TEAM

 

[PURPOSE] is the essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.

— Chadwick Boseman

 
 
 

Marisa L.R. Prince

Marisa Prince is passionate about building bold, creative initiatives that facilitate transformative experiences. She's produced over twenty projects, and her short film, "Awakenings", was submitted for consideration for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Short Film. In addition to earning a B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College and a JD from Boston College Law School, Prince is also a proud graduate of the Los Angeles Film School’s Immersion Producing Program.

 

Calvin D. Lee

Calvin Lee is an emerging activist and social entrepreneur captivated by the idea of a “radical togetherness”. From working in a U.S. Senate Race to serving with multiple international non-profits, he has been actively bridging racial, cultural, religious and political divides since 2014. Calvin earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Boston.

 

[GOSPEL] co-founders Marisa Prince and Calvin Lee are hungry for a faith that disowns supremacy, disrupts inequity, and disavows empire - but instead champions liberation for ALL.

They’re conveners, creators and campaign-people, committed to bringing measurable social change to our country. A Black and Korean sibling(esque) duo who met while working on a Massachusetts Senate Campaign, they bonded in the belly of white, wealthy, conservative Evangelical spaces. They're Believers of Color - and now frustrated Evangelical outsiders - seeking more for the American Christian Church.

In 2018, Marisa and Calvin co-founded American Awakening, an Arts/Entertainment Campaign raging against the divisiveness of the 2020 political cycle. The AA Team (spread across Massachusetts, Tennessee, Florida & Hawaii) partnered with William Morris Endeavor (WME), HarperCollins/Zondervan Publishing, Relevant Media Group, Christianity Today, Premier Productions, and Q Ideas to produce/distribute a book, 71 episode podcast, global concert event, daily devotional, published articles, docuseries sizzle reel and national thought-leader gatherings. 

In 2020, Prince & Lee launched [GOSPEL], an initiative to curate creative content and spaces to catalyze more for the American Christian Church. In February 2022, they took a cinematic journey to Standing Rock Reservation to discover the ways that Nationalism and White Supremacy have infected the American Christian Church. Captured in the short Film “Are We There YET”, the journey unpacked the origin story of American Christian Nationalism - and what it might take for the Church to repair the historical damage it’s caused.

“Are We There YET” served as a central organizing tool for the January 2023 Boston Activation Experience (a citywide gathering to combat Christian Nationalism), and played throughout 2023 in Film Festivals across the country. In August 2023, Prince and Lee were selected by Invested Faith, the innovation financing initiative, as Fellows in its latest National Cohort of Social Justice Innovators.

Currently in Post-Production on their feature Documentary Film, SUNDAY DINNER (LOGLINE: To commemorate the first Anniversary of the Covenant School Shooting, Evangelical outsiders host “family dinners” for strangers and friends across the country - creating safe spaces to challenge the Christian investment in both the gun industry, and the future of the American Church), Prince and Lee also serve as consultants for Dr. Jenny Wiley Legath (Assistant Director, Princeton University Center for Culture, Society and Religion) on a project analyzing National Faith Responses to the 2022 Uvalde Mass Shooting.

In Fall 2024, both began studies at Boston University’s School of Theology as Howard Thurman Fellows in the Master of Divinity program.