Needed: Youth Ministry/Parenting That Feeds Roots
Why are so many young people leaving the church and walking away from faith? The young little Japanese Maple tree I planted in our backyard last year offers some insight. Earlier this summer strong winds pushed it to lean over…
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Praying For The Lonely And Hurting On This Christmas Day
It’s Christmas Day, and this week many of us have lifted our voices as we do each Christmas to sing these words from Joy To The World: “No more let sins and sorrows grow nor thorns infest the ground; He comes…
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Confronting The Lie Of Christmas
I wonder what Christmas would be like for me if the childhood version of want-stuff-self was growing up in today’s 24/7 world of online shopping? Would the lies I believed about Christmas and redemption back then be even more intense…
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Rage Bait: A Confession. . .
“Lord, forgive me.” Those are three words that summarize whatever corporate Confession of Sin we pray each week as part of the liturgy at our church. Sadly, this weekly corporate time of confession is not a part of many church…
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The Word of the Year is Rage Bait. Is this what we’ve become?
Deep down inside, we wanted the gorilla to come at us so hard that he smashed himself against the glass. We were teenagers visiting the zoo with a couple of dates in tow. We thought it was funny, and we…
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Who’s Influencing The Kids?: A Mother’s Perspective. . .
Lisa and I met our friends Dan and Kristin several years ago at a youthworker conference where I was speaking. This sweet and tender young couple asked if they could share a meal with us, and we did. While we…
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Just “Getting Them to Jesus” Is Not Enough.
Truth be told, I get a bit nervous when I hear a youth worker say that the goal of their youth ministry is to “just bring people to Jesus.” I don’t question the intentions. I don’t question the fact that…
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The Decline In Reading = Declining Kids?
The warning was being raised years ago. . . at just about the time more and more of us – young and old alike – were wandering onto the digital frontier. Sadly, that wandering was mostly mindless, with little-or-no thought…
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Youth Worship: Formative or De-Formative?
Would a seminary paper I wrote forty years ago this month still be timely, relevant, and something helpful? I wondered about that myself last week when I went searching for a paper file folder that was stuffed about halfway back…
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The Bible: Alive, Life-Giving, and Trustworthy!
It’s a pretty good thing when the Foreward to a book, written by someone other than the book’s author, causes you to stop in your tracks after being hit in the face with an undeniable truth. That happened this afternoon…
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When Social Media Gets “Hot”. . .
Regrets. . . I’ve had a few. . . well, more than few. The older I get, the more I realize that my default setting is to be and do in ways that lead to a hindsight oftentimes filled with regret. There are far…
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The Gospel According to “APT.”. . .
When a song wins the MTV Video Music Award for “Song of the Year”, we need to sit up and take notice. And when that song tops the charts in over 50 countries, has well over 2 billion views on…
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