Join us for a compelling conversation with Dimitris and Christina Anagnostou, global leaders dedicated to using their talents in filmmaking and storytelling to transform lives. Discover how their work, deeply rooted in Greek history and Christian values, has given them unique opportunities to share the Gospel through various media forms. As they open up about their personal journey and the significance of stepping into one’s calling, we also unveil an exciting opportunity to step into biblical history with their guided tours in Greece.
Take part in an upcoming opportunity to explore Greece this fall on a trip lead by Dr.
Welcome, everyone, to The Calling’s radio show to all the dreamers. I’m your radio host, Dr. Cassandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling, and it is such an honor to be with all of you today. You know, at The Calling, we have realized that so many people are afraid to go after the dreams that Jesus has put inside each of our hearts because they’re afraid to fail. And that is just plain wrong because if God has given us a calling and we’re not living it out, we are wasting it and we do not want to die with regret. That’s why the calling we love to inspire, empower, and equip people to after God’s calling on their lives to reap the best kind of eternal legacy possible to have immediate impact on themselves and their families. And we love to do this through so many different avenues, through custom tools, programs, workshops, seminars, but especially through this radio show where we bring on world-renowned guests who are living out their God-given dreams and they can share their wisdom on how you can do the same. You guys, today is no exception. We have the world-renowned Dimitri and Christina on with us. And Dimitri, I’m going to have you say your incredible Greek last name because I do not want to ruin it. And we’re going to practice that throughout our time together. Dimitri and Christina, we’re so honored to have you. Welcome to the show.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Thanks for having me.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
Thank you. Thank you so much, Cassandra.
CHRYSANDRA :
And we have to just give. honor and credit where it’s due. When I think about a kingdom couple, you guys are on the forefront, changing the world in both hemispheres and just allowing the kingdom of heaven to come to earth like never before. Demetria and Christina, can you both just share a little bit of your leadership positions and what you have been up to, up to date?
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Demetria, you want to go first, my love?
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
yes so uh thank you so if my wife allows me to go first i’ll do that yes i i was born and raised in greece living in the united states since 2010 christina and i met in 2007 married 2008 we lived in greece for two years and in 2010 we moved permanently to los angeles where our daughter was born And we are traveling between Greece and Los Angeles all the time. So we are spoiled, you can say, with both sides of the pond. And we are in film. I am on the production side. Christina is on the writing side. And we work with very… interesting people. And the plan is to tell stories that change people’s lives or help them think and help them find meaning. And God, eventually, that is what everybody’s looking for, whether they know it or not. So that’s a little bit about myself.
CHRYSANDRA :
Dimitri, will you just share some of the films that you both have worked on?
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
So we’re doing a little bit of different things. There’s a company that is doing the designs for big movies that Cristina’s brother is a designer. So there is a company that’s built around him and the designs are Superman and Dune and House of Dragon and Avatar and others. And then we have a VFX company that we do a lot of work for movies on Netflix and Disney. And now we have developed another new company with a partner of ours that is the producer of… Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Ford versus Ferrari, and Man on Fire, and other 60 big movies. So we are developing a movie on Socrates right now, on Constantine the Great, a TV show, an epic TV show on the life of the first Christian emperor. And we have some other titles that we’re working on as well.
CHRYSANDRA :
Christina, do you have anything to share? Was there anything that you would add to that like amazing legacy thus far? I would say you guys are just babies too. This is just the beginning.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Well, it is just the beginning and we hope to impact people via the Biblical Greece tours as well as movies. So there’s the ministry of doing the footsteps of Apostle Paul and bringing people with more deepening their faith in their walk with christ um and then there’s the movie the aspect you know as a i’m born and raised here in los angeles so i’m a greek american um i’ve always been close um to greece and um you know being able to bridge the states with greece uh you know um America being the newest country and then Greece being an ancient country, to be able to find a bridge that brings knowledge back to Americans in terms of the Bible, in terms of democracy, in terms of the subjects of philosophy and math and what have you, right, is an amazing opportunity. And we saw that we could be part of that because it’s in our wheelhouse. You know, we do split our time between Los Angeles and Greece throughout the year. So this has been an amazing blessing to discover that God has given us this opportunity to do. And it’s even more so when we, you know, can bring people to, you know, take something off their bucket list and say, I’ve gone to Greece and I’ve gone in the footsteps of Apostle Paul and deepen their knowledge of scripture and biblical significance, you know.
