Cameron bringing ‘Love Worth Fighting For’ to 2 cities

Former teen heartthrob turned evangelical heavyweight Kirk Cameron is coming to Little Rock and Fort Smith in an effort to strengthen marriages.

Cameron, best known for his role as Mike Seaver on the popular 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, will bring his national “Love Worth Fighting For” marriage event to Immanuel Baptist Church on April 3 and Harvest Time in Fort Smith on April 4.

Now in its fifth year, the tour began in the wake of Fireproof, Cameron’s highly successful 2008 movie. The movie, a small-budget affair made by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., was a hit at the box office and followup books and Bible studies remain popular with many churches.

Cameron said the tour was a natural extension of the movie, which featured him as a firefighter battling to save his marriage.

“Marriage is important to me personally. It’s why I made the movie,” Cameron said.

The 43-year-old Cameron and his wife, the former Chelsea Noble, who played his sweetheart Kate MacDonald on Growing Pains, have been married 23 years. They have six children.

“We want to have a healthy and strong marriage, to have a foundation for them to stand on when they grow up and start having families of their own,” Cameron said.

Cameron said healthy marriages are important not just for families but also for society in general.

“[We] need to turn to our neighbors and other family members and friends and give them a hand and help them,” he said. “We’re all in this together. We’ve got to get it right at the family level or everything will eventually fall apart.”

Cameron’s tour also features musician Warren Barfield. The two men strive to make the event entertaining and inspirational, Cameron said.

“The event is really a combination of music, a lot of laughter and humor and some great personal stories, along with clips from the movie and great teaching on the subject of marriage,” Cameron said.

Cameron said he and Barfield have continued the tour for so many years because people keep asking for it.

“Ever since Fireproof came out - it was the highest-grossing independent film of the year, a little independent film about the subject of marriage - it kind of surprised everybody but the desire for help in marriage has never stopped,” he said.

Cameron said the event is for singles, married couples, divorced men or women or those thinking about getting married.

“It’s a great time to learn about what marriage is and how to make it strong,” he said. “You can come alone or with your spouse or a friend and it’s guaranteed you’ll have a good time. It’s easy to oversell a lotof things but I don’t think I can oversell this. I highly recommend people come and spend some time with us. You’ll have a great time.”

Even with a busy tour schedule each year, Cameron continues his acting career. He has a documentary, Monumental, about the beginning of America, out now, and his film Unstoppable debuted for a one-night only showing in theaters last year. Mercy Rule, a direct-to-DVD movie, was released last month and Cameron said he has two other projects in the works.

Tickets to “Love Worth Fighting For” are $35 for VIP seating and $22.50 for general admission and are available online at loveworthfightingfor.com. Tickets for groups of 10 or more are $20 each.

Religion, Pages 13 on 03/22/2014

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