Was it when you were at inside edition or where you at one of the news stations, when you got an opportunity in a meeting, you talk about this in faith in the spotlight where they needed to fill, you had brought up an idea of having max Lucado and was it at first shut down?

Megan Alexander: Oh yes, that was San Antonio, Texas. I worked at Ken’s five, the local CBS affiliate and was part of a morning show. And I quickly learned that, you know, 85% of the story for a variety television show, it was kind of like a good morning America for Texas, you know, they get planned ahead of time. And occasionally you’ll get to throw out an idea as a talent, but oftentimes the producers are the real decision makers and a local psychic was, would come on this show once a month

and viewers would call in and ask this psychic question, financial questions, personal questions about relationships and big decisions in their lives. And I watched this psychic supposedly give them advice. And I said to my producer later, have you ever tried that with a local pastor? Max Lucado is just down the road in San Antonio.

He’s very down to earth and engaging. I really think that segment shows us that people are hungry for good advice. Okay. What about a pastor? And yes, it was shut down and they said, no, we don’t do that. We don’t do religion on this show. And I kind of sheepishly put my hand down and moved on. But then later we had five minutes that we needed to fill someone had canceled on the television show. And I raised my hand again and the executive producer was exasperated with me, I think, and said, fine, go call Max Lucado. If he’s available, he can come on the show. And I went, oh no, no. I need to call Max Lucado and see if he’s available. I hope he is. Called his office. They said, absolutely. He will be there.

He was in town, which was, you know, great because he travels a lot as an author. He showed up, he went on the show. It was the highest rated show we had had all year long. Ratings are king in the media and if people tune in and don’t change the channel, you’re doing something right. And that executive producer that said to me previously, Megan, we don’t do religion, looked at those ratings and said let’s have him every month. Book max, again, let’s go. So my personal take is I don’t think that people are purposefully trying to keep faith and religion out of media. I just don’t think enough Christians raise their hand and offer up a suggestion and follow through on it. And then leave it to the people to decide.

I always tell people the power in the remote control. Yes, we vote at the ballot box and with our dollar, but your remote control and your computer clicks are incredibly powerful. You’re telling the media what you want to see and what you don’t want to watch.

Sarah Taylor: I know that after that news station not too long after you submitted or wanted to submit an audition tape for inside edition, but the agent that you had at the time said what?

Megan Alexander: You don’t stand a chance. You’re not their type. And I said, well, I’d love to just get feedback. You know, my parents and my mentors told me always just get feedback from someone, get advice, see if there’s something you could do to just be a little bit better. And so I, yeah, I heard inside edition was looking for new correspondence and I said, please just send my demo reel and let’s get some feedback.

And 24 hours later, the executive producer of the show flew me to in New York and said, I want to hire you. So I hope that’s encouraging to people that, you know, if, if you believe it and you really feel in your heart you’re supposed to do it. Stay the course. You’re going to get a lot of nos in life. Right. And especially in the entertainment industry, you’re constantly getting rejection and nos and putting yourself out there.

But if I’d listened to that, Wouldn’t be where I am now. So we’ve got to push through and the, again, the Bible is full of those stories where people were doubted and made fun of, and you got to persevere and keep your eyes on the cross.

Sarah Taylor: So you’ve always been a Christmas lover like you decorate in October.

Megan Alexander: Yes. Sometimes September. Yes.

Sarah Taylor: So did you go, was this your brain child, this small town Christmas, or did someone bring it to you because they knew that about?

Megan Alexander: You know, this was my baby and something I have loved since I was a little girl and my parents took me to the Nutcracker in Seattle for the very first time and I fell in love with that music. I think the Nutcracker suite is some of the most beautiful, beautiful music ever created. I walked down the aisle in my wedding to the Nutcracker, even though I got married in January, because my mom said you can’t do that to people during the holidays, make them travel to a wedding during December.

But yes, I have always loved Christmas, obviously. The birth of Jesus and the foundation of our faith, that Jesus came into the world and all the hope that he was bringing. But I also love the music and the traditions and the community spirit. And during COVID when we could not travel, I said to my husband when we can travel again, I really think a good idea would be to have a holiday travel show and go to all these small towns across the country that we love to experience,

what’s their spin on the local Christmas parade? You know, how does, how do they bring Jesus birth to life? Is it a drive-through nativity? Is it a kid’s pageant? What do they do during the holidays? Everybody’s different. And so I pitched the idea and UP TV up faith and family said, we love it. Let’s do it. And we put together four episodes for season one.

