WASHINGTON — The youth choir belted out "O Happy Day" as folks trickled in through the church doors. Few noticed the accountant sitting in the back pew, his eyes flickering over each latecomer.

Sister Regina Alonzo, one of the cloistered nuns at Sisters of the Cross, and Charles and the late Hedy Harding of Modesto's Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church are among the five "Bright Lights" award winners in the Stockton Diocese. They will be honored at the eighth annual Bishop's Awards dinner Oct. 17 in Stockton.

An independent Christian movie, "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry," opens at Brenden Theatres on Friday, thanks to three businessmen — Andy Fletcher, a Modesto dentist, John Beech, a Turlock chiropractor, and Eric Kjeldgaard, an Oakdale real-estate developer for Opportunity Builders, which builds low-income projects.

Whether you call his songs "Christian rock" or "alternative worship music," David Crowder is certainly unique. All you have to do is look at his latest band photograph to know that.

ARTS AND MUSIC

ARTS AND MUSIC

Max Lucado is the Hans Christian Andersen of American pastors, a masterful storyteller. He has sold 65 million books over the past 25 years and is the only author to have won three Christian Book of the Year awards — for "Just Like Jesus," "In the Grip of Grace" and "When God Whispers Your Name."

There is a place where love has opened all its doors. It's called The Healing Journey and is sponsored by Memorial Medical Center Cancer Services and the Memorial Hospital Foundation Legacy Circle.

A full-scale replica of the Jewish Tabernacle will be on display Saturday through Sept. 27 at Shelter Cove Community Church, 4242 Coffee Road, Modesto.

The 10 days between Rosh Hashana, which begins at sundown Friday, and Yom Kippur, which ends with a final blow on the shofar (ram's horn) Sept. 28, are the holiest in the Jewish calendar.

The 10 days between Rosh Hashana, which begins at sundown Friday, and Yom Kippur, which ends with a final blow on the shofar (ram's horn) Sept. 28, are the holiest in the Jewish calendar.

High holy days services at Congregation Beth Shalom:

On one network show, a teacher sells his body for extra money; on another, the educators lust after and blackmail one another.

A full-scale replica of the Jewish Tabernacle will be on display Saturday through Sept. 27 at Shelter Cove Community Church, 4242 Coffee Road, Modesto.

When black and Latino campers were shunned at a Huntingdon Valley, Pa., swim club, the head of the Philadelphia NAACP called the incident a "teachable moment." A few days earlier, President Obama used the same catchphrase in the heated aftermath of black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s verbal tangle with a white police officer.