Posts under ‘Culture & Trends’

This is the last of my three-part (for now) series on the power of grace. I hope you’ve come even just a little bit closer to knowing deeply the richness of God’s grace. But before I write anything more, I want you to watch this video and do your best to emotionally engage. Feel it as deeply as you [...]

I have a pastor friend (at H2O church at Ohio State) who is probably the world’s greatest expert in the study of mankind’s eternal longings expressed via ESPN. 
High praise, I know.
Most recently, he pointed me to this video as an illustration of the Church’s adoration of Christ:

I have to applaud Nike for this campaign…they have tapped into something [...]

For those of you who don’t memorize all of my blog posts, let me remind you that StrengthsFinder calls me a futurist. That means I’m always thinking about what’s next. I think God knew about my futurist tendencies when he decided to begin calling me toward relationship with him. Not many people know this, but my [...]

This post is meant as a follow-up to to Empty Promises Part I, which I published about a month ago (before a hiatus for my marriage proposal and the holidays). So if you don’t remember the thoughts there, go ahead and re-read Part I if you would like this to make sense.
I guess I want to [...]

I have a confession. I love Justin Bieber. I love his voice, anyway. And his songs are so darn catchy! To be honest, I cringe to think about the effect that millions upon millions of sceaming girls has upon the ego of a 15 year-old male, but you’ve got to admit…the kid’s really good.
But I’m [...]

Chuck Colson and friends recently issued a document known as the Manhattan Declaration. The group hopes to affirm a biblical worldview in politics, and present it to Congress as a means of unifying Christians under common convictions that they claim are bipartisan, or rather non-partisan. Although the affirmations in the document are fairly consistent with the [...]

As I understand it, the really trendy Christian thing to do is to bash Black Friday and bemoan the reality that American consumerism has reached the point where people are literally getting trampled to death at Wal-Mart. Then among the Christians, the still more progressive voices have begun to take a long look in the mirror instead. [...]

Discussing the Southside baptism party got me thinking about some greater truths. I think there are some greater lessons about holiness to be learned from it. To explain the title for this post, Dictionary.com defines apologetics this way:
a-pol-o-get-ics [uh-pol-uh-jet-iks] : (noun) The branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity.
For a while, my [...]

There is a storm brewing on the college campuses in America. With the emergence of the merit-based economy of YouTube, Wikipedia, and the blogosphere, anyone with a worthwhile insight, novel thought or creative idea can be an influencer. For the first time in history, each one of us has a real shot at ”going viral” and become a household name overnight.
This decentralization of [...]

There seems to be a developing conversation around church relevance. I don’t say that because people are just starting to become interested in church relevance (that’s been happening since Luther and the printing press), but because some people are really starting to challenge its modern conception. At the Cultivate Conference, I repeatedly heard the same question: “How can your [...]