A common question I’m hearing from folks these days is whether it is beneficial (or a moral imperative) to pay attention to the news. The Catholic nun and social activist Dorothy Day asked the same qu...
A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act li...
In those same weeks, Harper’s Magazine featured an evening-long conversation between two professors, Neil Postman and Camille Paglia, about the meaning of television for persons and for polities...
Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:2, Luke 21:34, Psalm 46:10, Matthew 6:22-23
In the 1990s, political scientists began to study what they called the “CNN Effect.” Breathless, twenty-four-hour media coverage makes it considerably harder for politicians and CEOs to be anything bu...
Isaiah 55:2, Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:2, John 15:11
In an article for The Atlantic, social scientist Jean Twenge shares the results of a study on the activities of American teenagers and their impact on happiness. Some of these activities included scre...
Our family is radical, but we are definitely not Amish—although we love to eat the fruit, vegetables, meat, and cheese produced by our Amish neighbors forty miles away in Lancaster County, Pennsylvani...
Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...
Matthew 6:31-34, Luke 10:41-42, Philippians 4::6-7, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 3:5-6
Life has become a smorgasbord with an endless array of dishes. And more important still, choice is no longer just a state of mind. Choice has become a value, a priority, a right. To be modern is to be...
Does it ever seem like the world around us is changing at breakneck speed? Well, it turns out, you’re right. A team of researchers have concluded that the Western world’s “environment and social order...
Most alarming is the absence of peace among our youth. Research from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is showing an epidemic of mental health problems among eighteen- to twenty-four-year...
John 17:1, Philippians 4:6, James 5:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Matthew 6:6, Acts 6:4, Mark 1:35
It’s no secret that too many evangelical leaders are captivated more by business culture than biblical culture, spending more time absorbed in strategies and effectiveness and relatively little time i...
Acts 17:10-12, Mark 10:13-16, Matthew 22:34-40, Luke 10:25-37, Romans 12:2, Philippians 4:8
Love is at the root of everything—all learning, all parenting, all relationships—love or the lack of it. And what we hear or see on the screen is part of who we become.
1 Timothy 6:6-8, Proverbs 15:16, Matthew 6:19-21, Philippians 4:11-13, John 6:
The story is told of Socrates walking through the market in Athens, with its groaning abundance of options, and saying to himself, “Who would have thought that there could be so many things that I can...
We can learn a thing or two about discipleship and the discipline required of a disciple from our fourth-century monastic brothers and sisters. Like them, we do basic, ordinary activities every day. W...
In a study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, researchers discovered what most of us already know: people do not like to be left alone with their own tho...
Matthew 5:9, Romans 12:17-18, Psalm 34:14, Ephesians 4:2-3, John 14:27, Romans 14:19, 2 Corinthians 13:11, James 3:18, Isaiah 26:3, Philippians 4:6-7
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual...
Luke 15:1-10, Philippians 4:4, Psalm 118:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Go, as God’s people of joy, carrying in your hearts the good news that our God delights to seek and save all who are lost. May you know how deeply Christ values each and every person who you encounter...
In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...
Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...
With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...
This blessing includes prayers for the initiative/event itself, the volunteers for the event, the leaders organizing the event, the resources to be distributed at the event, and any community partners...
Philippians 4:8, Exodus 32:, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Matthew 19:16-30, Proverbs 4:23, Romans 12:2, 1 John 2:15-17
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture. . . . Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
Peter Drucker suggests that we should always sustain two streams of learning and self-improvement. And though he is speaking specifically about work and career, what he says is equally applicable whet...
Pastor: Glorious Lord, You have worked the salvation of the world through the death and resurrection of Your Son. Give strength to our praise, and let our hearts and mouths be filled with the joy of...
This is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its messa...
1 Timothy 2:1-4, Psalm 33:22, Philippians 4:6-7, John 14:1, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 12:15
Compassionate God—In Christ, you enter our condition; you experience our sorrow and our joy ... and redeem them. By Your Holy Spirit, you carry us along: in crisis and celebration, in despair and acco...
Pastor: In peace, let us pray to the Lord: People: Lord have mercy. Pastor: For the work of (N._____) in (N.____). For families and children, that they would be healthy in body, min...