In his recent blog post, Application vs. Information , Chris Wesley suggests when they go to church, teens wonder, “What does this have to do with my life?” According to him, “The tendency is to fill their head with doctrine, church history and...
There's a story in the Gospel of Matthew about a woman who hemorrhaged for twelve years.
It's not typically one we pay much attention to.
Why would we? In it's entirety, this woman's story comprises three verses. As with so many of her female...
Whenever I walk into my neighborhood library, I run into a man. His tattered clothes, long scraggly beard, and excess bags reveal his identity as a homeless man.
A few blocks away, I often see another homeless man sitting on a bench outside the...
My students are, in a word, obsessed with the 2012 movie version of Les Miserables. Knowing this, I decided to use Les Mis as the basis for our first, three-week series of the year. This series is written as discussions, designed to be...
I am a musical geek.
Much to my husband's dismay, I listen to soundtracks constantly. Day and night, they're what I blast from Itunes.
Since I first got the soundtrack for The Book of Mormon nearly two years ago, one song has consistently...
Recently, as I was reading through Scripture as part of Margaret Feinberg's 40 Day Wonderstruck by Scripture challenge, I was struck by the Message's paraphrase of 2 Kings 17:32-33, “They honored and worshiped God, but not exclusively… They...
As an only child, my parents instilled in me the belief that I could do and be anything I wanted. An education at an all-girls Catholic high school reinforced this.
Rather than bemoan my gender, I was taught to embrace it; To not fear...
What the book's about: Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming chronicles the author's encounter with Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son and the exploration of Luke's parable prompted by it.
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As I've been reading the Bible in Margaret Feinberg's 40 Day Bible Reading Challenge, I've been struck by the physicality of our faith. Our Christian faith is one that's very much attached to people and places. It is physical, tangible, and real....
This week marks the slow trickle of kids returning to school in my community.
The return to school also means that the start of my fall youth ministry program is imminent. Needless to say, it's a stressful time of year, especially for a Type-A...