[MUSIC PLAYING]

Not many people can say they did this.

But Sam Sorbo has defeated Hercules.

She was cast as the leading lady in the hit TV series,

and she made the title character so nervous during the filming,

he couldn't remember his lines.

Well, the two married in real life the following year.

And now, Sam is raising their children

and helping other parents navigate the legendary journey

through the school year.

Take a look.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Sam Sorbo is a talk radio host, actress, and model.

But her greatest achievements are that of a wife and mom.

Sam met her husband, Kevin while playing his leading

lady in the hit TV series "Hercules."

Both have been successful in Hollywood,

yet remain outspoken about their faith in God.

In her book, "Teach From Love," Sam offers 180 lessons

to instill godly qualities in your children, one

for every day of the school year.

Sam Sorbo is here with us now.

And we welcome you to "The 700 Club."

That's the most interesting introduction I've ever had.

I appreciate that.

We'll loan that to you if you'd like it.

[LAUGHTER]

How did you get into homeschooling?

Was that always something you intended to do,

or how did it come about?

So my second grader was midway through second grade,

and I wasn't getting reports back.

And the teacher, I finally asked the teacher one day,

hey, how are his reports?

And she said, oh, not good.

And I had been a very involved parent.

I went into the classroom multiple times during the week

and helped out the teacher.

And on this particular day, I was

helping her clean up the class.

And I thought, why am I not getting this information?

So I started doing the book reports with

and every day after school.

And I realized, I'm homeschooling.

I'm just doing it at the end of the day when we're

tired, and cranky, and hungry.

It's a big responsibility, isn't it?

Even if your child is in school with someone else, when

they come home, you have to help process all of what's

happened during the day in your time.

We're under a misconception that we

are handing off the responsibility to the schools.

But parents have sued the school system

for not teaching their children to read.

And they've lost every suit, because it is still

the parent's responsibility.

So it is the responsibility of the parent,

regardless of how you handle that.

We think that the school's going to do a good job,

but all evidence to the contrary.

We know that our schools are failing,

and yet we're continuing to send our children

into those schools.

And frankly, as Christians, I don't see it.

They're teaching our children that they're

accidents of nature, and that survival of the fittest

is the law of the land, and then hypocritically telling them,

don't bully.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah.

There's a disconnect here.

A weird message.

And we started out by talking about academics.

Some of what you're mentioning now

has to do with character and just our thought process.

And you start your book out with the story of a woman

who came to you after you had spoken somewhere and said,

so are you saying that the schools

aren't able to teach our children strong values?

And how did you respond to that?

Well, they're teaching our children

survival of the fittest.

Is that the biggest value that we want?

Because then there's no reason to go help the hurricane

survivors right now.

If survival of the fittest, then, oh, I'm sorry.

That's up to you.

I mean, it's a very callous message

that our kids are getting in school.

And teachers have almost been stripped

of the right to bring them anything else.

Sadly, that's true.

Although in my book, I have sort of secular stories

that are just stories from the real world,

like Johnny finds a wallet, and there's $20 in the wallet.

What should he do?

He should try to find the owner of the wallet.

He shouldn't just take the money and say, yay.

Bully for you, because I, you know--

and so schoolteachers could take these lessons

into the classroom, because it is appropriate, I think,

for a school teacher.

And I love school teachers.

I mean, God bless them.

They're working in a system that is very difficult for them

to get their job done.

Should be paid more than anybody else in the country.

Right?

But the thing is they can bring these sort of moral messages

into the classroom without necessarily

having to bring up the Bible.

Being over, right.

I mean, we live in a Judeo-Christian society.

The Bible and the message from the Bible is everywhere.

It's in our legal system.

What's a stop sign?

A stop sign is a moral value.

TERRI MEEUWSEN: You're right.

Because we value life.

Why do we value life?

Because of our Judeo-Christian culture.

We've disconnected that so people don't realize that.

But that's the way it is.

So teachers could use this book, too.

But I wrote it primarily for families

to have the discussion.

You work with a group of seventh graders

in homeschooling.

And that kind of initiated some of what you've put in here,

saying, even the kids you were working with, just

understanding what is morality?

What is good character?

How did those seventh graders impact

you to write this book, "Teach From Love?"

Well, I brought in a moral characteristic.

I put a godly characteristic up on the board,

and we'd workshop, and we'd talk about it.

And then they would internalize it.

They'd bring it up later in the day.