CHRYSANDRA :
So it’s wonderful. And I can’t wait to dive into this a little bit more. You guys do have to wait to the very end of a very special opportunity that you have coming up this fall that Dimitri and Christina are allowing us to participate in and myself particularly as a lead in this project and going to Greece and you might just have an opportunity to attend as well and be part of this incredible adventure. But we want to know, Dimitri and Christina, we love a great love story. So we want to know how you guys met each other and what that looked like. Oh, which version do you want?
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Both. We want both versions. There’s the official version and then there’s my version and then there’s Dimitri’s version.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
So my version is that… There was a Greek Los Angeles film festival at the Paramount lot.
CHRYSANDRA :
Really? In its first year.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
In its first year, yes.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
In Paramount. And a friend of mine had his movie there that I had watched already in Greece. And he found out I was in Los Angeles at this time. It was 2007, summer. I was here for another movie. And he was like, you have to come support me. I was like, I supported you in Greece. No, you have to come. So I didn’t want to go, but I ended up going. And at the end, after the film, the people were gathering around the person that was on the ground. And that was Christina because she saw me and she fell unconscious on the floor, you know, because of how good looking I was. And I was like, well, you know, and I gave her the kiss of life and I buried her back. And that was the beginning of an amazing relationship.
CHRYSANDRA :
Oh, I like that version. Demetra, I can see that actually being a true life story. Christina, would you add anything to that? That’s a good one.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Well, I’ll just say, you know, myths are great that way. We’ll just let myths be. And I’ll just let him lead with that. Maybe the kiss of life didn’t happen quite as fast as, you know, he lets on.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
Yeah, it took some months. Yeah. We don’t have too much time. We have a mutual friend that introduced us and Christina was not looking for a relationship. I was not looking for, you know, we were focused on what we were doing and what God had for us.
CHRYSANDRA :
Right.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
And what God had for us. So, yeah, and then we kept running into each other within a week out of the blue. And then, you know, a few weeks or so later, you know, there were a lot of coincidences or coincidences. And yeah, and a year later, we were married.
CHRYSANDRA :
Wow. Well, we just know that you both are changing the world in such an epic way. And God knew that you both needed each other to be able to be superheroes of this kingdom together. So we’re just so honored for you. We do need to take a short break. Everyone, you are listening to the world-renowned Dimitri and Christina Agonostou. And I am butchering this incredible Greek name, but I’m going to get better by the end of this. You did great. We’ll be right back. You did great. You did great. Twist and shout with Lee & Co. They are the premier oldies band delivering the rock and roll vibes you’ve been missing. Great songs, great memories. Book them at LeeAndCo.com. Liquid Acre is the world’s first crypto to land marketplace, allowing you to own fractional acreage through non-fungible acres. Don’t let the dream of owning a piece of the trillion dollar real estate market slip away. Visit liquidacre.com to invest in real survey land in seconds and start building your real estate legacy.
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CHRYSANDRA :
At Ignite Brilliance Coaching, you will get 34 years of science teaching, a decade of university-level instruction, and over 10 years of instructional coaching to empower educators with the tools, mindset, and confidence to thrive. Contact Ignite Brilliance Coaching on Facebook. We are back. Thank you for listening to all the dreamers radio show right before break. You were just listening to the incredible story, love story of Dimitri and Christina, of how they were able to meet each other at a film festival, both being Greek and being able to meet in America. I would just say, I mean, that has God’s fingerprints all over it. And for you guys to be able to be so kindred spirited from your guys’s perspective, how has the Greek community, Just culture and background and history shaped everything around us, especially our faith that most people would never realize or recognize.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Wow. Yeah. I’m going to let Dimitri go first and then and then I’ll just, you know, fill in the gaps.
