Melissa Joan Hart is doubling down on the values that have shaped her life behind the scenes — faith, family and service.
The actress, best known for her iconic roles in “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “Clarissa Explains It All,” said her Christian faith is not just a belief system, but the organizing principle of her household: from Sunday mornings to mealtimes, from her kids’ education to the roles she takes in Hollywood.
During an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Hart didn’t hesitate when asked how faith continues to guide her choices.
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“Faith is the center of our family, of my marriage,” she said. “We love going to church every Sunday as a family. I love my Sunday school class, where we have fellowship. And I love going to women’s Bible study on Wednesdays.”
For Hart, who was raised Catholic and now attends a Baptist church with her family, faith is something her kids actively experience — not simply inherit.
“My kids have gone to a Christian preschool. And now, in high school, they are going to a Christian high school,” she said. The actress said one of the most emotional moments in recent years came when her middle son chose to be baptized on his own terms.
“My son just decided he was going to get baptized. They were all baptized as babies, because I was raised Catholic. But now we go to a Baptist church and my middle child decided he wanted to be baptized. And it was just such a special moment.”
WATCH: MELISSA JOAN HART SAYS ‘FAITH IS THE CENTER’ OF HER FAMILY
And for the Hart family, faith sits at the center of the table, too.
“We pray over every meal — whether we’re out at a restaurant or it’s breakfast, dinner, dessert or even pizza,” she continued.
Hart married musician Mark Wilkerson in 2003, and later welcomed three sons: Mason, Braydon and Tucker.
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The actress continued to open up to Fox News Digital about the role faith plays in her life — and how it factors into her Hollywood career.
When asked how her beliefs guide her choices today, she clarified that while faith shapes her personally, it isn’t a strict filter for the parts she plays.
“With roles in Hollywood, I don’t really use my faith to choose roles in Hollywood necessarily,” Hart told Fox News Digital. “I’m not going to only choose really good Christian [roles]…”
She added that acting is ultimately about “getting into the human experience and learning why someone might act or behave differently than you would.”
“I just feel like it’s important to tell stories — and it’s important to tell all the stories.”
Hart credited some of these practices to her global experiences with World Vision — moments that she said reinforced how powerful prayer can be.
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“We learned a lot of that too — through World Vision, being in Africa and praying with every family before we met them, after we left them, while we were with them,” she said. “I mean, it’s amazing — the power of prayer — and I think my family really sees that,” she added.
World Vision is an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the kingdom of God.
Hart has been a World Vision ambassador since 2019, and she said the partnership has become a defining part of her mission off camera.
She and her three sons have traveled to Zambia to see their sponsored “sisters” and the programs their donations support.
According to Hart, what makes World Vision different is its intentional focus on long-term, community-driven change.
“I love being an ambassador for World Vision because I can really speak to where the money goes — how these programs work — and they are truly sustainable and amazing,” she said. “They’re so well thought out.”
With Christmas approaching, Hart said she relies heavily on the organization’s holiday gift catalog — a way for donors to purchase items like bicycles, school supplies, medical support or even infrastructure for communities in need.
For more traditional gift-giving, she pointed to items like handcrafted ornaments made by artisans abroad.
“The ornament I have in the catalog this year is a beautiful star — and it’s from Artisans Handmade in Kenya,” she said.
Back home in Nashville, Hart told Fox News Digital that she’s intentionally scaled back her family’s Christmas traditions to refocus on what really matters.
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“The step back really comes from the chaos… the holiday season, we start so early, we do so much, we’re asked to do so much,” she explained.
She added that social media only amplifies the sense of needing to perform or perfectly curate the holiday season.
“I just want to take that pressure off and just make it about the reason for the season, which for our family is Jesus,” she said.
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While she loves giving gifts, Hart noted that she now aims for thoughtfulness rather than excess.
“This year, I want to hand people gifts,” she said. “I really want to give gifts that are meaningful.”
Hart additionally stars in a new Christmas project — one that will likely ignite a wave of ’90s nostalgia.
Her new Netflix film, “A Merry Little Ex‑Mas,” pairs her with Alicia Silverstone — marking the first time the two teen icons have worked together.
“This was a script that was given to me by Holly Hester, who was a writer on ‘Sabrina,’” she said.
She and her mother — longtime producing partners — brought the film to Netflix and recruited the “Clueless” star for the lead.
“We had friends in common, but we’d never met before,” Hart said. “I thought that was so crazy that we’ve been around all these years, have similar people in our lives and have never met.”
The film also features Oliver Hudson and Jameela Jamil.
Hart continued to tell Fox News Digital that she had one goal with this project — putting comedy back into Christmas movies.
“I really am on a mission right now to bring humor back to Christmas movies,” she said. “They’ve gotten a little vanilla and a little safe.”
“I want to bring the humor back to it,” she added. “And I think this movie is a great place to start.”
