He is a professional footballer who plays as a forward. He played for 14 years with Newcastle United. His team won the Championship in 2010, and he received a winner’s medal. He holds the record for the most appearances as a substitute in the Premier League. Born in Nigeria but raised in England, he was capped by the England under-21 team before making his debut in Nigeria in 2012. He is currently playing for Nigeria in the 2014 World Cup.
In an interview with the Independent UK newspaper, he said, “[My faith in Christ] has kept me going. I’m doing what I love, playing football, but it’s second to my faith. When I had a career-threatening hip injury five years ago, it was touch and go for a while. It was a terrible time, but I felt God was going to see me through, and He did.” He also said that his popularity does not keep his parents, especially his father who is a pastor, from making sure he goes to church each Sunday.
He is an American soccer player who plays for the Seattle Sounders in Major League Soccer. He is the captain of the United States national team. As a teenager, he played for one of the top youth soccer clubs in the state, the Dallas Texans, before playing for Furman University’s men’s soccer team. In 2004, he was drafted by Major League Soccer club New England Revolution. Between 2007 and 2012, he played for Premier League team Fulham and is the club’s highest Premier League goal scorer of all time. He also became the first American player to score a hat-trick in the English Premier League, in the 5–2 win over Newcastle United in January 2012.
He first represented the United States at the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship in the United Arab Emirates. And in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he scored the team’s only goal of the tournament. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he scored against England, becoming only the second American to score goals in multiple World Cup tournaments. In the 2014 FIFA World Cup, he beat his previous record, making the fifth fastest goal in World Cup history. He and his team are currently playing in the World Cup in Brazil.
In an interview with Christian Today, he said that his faith did not become active and real to him until after his sister died from a brain aneurysm. He said, “Her death triggered all kinds of questions about why some things happen and what role God played in it all. For a number of years, I struggled and put distance between God and me. But He was faithful and patient and provided gradual healing and strength.” When he went to college and got into Bible study, his faith became more real to him. He said, “God’s Word brought me peace and a desire for a relationship with Him. I found that questioning Him and searching for answers through Scripture helped me grow and gave me direction. Now my faith in Christ is what gives me confidence for the future. I know that through both good times and bad, He is faithful and will watch over me.”
When two of his college teammates died in a car crash on their way to a concert that he only pulled out of because he didn’t have the money to go, it gave him a gratitude for life and a desire to make sure his life is for God more than anything else. He said, “Today, I pray for strength to walk the road before me. I play to the best of my abilities and am thankful for the many opportunities and amazing success He has given me. Through it all, I want to do right, not make mistakes, and live a life that is pleasing to Him.”
He is a former NFL wide receiver. He played college football for Notre Dame, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1987, becoming the first wide receiver to win the award. He played for the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders for 16 years from 1988–2003, and later played with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2004. He was selected to the Pro Bowl 9 times, made the AP Second-Team All-Pro, and was selected to the PFW All-Conference 6 times. He won the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 2012. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009. He is the only player ever to retire in the NFL’s top five leaders for both receiving and return yards. In both 2012 and 2013, he was selected as a finalist for enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is currently a college football analyst for ESPN.
In an interview with Game Plan for Life, he spoke about his Christian faith. Even though He grew up in the church as a child and was taught the ways of the Lord primarily by his mother, he slacked off from following God in college and in his early days in the NFL. He said, “Even though I had all of that good teaching, it doesn’t mean that I was living the way I was suppose to live. At the University of Notre Dame and my early years at the Raiders, I was ashamed of how I was living. I remember one day, I think I was 23 or 24 years old, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I couldn’t stand the person that I was looking at. I knew that I wasn’t doing what God wanted me to do….I was around 27 or 28 when I finally said it was time for me to live right. I had been given all of the teachings. I knew what I needed to do. It was just a matter of making those tough decisions.”
