Faith in Hollywood Left Behind movie provides Kirk Cameron and Chelsea Noble with a blessed opportunity. by Annette Wierstra     The curly hair and engaging smile of Kirk Cameron are well-known to fans of the award-winning TV sitcom Growing Pains. The role of Mike Seaver thrust Cameron into the limelight and established him as a teen heart-throb during the ‘80s.   It was during the fifth year of the Growing Pains series that Mike Seaver fell in love with Kate. Behind the camera, Cameron also fell in love — with Chelsea Noble, guest-starring as Kate on the show. Noble had also been known for her roles on Full House, Loving and Days of Our Lives.   Today, the couple is happily married, living in Los Angeles with four children. They are still busy working, often with Disney, and most recently on the Christian movie, Left Behind.   The couple often works together on projects. While they admit that it might not work for everyone, it works for them.   “I love working with Kirk,” says Noble. “He’s my best friend. He’s a loving and giving person as well as a loving and giving actor. We’ve learned to give each other room when we need room, to be a good support team for each other.”   As parents and Christians, Cameron and Noble put a lot of thought and prayer into the roles they chose. “I look for projects that ultimately I can feel proud of that my children can watch, and that offer something positive and constructive and that is helpful to the people who watch it,” says Cameron.   That’s why the couple was so pleased to be involved in the Left Behind movie. They had received the first four books in the series from a friend and Noble was quickly drawn in by the story, staying up late to read them.   “I was so excited and I remember saying to Kirk — waking him up actually,” admits Noble, “and saying, ‘This has to be made into a movie and I would love to play the character of Hattie.’ ”   About a week later, Cameron received a call from his agent offering them both roles in the movie. “I really believe that it was a real answer to prayer and a real gift for both of us,” says Noble.   Cameron plays the journalist Buck Williams, who unearths more than a just a story while digging for the facts. “I was very excited to play Buck,” says Cameron. “In a lot of ways I could relate to Buck in terms of him being a guy who was fairly skeptical about most spiritual things and wanted genuine evidence and facts to support something before he’d believe it.”   Noble plays the airline stewardess Hattie Durham. “To play Hattie was a challenge because she’s a character that doesn’t come to know God,” says Noble. “I felt professionally it was a challenge and it was a role I had to put some thought into about what was going on inside this character and what she was feeling. She was just a hurting vulnerable girl who didn’t have God in her life and I can remember that very well.”   The love of God and compassion for others flows from both Cameron and Noble. On the set of Left Behind cast and crew witnessed the couple spend the better part of a day talking with a couple who stopped by to see what was happening. Cameron and Noble shared the love of Christ with them, both through words and action.   “I see people who are hurting inside and I know that a personal relationship with God, through faith in Jesus, is just what they’re looking for and just what they need, and they just don’t realize it yet,” says Cameron. “I want to share that with them. I feel compassion for them, I care about what they’re going through.”   Off the set, the couple shows their love and compassion in another way. In the early ‘90s they founded the Firefly Foundation, an organization which helps families of seriously ill children. Each summer they host a camp for sick children wanting to meet the couple or simply needing some time in the great outdoors.   Spirituality and faith weren’t always a part of Cameron’s life. He didn’t go to church as a child or grow up in a faith community. “I was pretty confident that there was no God that existed,” says Cameron.   As an established star in a hit TV sitcom, life was going great for Cameron. But something was missing. He began to wonder if there was more to life than being handsome, rich and famous. “Hollywood offers a lot of empty promises,” says Cameron. “Those things didn’t bring me the happiness, peace and stability that I was really looking for.”   Cameron began talking to some Christians he knew and asked them lots of questions. He also started to read the Bible. “Ultimately, I got down on my knees one day and asked God to show me the truth and Who He is if He’s really there,” says Cameron. “It was really just coming to the point where I knew I needed God.”   Noble also recalls that working as an actor in LA and New York left her feeling empty inside. “I remember asking for the first time sincerely — needing to know — who God really was. I remember praying a sincere prayer because I was feeling very empty inside,” she says. “I remember saying, ‘God if you’re real I really need to know you.’ I think it was just that honest prayer that God just came into my heart.”   Noble is confident that Left Behind will have a big impact on audiences. “No matter what your beliefs are walking into it, it’s a movie that will challenge you to think,” says Noble. “It will make people feel something and this world is so hungry to be filled up inside and to know who God is. What if this really did happen? Who is God?”   For both Cameron and Noble, the decision to accept Christ into their heart was the most important one of their lives and everyday that decision brings them peace and joy.   “God is the most important thing is our lives, the centre of our lives,” Noble told The Christian Herald, “for Kirk and I individually, and our main focus in our family and raising our children. It’s everything.”   “There’s nothing I’ve ever done, nobody I’ve ever met, no dreams that I’ve ever had in my career,” says Cameron, “that even come close to comparing the joy that I know in knowing God and following Him day by day.”   Left Behind: The Phenomenon  by Annette Wierstra   Have you heard the buzz? The books in the Left Behind series have been the hottest Christian books to hit the shelves since, well, the Bible. They have landed atop The New York Times best-seller list, a coup for Christian fiction. So far more than 25 million copies of the eight adult books in the series have been sold, including 6 million copies of the first book, Left Behind.   The Left Behind series is a continuing story based on interpretations of prophecies found in the Bible’s book of Revelation. Written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the series begins with what is referred to as the rapture, when some Christians believe that all true believers will instantly be taken up to heaven, prior to the end of the world and the second coming of Christ.   The stories are fast paced and entertaining. Set in the near future, the central characters, among those left behind during the rapture, use cellphones and high tech computer technology to battle the rising Anti-Christ and bring the message of salvation to others.   “Our message is the greatest message of hope in this world,” says LaHaye, a former pastor and prophecy scholar, in The New York Times. “There is a new age coming, resulting in the coming of the most benevolent King of Kings (Christ), who’s already demonstrated His compassion by dying on the cross.”   Jenkins says going to heaven is a matter of accepting Christ as Saviour. “It’s not good works. It’s not by being a churchgoer,” states Jenkins about entering heaven. “Salvation is a gift. The true believers are the ones who believe that Jesus did all the work.” he says in the Chicago Tribune.   “Who would have ever dreamed that a book series on the end times would become a revolution in — not just the Christian publishing world — but the publishing world in general,” says Peter LaLonde. “We’re talking about the most popular fictional series in the history of the printing press. We’re talking about numbers that rival Grisham and Clancy and Harry Potter.”   LaLonde, along with brother Paul, heads up Cloud Ten Pictures, the company which recently brought the movie version of Left Behind to theatres. Already well-known for their work in the apocalyptic genre — they drew attention with previous films, Revelation and Tribulation — Left Behind was a perfect fit for the LaLondes.   Peter LaLonde believes that movies are the cultural medium of today.   “I believe it’s how culture and values are passed along in our day,” says LaLonde in Ministries Today magazine. “In the old days a grandfather would sit with his son at the campfire and tell great stories. Today people sit around the television during the family hour.”   Will the Left Behind phenomenon continue?   Fans of the series can take a collective sigh of relief — it’s not over yet. Four more books are scheduled to complete the series and filming for the second movie, Tribulation Force is expected to begin fall 2001. 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