Yoshi Barrigas Recalls Justin Bieber Inviting Him To Church
By Marie
“The Chosen” star Yoshi Barrigas has recently shared the time when Justin Bieber first invited him to their church while they were hiking in South California.
Yoshi Barrigas never thought that he would be working on a faith-based project. However, his unexpected encounter with Justin Bieber changed his perspective. Today, the actor portraying Philip in the Bible-based series shared about that life-changing moment he had with the pop star.
While he was out on a hike in Los Angeles, Yoshi found a place to read the book he was carrying. A voice suddenly said, “Hey, what’re you reading over there?”
“I look over, and it was Justin Bieber,” Yoshi said. “I told him what I was reading, and we started conversing from afar.”
The two sat down and talked about life. Suddenly, Justin felt something convicting him to invite Yoshi to church, so he did.
“He interrupted me at one point and said, ‘You know, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I really feel in my bones that I’m meant to introduce you to my church, so would you come?’” the actor remembered. “At the time, I had no real interest in any kind of church, but, as I said to him, ‘I’m not gonna say no to you, man. You’re Justin Bieber. So let’s go.’”
Yoshi spent the next six months attending church with the pop star. That was when he was first introduced to the Gospel. As he was learning more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he got an opportunity to audition as one of Jesus’ disciples in “The Chosen.”
“I felt very prepared for it and it felt like something I really wanted and [was] really motivated to get,” the actor said. “And here we are.”
After his encounter with Bieber, Barrigas was presented with the opportunity to audition to become one of Jesus’ disciples in The Chosen, first launched in December 2017 by director Dallas Jenkins. The show, which is crowdfunded, has seen massive success and is currently heading into its third season.
Barrigas described the show as “this Magic-School-Bus-diving-into-the-Bible-type situation where you’re getting this visual environment coming to life.”
“It’s humanizing the parables of the New Testament for people, and certainly for the cast, regardless of what our faith system was or is,” he said. “I think we can all agree that these stories are meaningful and that there’s deep, deep old wisdom in them.”
The actor also commended Jenkins and the rest of “The Chosen” creators for making the content “approachable to all people,” regardless of one’s faith or cultural background.