He went on to tell of how God is working in His life. He said, “There are plenty of challenges around and plenty of reasons to keep us on our knees praying and fasting. There are challenges in my family. There are challenges with my kids. It is like my pastor said, if the devil is not attacking your family, then your family must be doing something wrong. He must already have your family where he wants you, if he doesn’t need to attack you anymore. The better you try to do, the more the enemy is going to discourage you.”
Looking at his impact on others and the big picture of life, he said, “When I was about 32 years old and on a Hall of Fame run, I thought my career was being extended because I was going to be in the Hall of Fame. What hit me was that I realized I wasn’t here to make the Hall of Fame. I was there, because I needed to show those young men that you can play the game at a high level and have faith. Initially, I was let down because it wasn’t about the Hall of Fame. Instead, I began to think about the impact that I was going to have on other men. I am not trying to say I lived a perfect life. Sometimes you can walk into a room without saying anything and offend people. That is not what I am trying to say. The men in the locker room the last 10 years that I was there never heard me curse, never saw me drinking or doing anything crazy. When the men talk about me now, they are either going to have to lie about me and make up something, or they are going to have to tell people the truth that I tried my best to live right. When Junior Seau died, I told people that he had lost his purpose. His purpose was not to be a football player. His purpose was not to raise money for all of his charities. His purpose was to serve God and show people how to live for God. That is your purpose even in the midst of all the stuff that you may be going through. I think that it is so important for people to understand that no matter what platform we are given our single purpose on this earth is to serve God. Whether you influence one person or a million people, that is what you have to do. You have to show people that this is what you are supposed to be doing with your life. You are supposed to be serving God.”
She is an American TV actress. She gained prominence for her role in the NBC situation comedy, The Bob Cummings Show, which ran from 1955–1959. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series twice for this role. She is perhaps best known for her role as Alice Nelson, the housekeeper in ABC’s The Brady Bunch series which ran from 1969–1974. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and received three TV Land Awards in 2004, 2006, and 2007 for her role in The Brady Bunch series. Her TV credits include “McKeever and the Colonel”, “The Love Boat”, and “Something So Right” among many others. Though she never married, she continued to act in various roles including TV commercials until she died on June 1, 2014.
In an interview with the Associated Press in 1993, she said she was a born again Christian. She said, “Salvation changed my whole life for the better…I spent a lot of time giving Christian witness all over the country to church groups and stuff… Now, I know I am where the Lord wants me to be.” In a 1992 interview with People Magazine, she said, “I’m convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we’ll never know what it is to be whole.” She spent many of her days as a volunteer for her church. Her friend Bishop William Frey said, “What you see on ‘The Brady Bunch’ was who she was. She was a very faithful Christian person.
He is an inspirational Christian rapper known for his ability to cross into the mainstream markets, as well as an actor. His music albums include: “Redeemed Hoodlum”, “Tha Life of a Hoodlum”, “Tha Hoodlum’s Testimony”, and Bone-A-Fide. His fourth album, “The Last Street Preacha”, was nominated for the Rock Gospel Album Grammy Award in 2000. It was the first rap album to debut at #7 on the Christian Contemporary Music charts. His film credits include, “The Fighting Temptations”, “All You’ve Got” and I’m In Love with a Church Girl.” He received three Grammy nominations in 2001, 2007, and 2008. He also won a Dove award in 2004 and 2008 along with 11 nominations from 1993 to 2004.
Growing up in San Francisco, drugs and gang life are the norm. As a young child, he wanted to stay away from that life. In an interview with CBN, he said, “Our icons and our people who we’re looking to are the pimps that got all the money. The drug dealers are the ones with the nice shoes and the jacket and the bling on. A lot of my fears growing up were about getting shot, getting stabbed. … Music was something that really kept me focused and kept my head straight, because I knew I didn’t want all that life.”
