"The more I go to church," he said, "and the more I  turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening  to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the  pressure is off me now."  Stallone spoke of being reborn in a teleconference  with pastors and religious leaders concerning the faith elements of  the unlikely sixth movie that's due out Dec. 22.  "You need to have the expertise and the guidance  of someone else. You cannot train yourself," he said. "I feel the  same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church  is the gym of the soul." Sylvester Stallone

Excerpts from The Gym of  the Soul

Sylvester Stallone has purposefully included faith and values in  the Rocky films, and those elements are even more prominent  in Rocky Balboa ("The Heart of a Champion," "Fighting  the Good Fight," "Recovery After a Fall," etc.), the final  chapter in the Rocky story due in theaters December 22 (yes,  Stallone himself gets back in the ring!).  

In interviews with various faith-based publications, Sly recently  shared some of his thoughts about the Rocky character and faith:  "In Rocky, if he's just a fighter, then it's just a boxing  story, and I told the producers in the beginning, 'It's not a boxing story; it's a spiritual journey. It really is about a man that has  been chosen to accomplish a role, to be an example for other  people'." - Sylvester Stallone

Interview with New Man  Magazine  "If you don't have a great relationship with God, you can go  off the deep end. The Christian foundation of life is really the  perfect ideal which one should base every decision they make on,  because it comes from a sense of kindness, a sense of giving, a  sense of fairness, and it avoids everything which I'm exposed to  every day in my particular industry which is greed, and avarice and  jealousy and bitterness . . ."

Interview with Catholic  Digest  We recently screened Rocky Balboa for some key leaders, who had a  chance to meet with Sly after the screening. Here's what they had to  say:  "Life is hard, and faith can help us to face some of those  challenges and issues in our past and you see Rocky do that  throughout the movies but particularly it comes to kind of a peak in  this movie and it was exciting to see."   
  
ROCKY BALBOA stars Sylvester  Stallone, Burt Young, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, James Francis  Kelly III, Antonio Tarver and Geraldine Hughes.