Culture

New Ben-Hur Movie Seeks to Relate to a Modern Audience

Steve Rios
1 Sep 2016
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“Jesus” kept his distance as he walked into a press conference on the 18th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. “I won’t get too close because I have a cold,” he said with a smile, as he slipped into a padded chair and sipped a bit of tea. “Jesus” is actually Rodrigo Santoro, the Brazilian actor who plays the Savior in “Ben-Hur,” the excellent new action adventure movie released widely on August 19 by Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Santoro and Jack Huston, who plays the title role in the $100-million blockbuster, sat side-by-side at a Miami media conference. The […]

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College Football Preview: Florida State Projected for National Championship Run

Carl Foster
16 Aug 2016
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Alabama’s Crimson Tide defeated Clemson in year two of the College Football Playoff Championships and both programs are deep in talent again for the coming college football season. Coaches Nick Saban and Dabo Sweeney should no doubt be back in the Final 4 playoff series. One big challenge for the Clemson Tigers will be their late season visit to Tallahassee to face the loaded FSU Seminoles. Urban Meyer’s 2015 National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes slipped last season against Michigan State and sent over a dozen top players to the NFL from last year’s squad. The Buckeyes still have QB TJ […]

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Local Screenwriter Produces “Salted Christmas”

Gabriella Morris
2 Aug 2016
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“Salted Christmas: One Family, One Day, One Purpose” is a feature-length film being filmed in South Florida that depicts a day in the life of the Fairway family as they walk through a Saturday prior to Christmas, deeply involved in ministry. The brainchild of Don McChesney, a local founder of Equip Education, an education system for older homeschool students, “Salted Christmas” is an undertaking by serious people doing serious work while not taking themselves too seriously. The family structure is a result of their work in foster care, adoption, homeless ministry and retirement community ministry. McChesney is hopeful the film […]

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Coral Springs Athlete Heads to Rio Seeking Gold

Shelly Pond
1 Aug 2016
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Coral Springs Athlete Tyler Merren is headed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to compete in the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games on the U.S. Men’s Goalball team in September. A team sport developed for blind or visually impaired players, goalball utilizes a ball containing bells, which makes sounds when thrown at a goal at the opposing team’s end of the court. “It’s a mix of handball, volleyball and soccer,” explained Merren, whose team won a bronze medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and took fourth place in the 2008 Games in Bejing. A quote on www.goalball.us states, “Lack of sight […]

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coral springs

A Story Worth Living

Eric Purtic
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I was up early one morning recently, and I rode my bike over to the local spillway to try out my new four and a half-inch mullet lure. To my shock, on the third cast I hooked into a giant Snook! It was so big that at first I thought I snagged a boulder on the bottom of the canal. I was so excited that I tried to pull him in too soon instead of letting him run for a bit. Then, one minute later…snap! The nightmare. Broken line. On the surface the story above doesn’t have much to do […]

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Women and Money

Jeff Masters
29 Jun 2016
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Women’s role in today’s family dynamics and finances is shifting greatly. By estimates, in the next five years private wealth is expected to grow to $22 trillion . . . and women will control as much as two-thirds (1). Like men, women want financial security and financial independence. But once those objectives are met, women want to derive greater meaning and value for themselves, for their families and for society at large. They want to apply their values with their financial resources. Most women with financial means have great interest in supporting charities and ministries. However, women battle multiple financial […]

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What Makes us Laugh Out Loud

Steve Davis
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Oddly enough, a professor of psychology by the name of Richard Wiseman (yes, wise-man) made a resolution in 2002 to discover the world’s funniest joke! Ha! What did he do to make his resolution happen? He created a website called LaughLab.co.uk in collaboration with the British Science Association and asked people to send their favorite funny jokes. He also asked them to rate jokes posted on the site. Can you imagine being the doctor whose job was reading funny jokes for a whole year (over 40,000 of them)? To help him keep up with the stressful, demanding schedule, Dr. Wiseman […]

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Fight to End Child Sex Trafficking Comes to the Big Screen

The Good News
7 Jun 2016
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  Posing as American sex tourists wanting to buy children, the Operation Underground Railroad’s (O.U.R.) jump team, led by Tim Ballard, meets with traffickers. They negotiate. Dozens of hidden cameras capture the darkness of human trafficking at a party with girls — 12, 13, 14 years old — in Cartagena, Colombia, with younger girls and boys at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In “The Abolitionists,” the action is real. Light comes into the darkness as seven traffickers are arrested. Hope comes to the hopeless as 57 victims are rescued. “Some people lose their faith over such evil,” said Tim Ballard, […]

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Should We Have Higher Standards in Musical Tastes?

Chris Alexander
3 May 2016
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  Consider the age-old question:  Should Christians have a higher standard in their musical tastes than non-believers?  Actually, it probably is not ‘age-old’ because in ancient times there was not the onslaught of different musical genres or questionable lyrics that we are faced with today. Even looking at church worship, we see in recent decades division among congregations based on contemporary songs vs. traditional hymns. Though both praise our Lord and have edifying lyrics, we still find partiality.  Some argue traditional hymns are more reverent and holy than the upbeat worship songs while others argue the hymns don’t invoke a […]

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Christian Pop Rock duo LoveCollide to Appear at Elev8Life Summer Music Jam in June

The Good News
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Nashville-based duo LoveCollide, comprised of sisters Lauren and Brooke DeLeary, who were featured in the recent movie God’s Not Dead 2, will perform at Abundant Life Church in June at Elev8Life Summer Music Jam. Featured as artists of the month in May by Newreleasetoday.com, LoveCollide’s mission is to “awaken a movement and ignite a wildfire passion for Jesus in the hearts of this generation and those to come.” That is exactly what these young women have been doing ever since their debut CD was released to rave industry reviews in April 2014. Elev8Life Summer Music Jam LoveCollide will be one […]

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