However, that mentality changed during his teenage years. Though his parents became Christians during this time and shared their faith with him, he wanted nothing to do with it. He said, “A lot of my friends were involved in the gang life and the drug dealing, and they were trying to pull me in. So I started hanging out with them. Eventually when you’re hanging out with them, when those are your buddies, their enemies become your enemies. …I didn’t want nothing to do with Him, because I felt He was a God that wanted to strip me of my joy, strip me of my happiness, strip me of my friends, strip me of, you know, this life – what I thought life was about.”
All of that changed when one of his close friends got shot and killed during a drive-by. He said, “I really began to search for God. Not because my parents told me to search for God, not because other people were telling me, but because I was really searching for God for myself.” When a guest speaker gave the invitation at his parents’ church one day, he said, “He made a call and said, ‘If you want to know who Christ is for yourself, come up the altar.’ I went up to the altar, and as soon as I went, man, I began to cry. The presence of God was there. The Holy Spirit hit me, and I said the sinner’s prayer.”
After his life changed, pretty soon, his music began to change as well. He said, “There’s thousands of kids that love God, all over the world, that probably come from this environment or that even maybe don’t come from this environment but they’re young and they want to listen to music that they can relate to. …I’ve seen thugs come to the Lord, prostitutes, police officers, soundmen, gang dudes take their gang rags and lay their gun and their colors at the altar. When you see those things, you know God is in it. …God wants [people] to know, ‘It’s okay that you’ve made all these mistakes. I forgive you and I love you and accept you the way you are.’ I’m just so thankful, because I’m a person that deserves hell. God has allowed me to live through all those things and He spared me for a reason. So my life is His. The reason I exist is Jesus. Like Paul said, ‘for to live is Christ, to die is gain.'”
His name is Rene Francisco Sotomayor, better known as T-Bone.
He is a professional baseball relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. He also played for the Kansas City Royals, the Colorado Rockies, and the Cincinnati Reds. He is left-handed and throws three pitches: a fastball, a curveball, and a sinker. In 2009, he won Baseball’s “Set-Up Man of the Year Award.” He helped his team, the San Francisco Giants, win the World Series twice in 2010 and in 2012. When not playing baseball, he is a strong advocate for ending child poverty. He also founded an organization known as Generation Alive that works to let people know of the world’s social justice issues.
In an interview with CBN, he said when he is on the mound, he prays to help him focus. “I’m in my own little world out there. There’s nobody coaching me. I’m focused on what I’m doing. I’ll be asking God for help but other times I’m having a conversation ’cause He gives me peace when I’m talking to Him.”
He went on to say, “When it comes to worship, a lot of people have gifts. In church it’s fun to sing — the only thing is I’m not good at it. I believe God gave me a gift to pitch. That’s where I ‘feel His pleasure’ a lot.”
He is the current head men’s basketball coach at the University of Washington. He also played basketball for the University of Washington from 1978 to 1980. After college, he was drafted by the Golden State Warriors and spent five years in the NBA. He was the assistant coach at UCLA from 1992–1996, head coach at Pepperdine University from 1996–1999, and then head coach at St. Louis from 1999–2002. He is often credited for turning around the faltering state of the University of Washington basketball program. He is known by his fellow coaches as one of the top basketball recruiters in the country. In March 2006, he was given the prestigious Coach Wooden “Keys to Life” award for outstanding character. In March 2009, he was named coach of the year by the Pac 10 conference for leading the Huskies to their first outright conference title since 1953. He and his wife, Leona, founded the Lorenzo Romar Foundation to provide educational assistance for disadvantaged youth as well as support other charitable causes.
In an interview with CBN, he said of his faith and salvation experience, “Getting closer to God was like a sporting event. The one with the most points wins. The more good deeds I could do, the more they could add up and I could score points with God. And that’s just kind of how I saw it. I believed the Bible was the Word of God so I read through it. It was great until I realized that, as I kept reading, points don’t get you to heaven. The points don’t give you a relationship with God, that there weren’t enough points that you could score, as a human down here, because God’s standard was above, it was out of reach. He made a way for it to work. He himself came down to this earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He had already scored all the points, basically, for me. I realized something else, this deal didn’t start when I died. It started immediately. If I accepted what Jesus did on the cross, believed He rose from the dead and He was alive today to save me from my sin, asked Him to come in my life, then I would cease to be just a creation of God. But I would then become a child of God.”
