Faith was always a part of Elijah Stephen's life growing up. But as he grew older, he started having questions. 

"I grew up in a Christian home and went to church, but I also watched my mom get conned by con artists who said you'll get healed if you send money," explains Stephens, director and executive producer of Send Proof.
Stephens says he also grew up in an abusive home that made him question God's existence. Despite that, he still went to a Christian college and studied philosophy from a Christian perspective.

"I started having lots of doubts, so I joined the Vineyard Movement, started praying for sick people and seeing stuff I thought was miracles. Then I left to go to a ministry school, and when I did, my senior pastor left the faith," says Stephens. "He said there is no God and no miracles. So that made me start wanting to research, where's the objective evidence for this?"

He says he felt he was given a prophetic word to make a documentary. Everything after that quickly fell into place.  

After six years of interviews and research, Elijah released his documentary, Send Proof.

In this film, he goes on a journey to investigate healing miracle claims. Along the way, he asks healing ministers, apologists, skeptics, scientists, and doctors the hard philosophical, theological and scientific questions and in the end lets evidence determine the case. 

"One of the biggest hindrances to researching miracle claims in the evangelical movement is that Christians often don’t value the need for evidence," says Stephens.

The purpose of Send Proof is to change their perspective by calling on those who claim to be healed and ministries that report those healings to allow the Global Medical Research Institute (GMRI) to investigate their claims. 

"We believe the burden of proof falls on those making the claim. Thus, we want people to Send Proof of healing miracles."

Today on Connections, Elijah talks about his documentary, the inspiration behind it and what he learned along the way.