Real-Life Boy Who Met Jesus in Hit Movie "Heaven Is for Real" to Appear on Trinity Broadcasting Network's "Praise the Lord" Talk Show

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Apr 28, 2014, 09:30 ET

LOS ANGELES, April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Colton Burpo, the real-life young man whose trip to heaven as a four-year-old boy is the subject of the runaway Hollywood hit movie Heaven Is for Real, will be the special guest on the Tuesday, April 29th edition of Trinity Broadcasting Network's award-winning talk show Praise the Lord.

Joining Colton will be his father Todd Burpo, co-author of the bestselling book upon which the movie is based; Colton's mother Sonja Burpo; and Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Secretariat), who directed Heaven Is for Real.

Produced by TBN ministry partner T.D. Jakes and starring Academy Award-winning actor Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets), Heaven Is for Real tells the moving story of four-year-old Colton, who nearly dies during emergency surgery, and who, in the weeks following, tells his parents about a trip he made to heaven. Among those he recounts meeting there were a sister his mother had miscarried and whom he knew nothing about; a great grandfather who died thirty years before he was born; and Jesus, who rode a special rainbow-colored horse and who allowed Colton to sit in His lap.

During a recent interview with TBN host Clifton Davis, fourteen-year-old Colton Burpo recounted what it was like to sit on Jesus' lap during his visit to heaven ten years earlier. "First of all you feel safe, like nothing can hurt you," he earnestly explained. "And the thing you can feel all the time when you are around Jesus … is the love He has for you. You can feel the love God has for you and the love He has for you."

Colton went on to describe heaven, using two comparisons. "First of all," he said, it is like "the perfect version of earth. Since there's no sin, there's no aging, there's no pollution … and it's always day." Secondly, Colton related, heaven is like "a city that never stops growing, because heaven has to continue to grow in order for all the people who go there to have a place to live."

TBN Vice President Matthew Crouch noted that in the first week of its release, Heaven Is Real pulled in over $36 million in ticket sales and edged out another popular film, Captain America, as the nation's number one box office draw.

"This powerful movie has touched a chord with millions of Americans," said Mr. Crouch. "Just as we've known the past forty years here at TBN, people are looking for something real and lasting beyond the here and now. And that something is God's love and peace. We're honored to welcome Colton, his family, and director Randall Wallace to talk about Heaven Is for Real.

Join popular TBN host Clifton Davis as he welcomes Todd, Sonja, and Colton Burpo, along with director Randall Wallace of the hit movie Heaven Is for Real, to Praise the Lord, Tuesday April 29th at 7 p.m. Pacific (9 p.m. Central, 10 p.m. Eastern) on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

About the Trinity Broadcasting Family of Networks

With 27 networks and growing worldwide, the Trinity Broadcasting Family of Networks is the world's largest faith-and-family television group, airing a broad range of church and ministry programming, Christian music, family friendly movies, children's programming, and shows for teens and young adults 24 hours a day to every inhabited continent via 87 satellites and 20,000 television and cable affiliates. In addition, TBN's most popular global networks are available on computers, smart phones, and other mobile devices, and over 25,000 hours of entertaining and inspiring On-Demand programming is accessible via TBN's innovative online network, iTBN.org. To find out more about the Trinity Broadcasting Family of Networks, log on to www.tbn.org.

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SOURCE Trinity Broadcasting Network