After getting cut by the NBA, he said, “God had a plan for me. I learned a lot of ministry, how to deal with athletes. It was as if God trained me to go out and use those same biblical concepts to try and affect people’s lives. For what appeared to be failure in the NBA was not in God’s eyes, God just used that as a little credibility here to do another job in another place. And with God you’re always going through on the job training.”
“You get a scholarship, you’re on the team, they’re paying your way to school. But to make an impact, you’re in the weight room, you’re running extra sprints, doing all kinds of stuff to make an impact at that high level. To become a Christian, it’s been taken care of. You just have to agree to accept a gift. But to be an impact player for God, you got to work.”
He is a running back for the Atlanta Falcons. He played college football for Oregon State University, and was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the first round with the 24th overall pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. He holds the Rams’ franchise record for most career rushing yards. He was selected to the Pro Bowl three times, named to the AP Second Team All-Pro two times, and was the NFC’s rushing leader in 2009. He was also awarded the MVP with the St. Louis Rams three times in 2006, 2009, and 2010.
In an interview with CBN, he said that he became a Christian at an early age. He said of his faith, “It was so much a part of my life. It was so embedded in me and I watched my mom and dad, through thick and thin, at every night and every morning, I saw them get on their knees and pray to God. So it was a part of our life that I understood that it was eventually going to be my life as well.”
It wasn’t until he got into college that he started to struggle with his faith. He said, “When I got on my own in college, I started venturing out and trying to find out who I was as a young man, that is when I kind of ran into the pitfalls and temptations — a lot of it, most of it was partying.” But he found out that such a life was not good for him so he decided to make an adjustment and live his life as a Christian.
He said, “I always say that whatever city I stop in, I want to leave a positive imprint on that city. And football is just a platform for me to grab the attention of the masses. But being successful and then being positive with it, you influence so many people. I always go around, do motivational talks, to not only young people, but actually to adults as well about my faith in Christ, about motivating them through hardship and how to achieve goals and how to deal with success.”
“Jesus Christ actually means a lot of things to me,” He said. “One, He’s my heavenly Father. He loves me wholeheartedly. He’s the true definition of unconditional love. Where a lot of times I can get frustrated with myself or with other people, I remind myself that God—He died and laid on the cross for us in my sins that one day I could come to meet Him. Love is just more powerful than anything on this earth. And, the more I try to remind myself of that, the more I try to walk in that, I find peace in myself, in my heart.”
She is an actress who has appeared in numerous movies and plays. She is well-known for her role as Angela Williams in the Tyler Perry films “Why Did I Get Married?” and “Why Did I Get Married Too?” She also stars as Angela on the OWN comedy-drama television series Tyler Perry’s “For Better or Worse”. She launched an organic perfume line titled “US” with her husband in 2011. And she coaches many aspiring actors through her acting workshop. She has appeared on America’s Next Top Model as an acting coach, helping the models with different scenes. Her TV credits include: “The Parkers”, “Girlfriends”, “All of Us” and “The Game”. Her other film credits include “Miles from Home”, “Couples Retreat”, “Something Like a Business”, and “Jumping the Broom”.
In an interview with EURweb.com, she discussed her conversion from atheism to Christianity. She said, “When I was 25 I had an encounter with God because my father had gotten sick. I had a time where I really challenged God, like, if you’re really God you’ll show me such-and-such’. I was going through this whole thing where I questioned whether God was real or not. I really needed God to be real because I was feeling so depressed and so unhappy, I felt like if there isn’t a God [then] I have no reason to live. It was just a bad time in my life and God really showed up and met me where I was.”
