Here’s today’s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.

In theaters this weekend: Do You Believe? Opens Friday 3/20.

Synopsis (from the film’s website): A dozen different souls—all moving in different directions, all longing for something more. As their lives unexpectedly intersect, they each are about to discover there is power in the Cross of Christ … even if they don’t believe it. Yet.

Review: Despite its box office success, I was disappointed with God’s Not Dead — seeing it as a missed opportunity to reach beyond the choir with a serious message of faith. While Do You Believe? (from the producers of GND) is also most likely to find its audience among those who would unequivocally answer its title question with a resounding “Yes!,” it presents its story in a way that is less likely to turn off the skeptical — and may even draw in some.

With an attractive and well-known cast that includes Mira Sorvino, Sean Astin, Cybill Shepherd, Lee Majors, Ted McGinley, Brian Bosworth, Delroy Lindo and Andrea Logan White, we are presented with several interlocking stories of people facing crossroads of faith in the their lives. They include a homeless mother (Sorvino) and her daughter (Makenzie Moss) who are taken into the home of an elderly couple (Shepherd and Majors) scarred by the loss of their own child years earlier, a seriously ill church worker with a heart of gold, a pastor (McGinley) whose faith is challenged by an incident involving a street corner minister and an brilliant doctor (Astin) who is decidedly skeptical of miracles. The dialogue and characters are believable, the stories mesh well and, for the most part, it all works seamlessly. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel about what happens to Doctor Farrell, the skeptical physician so well-played by Astin. There is, I think, a film there.

Do You Believe? is Recommended.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11