Our primary authority for living a Jesus-Centered life is the Bible, a long book written in two languages thousands of years ago by dozens of people throughout hundreds of year. Good luck making sense of all that! But if we want to deepen our trust in Jesus and our understanding of God, ourselves, and humanity, there’s no greater resource.…
The question from one of my teenagers was both jolting and inviting: “I’m just not into the Bible—is that okay to say out loud?” “You can absolutely say that,” I assured him. “Can you tell me more, though? I’d like to understand what changed for you—there was a time when you read the Bible all the time.”…
Today’s young people have always been virtually connected to the answers of the universe—or so they think. Kids are so used to having unlimited access to information that they see no excuse for not knowing something—even when it comes to their faith.…
The start of a new year shouldn’t be the only time we encourage teenagers to dive in to their Bibles. But it is a natural time to leverage some new approaches. Try these five digital avenues to help tether teens to the ultimate text: 1.…
Did you hear? Teenagers are reading books more than other generations. So… why aren’t they reading the Bible? For that matter, should they be? (Maybe that’s a question we haven’t asked in a while.) Apparently, only 3% of teenagers are engaged in the Bible on a daily basis, while 25% of the same demographic read it at least once a week.…
The Bible app, which recently celebrated 200 million downloads, is the best thing to happen to smart phones and a tremendous tool for Bible readers. When people get upset that I am reading or teaching from a digital Bible (By the way, that confrontation is a rarity.),…
“Rob Bell is in the news again.” My wife mentioned this to me the other day. I wasn’t aware of all the details in that moment, so I simply sighed. Bell made headlines this week via an interview he and his wife took part in with Oprah Winfrey.…
I’ll admit it. I’m feeling edgy as I write this post. I just finished reading an article via Relevant Magazine’s website entitled “5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit About the Bible.” It has layers and layers of comments with all the diversity that you might expect.…
I led a workshop and Half-Track on technology in ministry at KidMin last month. I shared a little about Bible software and message prep, attendees had some great suggestions for free study resources. Check this out, maybe you will find something new, and if you know of a useful online study resource share it in the comments.…
There are all sorts of ‘hot topics’ in our culture. In my opinion, as leaders, we need to be proactive in addressing these issues. Unfortunately, many times we tend to just let them come to us rather than proactively leading our people and equipping them to navigate conversations like: same-sex attraction/partnership gay marriage legalization of marijuana Then there are some other topics that we tend to just let go unaddressed in the church context like: the role of women in the church specific (defers from context to context) spiritual gifts navigating the church and state boundaries These are all issues that are too often left unaddressed, and therefore, they become “unspoken truths” that leave people to drown in their own assumptions. …