Sarah Taylor: This just be like a dream. It must not even feel like work to you. I mean, you are literally doing your Christmas bucket list.

Megan Alexander: Yes. It was a lot of work in terms of the logistics. And for season one, we needed to find towns that, that decorate and celebrate early. There’s a lot of adorable small towns that I wanted to cover, but they kicked things off in the middle of December.

And to get this on air this first season, we had to film in November. So Branson Missouri is our first episode. And the line in Branson is that the day after Halloween is the first day of Christmas. They turn on the lights November 1st and throw up the decorations. So we covered Branson, Missouri in our first episode.

Second episode is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A city that takes that name very seriously, Bethlehem. And they ha they’re the only small town in America that performs a live advent with their local businesses. Literally every, every night during advent season, you knock on a door in the center of town and a local shop owner or owner opens the door and gives the town some type of a goodie or talks about their local business. It’s just the coolest thing. They also hand make all of their candles in the central Moravian church in the center of Bethlehem. Volunteers, hundreds of church volunteers make thousands of candles, the wax, you know, they tie the red ribbon.

All of that happens in the basement of the church. Our third episode is Natchitoches Louisiana. It’s a party down there. They shoot off fireworks across the cane river. And in, in Louisiana, they call Santa, Papa Noel, and we’ve all heard of the night before Christmas, but in Louisiana, it’s the Cajun night before Christmas.

There’s actually a book called the Cajun night before Christmas. And instead of reindeer, Santa is pulled by alligators. Alligators make an appearance in this episode. The fourth episode is Somerville, South Carolina, which is your quintessential small town and everything from a Christmas parade to live holiday windows in the town and a lovely pastor,

father Scott that I sat down with and talks about the unique way he preaches on Christmas Eve. Is something for everyone in the show.

Sarah Taylor: That’s fantastic. And the first one, so this podcast is going to be a tiny bit behind when the first episode airs. Cause I think legit, the first episode is tonight, but that whoever’s listening to this,

this is past tense, but in real life it’s tonight .

Megan Alexander: Sunday nights in December, the three episodes are Sunday nights in December and then the fourth and final episode airs Christmas Eve. On MTV, but you can download the app and watch the episodes that way too.

Sarah Taylor: Oh, that’s perfect. I’m going to take you back to Louisiana cause I’ve heard that you always loved that city.

Megan Alexander: Yeah. NACA dish. Well, I fell in love with that city through the movie steel Magnolias. If you saw that movie with Julia Roberts and Saudi field and Shirley McClain. Their characters are based on real people in that town. And I couldn’t film that episode without going to the steel Magnolias house, which is a bed and breakfast now.

And so we walked through the house and it’s decorated for Christmas. And yes, it’s, it’s just a really unique and special small town. And I interview a woman in that episode named Sadie dark. Who turned 100 years old this year and we sang happy birthday to her. During the episode, she turned 100. She is so sharp and with it and was the most engaging interview, and her family created and built the Santa house,

in downtown NACA dish, a place for the kids to always be able to see Santa. And that stems from her family when somebody in her family missed seeing Santa in the department store. And she said we wanted to build a spot for the kids to always see Santa. So yeah, that town’s really special. Southern hospitality through and through for sure.

Sarah Taylor: Did you have a chance to ask her for some wisdom that comes from celebrating your hundredth birthday?

Megan Alexander: Yes. Guess what she said? She said eat. I love food. Yes. I said, yes, I can do that. I can eat. At a big family. She has a big family and lots of grandkids and great grandkids that she says, keep her young.

Sarah Taylor: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, if someone is looking for a Christmas gift to give this year, not only do we you’re fantastic book that I’ve read faith in the spotlight has just a lot of different intersections where you were faced with a choice and how your faith and the values that you hold prevail. But also you have written a children’s book.

Megan Alexander: Yes, it’s called one more hug. That’s so nice of you to mention it. And it’s based on my oldest son, chase, who is now 10, and he had a lot of anxiety and nerves getting on the school bus for the first time in kindergarten. And he started in the front of the line and the school bus would roll up and the doors would creak open and he just got really scared and he’d run back to me, mama.

One more hug. And he did it over and over again. And at first my husband and I were hurrying him along, time to go time to go. And then some neighbors were commenting, he’s asking for more than a hug there. He’s asking for reassurance and love and affection. And so it became a saying in our family, there’s always time for one more hug.

