Another big film that’s getting lots of buzz this weekend is “The Blind Side”. A true story starring Sandra Bullock about how one mom puts her faith in action and “adopts” an at-risk teen who ends up becoming an NFL player. Movie Mom loves this film for it’s practical depiction of a family living out their faith.

Albom’s first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have A Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an 82-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he’d left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor – a reformed drug dealer and convict – who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Mitch observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi, embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Mitch and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers and histories are different, Albom begins to realize a striking unity between the two worlds - and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.

In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor’s wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.

Have a Little Faith is a book about a life’s purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man’s journey, but it is everyone’s story.

We talked with the Founder of one of the organizations being helped. Here is his story:

In 1990, The Fishing School, a youth and family support organization, was created. But the story didn’t start there. Tom Lewis, TFS’s founder, was born in Chadbourn, North Carolina, the sixth of 15 children. His mother, Martha, picked cotton, and his father, Gaston, worked in a sawmill. Lewis dropped out of school after tenth grade and, like most of his siblings, left home. He found work as a migrant farm laborer picking fruits and vegetables in Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. In 1959 Lewis moved to New York, was drafted into the U.S. Army, and was stationed in France.

He eventually achieved his dream of joining the Metropolitan Police Department and spent 18 years in the Officer Friendly program visiting classrooms throughout the D.C. public school system to counsel students and to teach good citizenship, drug abstinence, and safety. His dedication and commitment to children was evident. Lewis was frequently overwhelmed when he visited classrooms and witnessed the poverty and desperation exhibited by the students. He tried to set an example for students by having earlier earned his GED and eventually earning a college degree. In 1986, Lewis retired from the police department and a few years later in 1989 he dedicated himself to serving those children he’d met along the way as Officer Friendly. He decided to convert a rental property that he had purchased in a drug infested northeast Washington, D.C. neighborhood into a family support center. He spent the next nearly two decades proving that if one man stands up, he can truly make a difference. The Fishing School programs have gone on to reach over 2,500 students and their parents in under-served communities throughout the District of Columbia.