Kung Fu Panda is a movie about a panda named Po who wants desperately to learn kung fu. But from the beginning of the film we learn that several obstacles come between Po and his dream—not the least of which are the dreams of Po's father, which include Po's taking over the family's restaurant business. Though Kung Fu Panda is primarily a children's movie, this scene addresses an issue adults ...

Pastor Steve Yeschek, Crystal Lake, Illinois, lost his sister, Judy, after a five-year battle with cancer. She was a woman who, as Steve described her, was a party animal—a big drinker with a self-contented lifestyle. She was someone everybody loved, because she exuded excitement and a thrill for life.

When Steve tried to share Jesus with her over the years, she would laugh it off and keep partying. ...

Dr. Erwin Lutzer teaches preaching courses at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Every year, he takes his students on a field trip to the local cemetery—so they can preach. He says:

I take them to a little cemetery in Deerfield, Illinois, and I have them all gather around a certain gravesite. I point out the name, and then I tell one of the students, "Preach the gospel to Mr. Smith here." ...

About five years ago, my wife and I visited an elderly and very sick man who had once been our pastor. We discovered that he and his wife lived not far from us, and we renewed our old acquaintance. During one of our first visits, the man's grandsons—14-year-old twins—came for a visit. The moment I met them, an inner voice told me that some day I would play a role in one of their lives. ...

Getting a novel published is an extremely difficult affair, especially if you are an unknown author. One freelance writer named Chuck Ross decided to test this maxim in an unusual way. Ross took a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, titled Steps, which had won the National Book Award six years before. Ross retyped the first 21 pages of Steps and sent them out to four publishers, using the name Erik Demos as ...

While a college student, Heidi Neumark took a year off from prestigious Brown University to be part of a volunteer program sponsored by a group called Rural Mission. She was sent to Johns Island—off the Carolina coast—where she learned from the sons and daughters of plantation slaves who allowed her to listen in as they sat around telling stories. In her words:

"The most important lesson ...

Friday Night Lights is based on the true story of the 1988 Odessa, Texas, high school football team. The Odessa Permian Panthers were led by a phenomenal running back named Boobie Miles (Derek Luke). With Miles playing, the Panthers won games easily and became the favorites to win the Texas Class A championship. The pressure from fans and family to win the most coveted trophy in Texas was relentless. ...

On January 14, 2005, Shane Maixner died in an avalanche. The 27-year-old and four of his friends drove to the Canyons ski resort outside Park City, Utah, rode the ski lift, hiked up to the backcountry gate outside the Dutch Draw area, went through the gate posted with warning signs, and started snowboarding.

On the second trip down the same slopes, someone in the party shouted, “Avalanche!” but Shane ...

In all of sports, there is perhaps no basketball rivalry quite as intense as that between the Universities of Duke and North Carolina. The campuses are only eight miles apart. Both teams have different shades of blue for their primary color, so North Carolinians are told, "Choose Your Blue!"

Duke fans take their allegiances seriously. Every fan is a cheerleader. When the two teams recently played each ...

During World War II, Agnes Sanford volunteered as a Grey Lady in the Red Cross, working in Tilton Army Hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey. There, amid wounded soldiers sent home from the battlefields, she was given "a two-level cart filled with cigarettes, comic books and adventure magazines, candy, cookies, and sometimes flowers or fruit. Pushing this before us, we were to cover a certain section of ...