The "Death Crawl" Exercise was something they came up with themselves that to their knowledge had never been done before. It was very strenuous, not just for the person on the bottom, but also the person on top. Most of it was filmed on a very hot day- 98 degrees. The sweat dripping from Jason McLeod's face at the end was real. He said that he lost about 8-10 pounds that day and was in pain from it. Alex Kendrick and others had to keep going under tents to stay dry.
Bobby Lee Duke was played by Jim McBride- an Associate Pastor of Sherwood Baptist church who was once a professional wrestler. The lollipop was his idea.
Any profits received by the church from this movie will be used to build a youth center in Albany, Georgia.
In the scene where Grant Taylor received a new truck, the license-plate tag says "Jay Austin Motors." That is the name of the car dealership in the movie "Flywheel", which is the first movie The Kendrick Brothers made; and Alex Kendrick played the main role.
This was Sherwood's first movie to have a true theatrical release (Flywheel was only shown in a few local theaters). They had a hard time finding distributors who would release it theatrically; no one was interested. Director Alex Kendrick was frustrated, wondering why God would let this happen, after all they put into it. Interestingly, the main lesson of the film is to praise God whether one wins or loses. He felt God telling him that it was the same thing with the success of the film. They surrendered it to God, and soon afterwards, a music company that they had asked permission to use a song in the film from called them. Not only did they grant them permission to use the song, they also said that their parent company was interested in releasing it theatrically. Their parent company was Sony, the one company that they hadn't asked. Alex said "God opened a door that none of us could have opened, we didn't even knock on their door". The film did better than they expected.