pastor and church consultant, and moved into acting and filmmaking to explore his interest in creative and cutting-edge expressions of ministry. His tenure as pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church was interrupted when parishioners discovered his attempted murder charges and alleged that he had misused church money; litigation ensued, and the parties settled out of court. Rossi's first Hollywood role was in the 1998 short film Jesus 2000. In 1998, he appeared on stage in his own adaptation of Elmer Gantry, which he wrote, produced and starred. His stage performance resulted in an offer to Rossi to play the role in a new film version. He started "Eternal Grace", a movement of Hollywood house churches for actors and celebrities who had difficulty attending public services due to paparazzi, and also for AIDS victims and others not welcome to attend other churches. He was protested by followers of Fred Phelps from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, who decried his lenient attitude toward homosexuals. Rossi's wife Sherrie worked with puppets in their children's ministry. In 2001, Rossi wrote and directed Saving Sister Aimee, a short documentary film about 1920s evangelist Aimee McPherson. Though some considered it a sensationalized depiction, it won the Angel Award from the Southern California Motion Picture Council for best documentary. In 2005, Rossi revisited Sister Aimee's story in the low-budget feature biographical film Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story, (aka Aimee Semple McPherson), featuring Mimi Michaels in the lead and Rance Howard as the preacher's father. It attracted a record crowd to Hollywood's New Beverly Cinema, a revival house specializing in independent and cult films owned by Quentin Tarantino. A group of Evangelicals offered to invest $2 million in the film, but with conditions that the movie did not depict McPherson's divorce or drug overdose and that the actor playing the lead be a Pentecostal Christian. Rossi turned them down. "By saying no to conditions that religious people put on me, I feel I'm actually of more service to God and people because I make an honest film," he said. In addition to his film work, Rossi acted on stage in plays and musicals to positive reviews, remaining active in the Los Angeles theater community. Clemente film Between acting jobs that included small roles on TV shows, among them The King of Queens, Ally McBeal, The X-Files, Gilmore Girls and several movies, Rossi began working on Baseball's