In an interview with Da Gospel Truth, she said of her faith, “There was definitely a time where I did not believe in the Lord. I needed to understand the love of God. You hear so many people always telling you what you should or shouldn’t do, telling you you’re a sinner, telling you how bad you are, all those things about yourself. I was lacking the understanding of the love of God. I didn’t know there was a God that loved me. I think that it’s the love of God that brings man into repentance. Once you embrace that love and have that fellowship with God, all those things that you shouldn’t be doing will go away. He said no flesh is going to glory in His presence. Once we spend time in the presence of God and fellowship with him, all that stuff that we thought was so great, that we idolized, that we made so big in our lives become so small and insignificant in the presence of God. I strongly encourage people to fellowship with God and show them in the Word how much He loves them.”
When asked how she stays motivated in her work, she replied, “I know God has a purpose for my life. I know that every opportunity I have in my life, whether good or bad, is another journey that I’m going to have with God. To be honest, I am so grateful about where I am in my life right now. Based on where I’ve come from, every day is a blessing. I’m human and there are definitely times when I get down, but I try not to focus on that. I try to stay in the Word and stay in fellowship with God. I get excited when I’m doing something for somebody like teaching my classes, working on a script and just staying creative, focused and prayerful! That’s it.”
He is a former American baseball starting pitcher who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball. With the except of two years with the Houston Astros, he pitched primarily for the New York Yankees. He won five World Series championships with the Yankees and was a three-time All-Star. He ranks as Major League Baseball’s all-time postseason wins leader with 19. His pitching repertoire includes a four-seam and cut fastball and several off-speed pitches such as a slider, curveball, and changeup. Among Yankees pitchers, Pettitte ranks first in strikeouts with 2,020, third in wins 219, and tied for first in games started with 438. He won the most games of any pitcher in the 2000s. He is the only MLB pitcher since 1930 to win at least 12 games in each of his first nine seasons. He is also the only major league pitcher who played at least 18 seasons without having a losing record in any season.
In an interview with CBN Sports, he said of his faith, “You know the biggest thing in my life is my relationship with the Lord, and that’s really what I think my life’s all about — trying to spread the Word of Jesus Christ and trying to get people to get saved. The day I got saved I knew there was something changed about me. I knew that I was going to spend eternity in Heaven with Him whenever I pass from this life. But the deal is you have to accept Him. He has to be living inside of you. If you don’t know Him, just ask Him to come into your heart, accept Him. It’s not going to solve all your problems in the world but it makes life a lot easier.”
She is an actress and singer. She is well-known for her roles as Yvette in “Baby Boy”, Shug in “Hustle and Flow”, and Queenie in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2009 for her role in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. She also starred in the CBS drama “Person of Interest” from 2011 to 2013. Her other film and TV credits include, “Boston Legal”, “The Family That Preys”, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself”, “The Karate Kid”, “Think Like a Man” and “Think Like a Man Too” among many others. In 2011, she won the BET Award for Best Actress and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for the film “Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story.”
In an interview with Beliefnet, she said of her faith, “It is everything. That’s who I am. God lives within me. I meditate, I pray. I’m nothing without God. So, I just ask that He use me in my work. There’s always somebody who can identify with the characters that I portray.”
In an interview with the Christian Post, she spoke of her new role as the host of the annual Celebration of Gospel. She said, “I’m funny, but a lot of times they get comedians or personalities. So I was just very, very honored. And then when I met with the executives I got goosebumps. We all did because it just felt like the perfect marriage. Anybody that follows me, that knows me — knows that I love the Lord and I’m not afraid to say it. I’m not afraid to tweet it, I’m not afraid to talk about it in the interviews. So it just made sense. I wasn’t trying to fill steve Harvey’s shoes, they’re too big. I like my shoes. I just was myself. Somebody might get saved [from watching the show], somebody might be touched by a story that someone tells. I think this show can definitely change a person’s life. You never know.”