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
I grew up in Greece, and Greece is a little different from here. It’s a small country, only 11 million people. We live on our past, so we grow up hearing about all these unbelievable men, primarily, and women that lived in Greece and shaped culture from Socrates to Alexander the Great to myself. so and and you’re like oh man you know how can i ever measure up to them but then you know you you learn to be proud of of your legacy and and as you grow older you know in the beginning you you hate all that stuff that you have to learn at school you know a lot of history you like mythology but it’s kind of you know too much as well you know it could be weird because the gods were actually men and women according to the ones that made the stories so And then you get to realize what a role Greece played in the Western civilization and Christianity and the world thought process and the human thought process with pre-Socratics and Socrates and Plato, Aristotle, and what role Alexander the Great played in conquering the world that then the Romans paved And based on that, the gospel was spread to the end of the world. And then you realize that in the 400 years of silence in Israel where God was not sending any prophets, There was a lot of work that was being done in Greece and preparing the concepts and the words, logos, for example, and others that Jesus and the apostles used and we have in the New Testament. puts together a puzzle that I have to say that creates this privileged idea of being able to read the ancient manuscript of the philosophers and of course the New Testament and being able to read in the original language and understand things that are not translated really. So coming from that, you know, we were thinking that how can we help fellow believers understand the context and the history in a way that is going to be an experience that’s going to stay with them forever? Because movies travel, even what we’re doing now is an experience, right? An experience that creates memories and they actually wire your brain and spark your neurons and this becomes reality. This is reality, right? So I don’t know if I answered your question, but, you know, I think I used a lot of time.
CHRYSANDRA :
Oh, no. I think it went above and beyond. And Christina, you were just about to say something.
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
Well, it’s interesting because while Dimitri grew up, he was born and raised in Greece. I’m born and raised in the United States and of all places, Los Angeles. So I have the other version of how I’ve experienced the Hellenic culture in the world and in the United States. And so here I was growing up in high school, going to school here and being exposed to the pre-Socratics and Socrates and all the mythology and the way that the government came to be and democracy. And we still live in fifth century, you know, ancient Greece. We still live in that structure. And so having this knowledge of how that world, that ancient world still impacts and governs today’s world is an amazing thing to see it from the other side, from a newer continent, from a newer culture. And so it’s interesting that being raised as a Greek American, I had the privilege of being able to own a heritage, an ancient heritage, and at the same time bridge a new heritage and a world forging a new path in civilization that borrows on both. And understanding the freedoms that we appreciate as Americans is born out of the ideals of the Greeks and what they fought for.
CHRYSANDRA :
And what would you guys stress is, you know, the importance of every person, but even more so every Christian that is wanting to follow Jesus with their whole heart. What is the importance of studying Greek history and even having the opportunity to go onto the land of Jesus?
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
Yeah, so when you study history again, you know, when you grow older, you start appreciating more and more history, right? You understand a lot more about yourself and you understand a lot more about the world. There’s an attempt the last few decades, for example, 20 years, 10 years, you know, to erase as much as we can from the history so that we can rewrite history and I don’t think that this is a good idea. Right. And we’re trying to get away from tradition. And, you know, and somebody said, you know, tradition, you know, when they asked him, what is tradition? I said, tradition is everything that works, you know, like the traditional family or the traditional way to do business or to educate yourself. So I think that it adds a lot of foundation and a lot of foundational layers to your life in order of how you look at yourself, how you look at others. how you think of what’s going on in the world. And you can see patterns that happened in the past and they’re happening now. So working on a movie on Socrates right now, that is a story that happened 2,400 years ago. You still see that humanity is the same. The problems are the same, greed and insecurity and corruption. And the politicians, you know, nothing changed. Humanity is the same. And that also tells you that what Jesus talked about and what Apostle Paul and others wrote in the Bible, it’s not something that only resonates with people 2,000 years ago, because humanity is the same no matter what. And now, when you study to the point that you understand the context and the history of what the especially New Testament is writing and we’re reading now, it gives you a life altering perspective in order to move on with your life, right? So, and you can see the difference with Greece and Israel, if you will, is that many of the sites that Apostle Paul walked around or was imprisoned in and this and that are still there. Okay, so you can see the places, you can touch the stone, you can see where Erastus’ plaque in Corinth was, that back in the 1800s, the German skeptics, the Christians said, you know, there cannot be somebody called Erastus that was, you know, the sexy guy. It was like Erastus was the treasurer of Corinth. you know um some believers said you know there’s no way you know paul made this up until back in the 60s they discovered you know the plaque that said erastus the treasurer of corinth you know and this is the evidence that you know the the new testament and paul you know was 100 right you know so so there is such a wealth um of um of information and experience that uh stays with you and i’m gonna add this you know we have scholars from christian seminaries that are teaching the new testament that come and do the tour and and at the end they say i’ve been teaching the new testament for the last 20, 25 years, it’s the first time I heard 70% of what you told me, which is great on one side and sad on the other side. And you’re like, man, if the scholars don’t know, think how much pastors and believers don’t know. So that’s why we’re trying to help bridge the gap or the language barrier, if you will, by you know, bringing people there, having a very fun experience, but at the same time, learn something that is very, very fundamental for our, our belief in Christ.
