What the book's about: Unexpected Gifts is about the formation of community. In it, Christopher Heuertz explores 11 things that often inhibit the formation of community. He then reframes these tensions by exploring the unexpected gifts that...
Today, I'm linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker‘s Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
This week's prompt: Choose.
Throughout my career as a youth worker, I've taken a number of...
Like millions of others, on Sunday, I watched the Oscars. One of my favorite parts of the show was when it’s host, Ellen, ordered pizza. A few segments later, she escorted Edgar, a stunned delivery man carrying three pizzas onto the stage....
The days leading up to the holiday season were incredibly difficult for me, as I kept imagining what should have been.
After Thanksgiving, I even told my husband, “Maybe we shouldn't put up a Christmas tree this year.” He quickly nixed that idea,...
My husband and I were fortunate to have time off during the holidays this year. In addition to connecting with family and friends, traveling, skiing, and relaxing, I enjoyed using some of that time to reflect upon 2013. To that end, today, I'm...
A few weeks ago, a dozen or so high school students sat in my living room and discussed Looking for Alaska by John Greene. This book chronicles the relationships between a group of teenagers living away from home at a boarding school. In many...
Most in the youth ministry world are aware of both research and anecdotes suggesting millennials are leaving the church.
As a youth worker, this breaks my heart. I wholeheartedly believe you cannot be a solo Christian. The church is vital to our...
After a tumultuous first half of the year, at the end of the summer, I found myself craving Scripture like I hadn't in a long time. So I strong-armed my husband into joining me in participating in Margaret Feinberg's Wonderstruck by Scripture...
Two years ago, a young man named Jefferson Bethke released a spoken word video on YouTube called “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus.” Within a day, this video went viral. Person after person shared it, seeming to agree with Bethke's underlying...
On a Sunday morning not all that long ago, I stood behind a young mom and her toddler-aged daughter as they exited church. When they reached the doors in the back of our church, the mom said to her daughter, “Say good-bye to the church.”
The...