I’ve spent years working with film and faith communities, and I have to be honest with you, I don’t get excited about every movie that comes across my desk. But Young Washington, releasing July 3 from Angel Studios and directed by Jon Erwin, is the kind of film I’ve been waiting for.
Not because it’s a patriotic story. Not just because the timing with America’s 250th birthday is perfect. But because it tells the truth about something we don’t talk about enough in our churches and our homes:
Failure is part of the story. Even for great men of faith.
He Wasn’t a Legend Yet
Here’s what most of us never learned in history class. George Washington was 22 years old when he made a decision that helped ignite an international war. A young man, not yet tested, not yet the face on the dollar bill, just a soldier who got it badly wrong at Fort Necessity.
And then he had to decide what to do next.
That question — what do you do after you’ve failed? — is the beating heart of Young Washington. And it’s one of the most relevant questions any family can ask around the kitchen table right now.
Even as a young man, Washington carried a gravity of character that put responsibility in his hands before most guys his age had figured out their direction. But gravity of character didn’t mean he was perfect. It meant he had the weight to keep going after he wasn’t.
A Man Who Talked to God — Long Before He Was Famous
This is the part of Washington’s story I wish more people knew.
Before he was a general. Before the Constitutional Convention. Before he ever set foot in a presidential residence. George Washington kept a prayer journal.
He wrote things like this:
“O eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit… daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy son Jesus Christ.”
That’s not the language of a man performing faith for public consumption. That’s someone who actually believed he needed God to shape him, daily, personally, from the inside out. He wasn’t asking for victory or fame. He was asking to be made more like Christ.
And here’s what’s remarkable: he was writing prayers like that while he was still young, still being formed, still carrying the weight of his failures at Fort Necessity.
The spiritual life wasn’t something Washington added later, after he’d arrived. It was the ground he was standing on while he was still figuring out who he was.
Providence Doesn’t Wait for Perfect People
One of the most stunning moments in Washington’s actual history happened during the Battle of the Monongahela. He rode into a battlefield disaster alongside General Braddock, and by all accounts he should have died. Bullets passed through his coat. Two horses were shot out from under him. Every man around him was falling.
And he walked away without a scratch.
Washington didn’t chalk it up to luck. He wrote afterward that he had been “protected beyond all human probability or expectation” by the hand of God. He saw Providence not as a distant theological concept but as something actively at work in the specific circumstances of his life, including the painful ones.
Years later, a Native American chief who had been on the opposing side that day sought Washington out to deliver a message. His marksmen had tried to bring Washington down and couldn’t. They concluded, in his words, that Washington was “under the special guardianship of the Great Spirit” and that he “can never die in battle.”
Now, I’m not making a theological claim about that chief’s words. But I am saying that Washington’s sense of being watched over, protected, and directed by Providence was not something he invented after his victories. It was something forged in near-death, in failure, in the confusion of a 22-year-old trying to figure out what God was doing in a situation that had gone badly wrong.
In the film, we see Washington ask his mother about exactly that, how God could possibly be at work in something so broken. If you’ve ever asked that question yourself, you’re going to feel this movie.
His mother, Mary Ball Washington, gives him the answer that becomes the theme of the whole story:
“You can learn from failure. But if you don’t — you’ve failed twice.”
That line stopped me cold. Because it’s not just wisdom for a young soldier. It’s wisdom for every dad, every mom, every kid who’s watching their parents right now to see how we handle our own Fort Necessity moments.
When He Could Have Taken Power — He Walked Away
Here’s a moment that deserves more attention than it gets.
After the Revolutionary War ended, Washington commanded the most respected fighting force on the continent. His men were loyal. The country was in chaos. And there were serious voices urging him to step in, take control, and impose order. In the way Cromwell had done in England. In the way that powerful men have always been tempted to do when they believe they’re the right person for the moment.
Washington refused.
On December 23, 1783, he stood before Congress in Annapolis and resigned his commission. He said, “I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God.”
He gave the power back. And then he went home to Mount Vernon.
The man who could have been king chose to be a servant. That’s not a personality trait. That’s a theological conviction. He genuinely believed that authority belonged to God and was held in trust — not seized and kept.
That kind of character doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from years of prayer journals and Fort Necessity moments and asking God to frame him more and more into the likeness of Christ.
What This Film Is Really About
It’s about character formation. And character formation is almost never pretty in the middle of it.
As someone who spent nearly two decades in kids and family ministry before moving into faith-based film work, I’ve watched a generation of families struggle to find stories worth telling their kids. Stories that are honest about failure without being hopeless. Stories that show faith working in real life, not just as a feel-good tag at the end.
Young Washington is that story.
The film highlights traits we used to call virtues — humility, courage, accountability, perseverance, faith, stewardship. And it shows them being forged in difficulty, not handed out as rewards for good behavior.
A Few Questions Worth Bringing Home
I’ve had the chance to work through the Family Discussion Guide built around this film, and I want to share a few questions that struck me as genuinely conversation-starting, not the kind with easy answers.
What would you have done at 22, with everyone watching?
At Fort Necessity, Washington had four real options: openly admit the mistake and take full responsibility, blame the French and argue he was justified, walk away from military life entirely, or stay quiet and try to prove himself through future service. As a family, rank those from wisest to least wise, then talk about why you ranked them the way you did. You might be surprised where the disagreement lands.
Where do you see Providence in your own hard seasons?
Washington asked his mother how God could be at work in something that went so badly. Have you ever asked that? What did your family decide?
Who in your family is still being “formed”?
At 22, Washington wasn’t the man on the dollar bill yet. He was still being shaped. Who in your home is in that process right now, and what does it look like to support them in it?
That last question wrecked me a little, personally. I think about my own kids. I think about the teenagers in my community. We’re quick to celebrate the finished product. We’re less patient with the becoming.
Bring Your Whole Church — and Save 33%
Young Washington opens July 3, 2026, right in time for Independence Day weekend and America’s 250th birthday. There’s no better occasion to sit with your family, your small group, or your entire congregation and watch the story of the man who, by God’s grace and his own hard-won character, helped make that celebration possible.
Groups of 15 or more save 33% on tickets.
Get your group tickets now at angel.com/cherrytree — and make it an event your community will be talking about long after the credits roll.
If you’re a pastor who wants to preview the film before recommending it to your congregation, visit faithandfamilyflicks.com/young-washington-pastors for a private screening link.
This is the kind of story we need right now. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s honest. And in a culture that tends to either whitewash its heroes or tear them down entirely, a film willing to say he was 22, he failed, and God wasn’t done with him yet feels like exactly the right message for the right moment.
I hope your family — and your church — is there for it.
Dave Almgren is the founder of The Advance Team, a faith-based film marketing consultancy, and runs outreach campaigns through FaithAndFamilyFlicks.com. He’s also the host of the podcast “Two Pastors, Popcorn and a Movie.”
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