CHRYSANDRA :
Well, if, if I’m sorry. Oh, no, it’s okay. You guys were coming up towards the end of our show. And so we do not know where time goes. It goes by so quickly. We’d love to have you guys back on sooner than later, but we do have a few things that we need to make sure that we cover before we do go. Dimitri and Christina, there’s people tuning in and someone in particular that they’re afraid to go after what God’s called them to. What would be your piece of wisdom to impart to them that this is their moment to fully follow after their God-given dream now? And we’re going to share a very special opportunity that we have for you today. tuning in to come to the great land of Greece. And so we’re going to we’re going to hear more about that. But first, what would be your guys’s wisdom?
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
I would say get out of your comfort zone because you can’t be comfortable in Christ and following the footsteps of those Christians who paved the way for us to be here where we’re at today from that time to now. History echoes those lessons and there are patterns of those who have constantly withstood the test of time where people were given the grace of Christ to go on in their world to go on in their life and be able to pursue their dreams when everything seemed impossible. And that means coming out of your comfort zone, going to places you’ve never seen, but you’ve read about, and going there and stepping in the place where all those came before you. And this is a large part of our Christian heritage. And it’s part of the pilgrimage we, you know, we ought to be chasing. We can’t be Christ ourselves, but we can follow those who for Christ did what they did in the name of Christ to spread the gospel. So get out there.
CHRYSANDRA :
So powerful. So powerful. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Amen. Amen. Dimitri, what would you say?
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
Yeah, I would say something in the same lines, because if you’re called, and if God is calling you, what do you have to lose, right? And you’re missing out if you don’t go, right? And if you don’t fulfill what God has created you for. So, you know, and I say something else, you know, for me, God has done everything. Jesus has done everything on the cross. He said, it’s finished. So God is not asking us to do, God is asking us to be.
ADVERTISER :
So…
DIMITRIS ANAGNOSTOU :
We as humans, you know, we always think that we have to do things for God. God doesn’t need us for anything. He wants us to be close to Him. He wants us to be obedient, right? Where He wants us to be, how He wants us to be. So when He calls us, you know, we have to go.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes. Amen. And we I mean, it’s a mic drop from both of you. Thank you so much for that wisdom. And it’s fair. It’s just life changing. Where can people if they’re feeling called to perhaps go to Greece? What opportunity do we have for them coming up this fall?
CHRISTINA ANAGNOSTOU :
So there’s the tour dates for September. And I would ask people to probably go to your social media site where you’ll have the link and the tour that you’re leading, Dr. Grisandra. And I would say, go look at that full itinerary and see what we’ve put out and laid out for people. The Sorbos, we were honored to have the Sorbos last year who led their group and they had a phenomenal time and they’re coming back again. funny enough so we like to keep these groups really intimate um so there’s not that it’s there’s not uh too many spots and um but we we keep it so that people can connect and others and fellow christians can can um be introduced to other fellow brothers and sisters in christ so i would say look at those september dates we do have another one on the books but that’s the very first one. So look at it and definitely be up for the adventure. It’s an opportunity to examine yourself in the footsteps of Apostle Paul and see what he went through and be recharged and inspired to pursue. in Christ, their calling.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes. Well, we’re so honored to have this invitation, Demetria and Christina, to be able to partner with Biblical Greece and to go on this 11 day journey where it really is the land of the dreamers and God’s dreamers. And we’re just so honored for this adventure of a lifetime and invite everyone to be able to participate. You can go to our social media to find out this incredible opportunity. not only will i be there but you’ll also be able to meet dimitri and christina in person and just hearing their backgrounds uh it is it will be such a life-changing experience and being able to activate what god’s calling us to for such a time as this our whole ministry is based off of ephesians 4 1 where paul says as a prisoner of the lord then i urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received Challenge everyone also to go follow Dimitri and Christina. We will have their social media as well as websites posted for you to see their movies that are coming out and projects they’re working on. Till next time, Dreamer. Keep dreaming big. To learn more about our trip to Greece, go to the Calling Nonprofit on Instagram.
