Co-Author · Series Director
Joel N. Clark
NYT Bestselling Author · Filmmaker · Adventure Storyteller
Joel N. Clark has spent more than 20 years telling stories with a camera, producing documentaries and series on all seven continents. His work has earned 25 Telly Awards for brands including Sony, Coca-Cola and Tag Heuer, and he led production on South Africa's top primetime series for four years. He is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. Joel cofounded Deeply Rooted with Jason Clark, a development and production studio that tells stories for families and kids across film, books and more. The screenplay he and Jason cowrote there earned a spot on the 2025 Black List.
Story is Joel's first language, and every adventure has taught him the same thing: wonder is everywhere if you slow down long enough to see it. That's what he wants for your kids. He built I Changed the World like a film, with every page made for the imagination, so kids can open the Bible and find the greatest adventure ever told. It's full of lions and floods and kings, and a God who is kinder and wilder than they ever imagined. His hope is simple. He wants your child to close the book, look up, and wonder what God might do with an ordinary kid like them. Joel and his wife are raising two adventurers of their own.
Co-Author
Jason Clark
Pastor · Storyteller · Relational Theologian
For more than 30 years, Jason Clark has created faith-based content as a writer, producer and musician. He is the author of Leaving and Finding Jesus and Prone to Love, has cowritten with New York Times bestsellers Donald Miller and Mark Batterson, and cohosts the podcast Rethinking God with Tacos (more than a million downloads). He also wrote the award-winning short film Super and founded a non-profit called A Family Story. Today, as a cofounder of Deeply Rooted, he tells stories that show families and children the good love of God, including a screenplay that made the 2025 Black List.
One question matters most to Jason: what is God really like? When kids open their Bibles, Jason wants them to go looking for Jesus. That's why the Stranger walks through every one of these books. Even in stories that happened long before Jesus was born in Nazareth, He was present, showing us a Father who is good and kind and closer than we think. Jason believes what we imagine is what we become. I Changed the World stories intentionally guide kids to see themselves as part of a larger story, one that reaches all the way back to the beginning of creation. Jason lives in North Carolina with his wife, Karen, and their three kids, Madeleine, Ethan and Eva.
Co-Author
Mark Batterson
Lead Pastor · NYT Bestselling Author
Mark Batterson is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 books, including The Circle Maker and In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. He is the Lead Visionary and Pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC, and holds a Doctor of Ministry from Regent University. Mark also serves as an advisor and producer with Deeply Rooted, helping bring its family stories to life.
Mark once wrote an entire book about a Bible hero most people have never heard of: Benaiah, who chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day. Decades as a pastor have convinced him the Bible isn't a collection of bedtime stories. It's full of lion chasers, giant slayers, and ordinary people who trusted an extraordinary God, and he wants kids to read it that way. Too many grow up thinking faith means playing it safe. It doesn't. Faith means chasing God-sized dreams. I Changed the World are books that invite kids into the adventure and shape a holy imagination that can shape the rest of their lives. His passion is to see kids discover that they are world changers too.