In an interview with Madame Noire, she also spoke of her new role as the host of the annual Celebration of Gospel. She said, “I almost dropped the phone [when I heard they wanted me to be the host]. I know the history of that. They’re trusting me with something that’s been around. Celebration of Gospel, that’s 14 years strong. It’s not new, but I think it’s a great marriage because a lot of the people who watch that show follow me so I was honored to do that. I’m very spiritual. I believe in God. I don’t do anything without praying first and listening to God’s voice. I do go to church. Church is in me. When you’re a God-fearing person, you recognize someone who has God in their heart. So I needed that at that moment. Just as I was about to go off and do all of these things, I had to host that show and it just gave me the spiritual soundness that I needed to stay grounded and focused. Everything happens for a reason and I truly believe it.”
When asked about her favorite Bible verse in an interview with HelloBeautiful, she said, “You know what it is, whenever I have an issue or problem in my life, I always go to the book of Psalms. There’s always something there that speaks to my issues, to my problems. The book of Psalms is where my head is all the time.”
In the same interview, she said, “My faith is tested everyday in small ways. It doesn’t have to be in big ways. My faith is tested everyday and that’s when I go to, ‘God is.’ I went all day yesterday thinking I was having a great day, but then that Devil likes to rear his head when you get comfortable, doesn’t he? I let him know, I see you and I say, ‘God is.'”
She is a media mogul, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Her multi-award winning talk show was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Known as the “Queen of All Media”, she has been ranked as the richest African-American of the 20th century by Forbes, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently North America’s only black billionaire. CNN and TIME called her “arguably the world’s most powerful woman” and TIME named her “one of the most influential people” from 2004 to 2011. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and received an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard University. In fact, Barack Obama would not be president of the United States without this woman.
On April 23, 2012, while introducing her “Lifeclass Tour” to a Radio City Music Hall audience in New York City she made a public profession of her faith. She said, “I am not talking about religion. I am a Christian. That is my faith. I’m not asking you to be a Christian. If you want to be one I can show you how. But it is not required. I have respect for all faiths… My favorite Bible verse, because I am a Christian, is Acts 17:28. It says, ‘In God I live, and move, and have my being.’ And you want to know why I’m so successful? Because I knew that at four-years-old, I wouldn’t be who I am today without that.”
On June 1, 2011, after Oprah delivered her public farewell from her talk show, I wrote the following on a news site that our organization runs: “Evidently, Oprah got saved recently, now she needs to make that clear to her millions of fans. Based upon statements that Oprah made throughout last week regarding God and Jesus Christ, we believe that Oprah has recently truly accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Saviour and has been born again this year.”
Now, I took a lot of heat for making that statement, but as I explained in my article, “some people are going to doubt Oprah’s profession of faith in Christ and some are going to say negative things about this because she has people of different faiths on her show and so forth. However, please understand that OWN is not a Christian network. It is a network for all people. OWN is Oprah’s business, and we as Christians know what that is like when you’re doing business in a secular world. So Oprah’s business side is going to be different, but it does not take anything away from her faith in Christ.”
For example, Mark Burnett, is the producer behind the popular “Bible” mini-series and the “Son of God” movie. However, before he produced those Christian-based works, he produced such popular shows as Survivor, The Apprentice, The Voice, Shark Tank, The Sing Off, and the People’s Choice Awards which have nothing to do with his Christian faith. Yet, based on his own words and on his life, I believe Mark Burnett is saved just as I am.
In fact, in the Bible, we see examples of these types of believers. Jesus had His public disciples, the Peters, Jameses, and Johns, but He also had his secret disciples, the Nicodemuses and Josephs of Arimathea. When His public disciples, Peter and the other disciples, forsook Him at His trial and His crucifixion, it was His secret disciples, such as Joseph of Arimathea, that stood with Him until the end. This Joseph took His body off the cross and placed Him in his own grave. All of Jesus’ followers are not out front; some are behind the scenes, but they are doing just as much for Him.
