Kids, Work, And The Path To Flourishing. . .
Some of them are old enough to hold down part-time jobs. . . and so they do. Others are old enough to hold down part-time jobs, yet for any number of reasons, they don’t. All of them will someday leave…
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“Did God Really Say?” . . . The Snake-Charmer And Youth Ministry. . .
The older I get, the more I see how important it is for me to put that stake in the ground. Then, I need to use that stake to tether me to God’s Word in ways that will hold me secure…
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Framing Sexual Sanity. . .
In just a little over 50 years, our media culture has gone from treating matters of sexuality as a “hush-hush” topic, to putting all kinds of sexual practices and issues center-stage. That’s certainly been the case in the last few…
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Twenty-One Pilots And Teen Stress. . . Talking Points. . .
It was a well over a year ago that I sat with our doctoral cohort at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary deconstructing a music video that featured a couple of mid-twenty-somethings riding oversized Big Wheels (admit it, we all want one, don’t…
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Fifty Shades Returns. . . Darker. What Now?
I spent the last couple of days in Mississippi. On Wednesday night, I spoke to a gym full off parents and teens about pornography. What is it? Why are we drawn to it? What effect does it have on us?…
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Lady Gaga’s Broken Halftime Theology. . .
First things first. No matter who you were rooting for, that was an amazing game. And second. . . let’s think about Lady Gaga and her halftime show. . . beginning with some thoughts on Super Bowl halftime shows in…
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Super Bowl Commercials. . . A Little Exercise In Critical Thinking. . .
Parents and youth workers… why not make your Super Bowl viewing experience productive for you and your kids? I want to challenge you to see it as an opportunity to teach how to apply their faith to the glut of…
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Teens and Self-Injury. . . A Helpful Infographic. . .
We’ve been talking about it for a couple of decades for the simple reason that far too many kids are doing it. “It” is self-injury. I’ve blogged on it on numerous occasions. Our good friend Marv Penner has become a…
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The Epidemic of Anxiety. . . Some Helpful Words. . .
Ever feel like this? . . . Apparently anxiety was a problem way back when Time Magazine ran this cover in 1961. The covered featured the now-familiar Edvard Munch painting known as “The Scream.” Interestingly enough, Munch painted this way…
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Pleading For Our Kids. . . .
Early this morning I was reading in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 5, about a distraught father named Jairus. As I pondered his two-sentence urgency-filled request to Jesus I kept thinking about kids today. Jairus said to Jesus, “My little…
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The Latest On Teen Drug Use. . . A Helpful Infographic. . .
I’ve never met a parent who says, “I want my child to grow up to abuse drugs.” There are, however, many twisted individuals making millions of dollars off of their pursuit of the desire to promote addiction. And for too many…
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A Little Exercise In Priorities. . . Football vs. Family. . .
The NFL Playoffs are in full-swing. Last Sunday night, a friend who’s here in the U.S. from her home in Northern Ireland landed in Boston just before dinner. The friends who met her at Logan stopped for dinner at a Buffalo…
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