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

1. GMC TV continues to build its Uplifting Entertainment brand. The cable channel has just added 7th Heaven to its roster of classic family series that includes The Waltons, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, Family Ties, Sister Sister and the hit Canadian import Heartland.   The network is also building its brand with its growing roster of  family and faith-based films, including Letters to God (airing this Friday night @ 9:00 PM ET) and Raising Lizzie (making its world TV premiere Saturday July 21 @ 7:00 PM ET).

Written by David Martyn Conley, Raising Lizzie is the first-prize winner in the 2011 inaugural GMC Faith and Family Screenplay Competition at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF).  Here’s the synopsis per GMC: When their mother passes away, sisters Izzie (Kyla Kenedy) and Gertie Nash (Victoria Staley) are forced to grow up fast. Afraid her daughters will be separated if placed in the foster care system, their mother makes arrangements for Gertie and Izzie to live on their own, with a bank account, apartment and small on-line business to support themselves.  Older sister Gertie takes care of Izzie in addition to working and attending school. For a year, the girls are able to hide their predicament from their neighbors, their landlord and even their teachers. But when Tonya Freeman (Vanessa Williams), Gertie’s new teacher, becomes suspicious, the girls have to come up with a new plan to protect their secret.  After Tonya confronts the girls and they confess to their situation, Tonya has to decide how to protect them and keep them together against the will of her husband Greg (Rockmond Dunbar).

2.  “Content is king but…distribution is emperor.”   As Truli.net closes in on the end of its first official week of operation as a totally-free  Christian social community and media library, here’s founder and CEO Michael J. Solomon talking about the site as a revolutionary means of distributing Christian content.

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