For nearly 75 years, drivers between the Somerset and Bedford exits on the Pennsylvania Turnpike could park their cars on the berm and walk up the steps to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

When Angelina Jolie’s new Louis Zamperini biographical movie Unbroken releases on Christmas Day, anybody familiar with Laura Hillenbrand’s riveting book of the Olympic runner, POW survivor, turned Christian evangelist and inspirational speaker will notice that Zamperini’s conversion to Christianity is mentioned after the climax in a closing title.

I write these words from India where I’m on my 22nd ministry trip in the last 22 years. How India is changing!

The Dixon Pentecostal Research Center (DPRC) recently received the John H. Thweatt Archival Advancement Award from the Society of Tennessee Archivists (STA). The award is presented each year to individuals, groups, or organizations that have made significant contributions to the advancement of archives and archival issues within Tennessee.

Ron Luce, founder and president of Teen Mania International, announced that the Dallas-based ministry will embark on a history-making missionary venture this coming summer to Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma.

Toward the end of his life, Moses makes a fascinating declaration to the Jewish people that would seem so intuitive one has to ask why it’s even mentioned. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20 he charges, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

On a harsh night in Bethlehem, two brave souls made their way through a crowded city. They were finally at the end of a rugged (and involuntary) 80 mile road trip from Nazareth. A baby was on the way, and the expectant mother needed a safe, clean place for the night. Unfortunately, Joseph and Mary were shut out. They were met with the hard reality of “no room in the Inn.”

Eastern North Carolina Administrative Bishop O. Wayne Brewer, along with nine ministers from the region, traveled to Guayaquil, Ecuador in November to assist in the planting of a new church. The Church of God leadership in Guayaquil has set an ambitious goal of planting forty new churches in their city by 2020 and welcomed the assistance from the North Carolina ministers.

Note: Larry Thompson is the Epiphany Prize-winning executive producer of Amish Grace. Along with producing, Thompson is a personal manager and has managed more than 200 artists, many of which are Hollywood A-listers. In the following story, Thompson recounts his personal journey, and how God changed his life through one movie.