Based upon Oprah’s public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, she is saved by the grace of God through faith by believing in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, according to the Word of God. So instead of worrying about what she is doing or not doing, how about you? Are you saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
She is the wife of Duck Dynasty star, Willie Robertson, and mother to five children. As a business partner, she helped her husband and family grow the Duck Commander company into an ever-expanding and very successful enterprise in Louisiana. She serves as the Duck Commander office manager. Along with her husband, she is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Duck Commander Family Book” in which they detail their life, family, business, popular TV show, and faith. She most recently made an appearance in the movie, “God’s Not Dead”. And her newest book and accompanying five-week church curriculum, “Faith Commander: Living Five Values from the Parables of Jesus” will be released in May.
She says that she is proud of her Christian faith and often encourages other Christians to stand up for their beliefs. She said in an interview, “God and our faith is what sustains us. It’s what makes our life good. This faith is behind who we are as a family and what keeps us together and strong. Don’t let someone bully you into not standing up for your beliefs.”
She is a singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. She has sold more than 50 million albums and 15 million singles worldwide. She has received nine Grammy Awards as well as thirty Grammy nominations, and she is the only artist to have won Grammys in the R&B, Rap, Pop, and Gospel fields. Eight of her albums have reached multi-platinum status in the United States. According to Rolling Stone, Time, and Vibe Magazines, her album “My Life” is considered among the greatest albums ever recorded. In 2007, she was named to TIME Magazine’s 100 list of influential individuals around the world. Alongside her success in music, she has earned high remarks for her work in film. In 2007, she starred in “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” and “Rock of Ages.” She received two Golden Globe Awards for her musical contributions to the films “Bobby” and “The Help.”
Although she grew up in Pentecostal churches and got her singing start there, she says, “I wasn’t a Christian when I was a child, I just went to church. I understood from childhood that there was something really big watching over me and it was God. And I was afraid to steal and lie. I was afraid to do anything that was wrong. I always got this feeling like, ‘Uh oh.’ But I understand better now who God is now that I’ve become a woman and a Christian.”
She went on to say, “It was later [in life], when I gave my life to Jesus Christ, that I found out who I am. I’m a child of God. God is my mommy, my daddy. That’s the only thing that’ll keep my head up. If I don’t remember who I am in him, I’m done….When I became a Christian, it was something I had to do because my whole life as a young adult was so bad. Things were just so bad that when I decided to make a change in my life, I went to God about my life. And he led me to other Christians, like my husband, like my pastor. And I started studying the Word. Now I get it. I understand it more, through the Word. That’s why I know God is love.”
He is one of the longest continuously employed artists at Disney. In over 30 years, his contributions to animation have included several leading Disney characters, mostly heroines. His work includes: Princess Jasmine in “Aladdin,” Belle in “Beauty and the Beast,” Ariel in “Little Mermaid,” Young Simba in “The Lion King” and Mulan in “Mulan”. He was also the animator of the 2007 film “Enchanted”, and he directed the award-winning short film, “John Henry.” Additionally, he was the supervising animator of Princess Tiana in Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog.” He has been nominated for an Annie award four times: three times for Character Animation for “The Lion King,” “Mulan,” and “Winnie the Pooh,” and once for Short Animated Film Direction for “John Henry.” Recently, he served as one of the lead animators, overseeing the development of all of the characters on the Oscar-winning film “Frozen”.
Emily Belz of World Magazine says that he is a Christian. In an interview, she asked him, “How does your faith play into your work, into character development and storytelling?” He said, “It’s a global impact as well as day-to-day and scene-to-scene. I’m very blessed. … This has been my boyhood dream to be a Disney animator. I’ve seen a lot of change and a lot of ups and downs. I was almost fired at one point. God has been incredibly gracious to allow me to be here, and I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be… God has gotten me through many a tough day and tough scene and tough production schedule. It’s nice to work for a company where the basic values we want to put across in our films are right in line with my faith.”
The Gospel Light Minute 