And I thought, this is a great opportunity

that is kind of being missed.

We just expect our kids to kind of just get the message--

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Osmosis.

By osmosis.

And that's not the way it works.

It's important to have those discussions.

That's partly why I did the movie that I did,

is because we need to be talking about life and death.

What is the meaning?

Why are we here?

Why do we die?

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Why do we believe what we believe?

Why do we believe what we believe,

or why don't we believe what we don't believe, right?

Exactly, just as important, yes.

And so, yeah.

So it's all of a piece, really.

You do a really wonderful job of taking two qualities

in each of these lessons that you write.

And they're lessons for Monday through Friday,

if that's the way you want to use them

for homeschool scenarios.

Why two?

How did you determine that?

Well, we have two eyes for binocular vision,

and I just thought there were two ways-- in binocular vision,

we see things in three dimensions.

And I think if you have two qualities that you

can sort of juxtapose to each other,

then you get a better vision.

School year has just started.

It's a fresh opportunity, I think.

SAM SORBO: Yes.

It's also a responsibility.

I think parents feel the weightiness of that.

And you start your book with two qualities

that are significant going into the school year.

One of them, fearlessness.

And what was the other one, boldness.

Yes.

Now those two things do play off of each other.

Yes.

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Why is that important as our kids start

the school year?

Well, there's a lot that happens

in school that causes anxiety, which it saddens me,

because of course, I'm a homeschooler.

So I went through this with my middle child.

He started crying before kindergarten every day.

And I finally realized he wanted to nap.

He didn't want the stress of going

into the classroom in the afternoon,

because he was tired by then.

So I want to bolster both children, and parents,

and families.

And if you can have this discussion with your kids,

you will grow in your relationship

with your children.

And that's what homeschooling really is all about.

It's about the relationship.

We have to ask ourselves.

Our public schools are telling us

that school is about college prep and career readiness.

Is that your highest aspiration for your children?

If it is, God bless you.

But if your highest aspiration for your children

is to know God and to make Him known,

then maybe you need to revisit why

you're sending your children into a system

that that's not what their goal is.

It's how to best make that happen.

"Teach From Love," it's not just for homeschoolers.

SAM SORBO: No.

I mean, every family could use this as a daily devotional.

SAM SORBO: Exactly, yeah.

Morning, noon, night, whenever you choose to use it.

SAM SORBO: It's great dinner table conversation.

Yes.

But I want to mention also you have a movie coming out

in December.

SAM SORBO: No, it's in October.

October, OK.

October 27, "Let There Be Light."

I co-wrote it.

I had the idea, and I found a co-writer, thankfully,

who agreed to write the movie with me.

And then two weeks later, Sean Hannity called my husband

and said, I want to do a faith-based movie with you.

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Wow.

Thank you, Lord.

SAM SORBO: And about a year later, I had a movie.

I tell you, it's a miracle that this movie exists,

because the story behind this movie,

you couldn't make it as a movie.

It's not believable enough to make as a movie.

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Yeah.

SAM SORBO: Right?

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Right.

SAM SORBO: But the story of the movie

is absolutely believable, the story that's in the movie.

And my husband plays the lead character,

and he's fantastic, as we know.

[LAUGHTER]

So we should watch for this.

"Let There Be Light.

"Let There Be Light."

October 27.

Go to lettherebelightthemovie.com.

Go to the Facebook page.

We need all the support in social media that we can get.

Tell all your friends.

You'll see the trailer on our Facebook page,

and we're doing #sharethelight just

to get the message out there, and trying

to encourage people to share their faith,

and to get people into the faith.

And by the way, this movie, you know,

I encourage people to invite people to church.

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Yes.

Because if you have a great church,

why not share that, right?

TERRI MEEUWSEN: Exactly.

But it's hard to invite people to church these days.

There's like a, oh, that's a weird--

What do they want from me?

Right?

Invite them to the movie.

Yeah.

You don't have to join the movie.

You can just go enjoy it.

Just bring them to the movie.

It'll move you.

It'll change you

Wonderful.

And again, the book is called "Teach From Love."

Teach them love.

No, "Teach From Love."

"Teach From Love," a school year devotional for families.

And it's available wherever books are sold.

Highly recommend it.

For more information about the movie, "Let There Be Light,"

go to our website, cbn.com.

It's all there.

And we'll send you and the friends

you decided to invite off on a wonderful opportunity

to see something that's a blessing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

Great to have you here.

I appreciate it.