And I had this idea to put it into a children’s book and it just speaks to the fact raising sons, we want them to continue to express their feelings and their emotions. Right? Doesn’t that make the best boyfriends and husbands and, and grandparents ultimately. So it’s a sweet book about our journey that I think a lot of people can relate. There’s always time for one more hug with our kids and shares those moments.

Sarah Taylor: That on Amazon, I saw on your website, Barnes and noble, is it also Amazon?

Megan Alexander: Yes, it’s definitely on Amazon, like so many things. So, and if people would like a signed copy head to my website, make it alexandra.com and I could sign it to someone in your family, maybe as a baby gift or Christmas present.

Sarah Taylor: I love the personal touch of that. And the personal touch of small-town Christmas, which like you said, is on TV. And then you can of course catch Megan on inside edition. What else? For you, Megan?

Megan Alexander: Yeah. Well, I’m excited to just celebrate the holidays with my family, like so many of us and just take it easy, you know, and enjoy family. And my kiddos are young. I have a two year old, a six year old and a 10 year old. So it’s really fun to just experience things with them. And I don’t know, to be honest, I really the travel show concept. So I’d love to continue that. America has so much to offer, especially in our small towns, our history, our landscape, nature…

so I’d love to stay in that space and bring some more shows to life that are in the travel industry.

Sarah Taylor: That’s fantastic. And then maybe take your family. Is, is your family portable? Are you able to take them on some of those expeditions? I already know the answer to this. You already split your time between Nashville and New York city. So. How does that, how does that impact family life?

Megan Alexander: Yeah, well, because of COVID like so many of us we’ve figured out how to work from home. So I don’t travel to New York quite as much as I used to. I’m able to work more from home in Nashville, but I have a very supportive husband who, you know, believes in my calling and he believes in his calling. And so it’s just a dance. We go back and forth and check in with each other. And honestly, that’s another reason I’m probably going to hunker down for the next couple of months and stay home is he might want to do something. And so it’s his turn. He held down the Fort for me for the whole month of November so I could travel and bring these episodes to life. So I’m like, honey, you want a guys trip?

Sarah Taylor: Has he, has he decided, what do you know where he’s going to go?

Megan Alexander: Well, he loves to ski, so he would love to head to Colorado you know, and ski with a bunch of buddies. He went to Wyoming before. He, yeah, we’ll see, but he’s a big nature guy.

Sarah Taylor: So I think that’s the perfect place for us to wrap up is the fact that it’s his turn. And and then you’ll be home for Christmas watching these episodes on television, on the app. We’ll link it up and show notes where someone can find this, but Megan, it’s just always such a pleasure to be able to see you and hear from you.

Megan Alexander: Thank you so much. Love Seattle. Love Kings and CRISTA. God bless everybody there. Merry Christmas, happy holidays. And it is on my list to do a Northwest town in season two. So it’s a lot of good ones.

Sarah Taylor: Well, CRISTA’s admin is all decorated for the season. There’s Christmas lights everywhere. The DECA has their holiday show. I just got back from marketplace where my son was selling fuzzy pencils this morning. He’s a fourth grader. So it’s ready. It’s full on. Ready with stories? Just bursting for you.

Megan Alexander: Yes. Oh, I love it. I love it. It takes me back to when I was in the Kings choir. We sang sing we now have Christmas, which I believe you still air.

Sarah Taylor: We very well might. My daughter’s in that choir now. She’s a freshman in high school. She’s performing elf junior next week. That’s sold out and right after I get done with you, the Beecher’s cheese food truck, theo chocolate is the decade kids went all out this year. They got all the good stuff, nothing Bundt cakes.

Megan Alexander: Oh, how fun? Tis the season for overeating. Enjoy it all.

Sarah Taylor: Well, we can’t wait for you to come back and put us on your list and I really appreciate your time.

Megan Alexander: Thank you so much happy holidays and Merry Christmas.

Sarah Taylor: Merry Christmas. Our thanks to Megan. And like I said, we will link up to her books and her Christmas show as well as CRISTA and CRISTA Ministries is a family of five ministries that transforms lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ through sustaining biblical Christian ministries. One of them is the radio station that I’ve been with that passion meets purpose began at, which is SPIRIT 105.3, based out of Seattle, Washington. And another is Kings schools, K through 12. And you can find out more in our show notes. So our thanks to CRISTA Ministries and to Megan Alexander for this week’s episode of the Passion Meets Purpose podcast. My name is Sarah Taylor, and I’ll see you in two weeks.