SCHOOL: 1967 vs. 2007
A friend sent me an email that began: Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack. 1967 Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2007 School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled [...]
Women and Porn
Porn has traditionally been a male issue. Not any more. In a new study from Brigham Young University, the BYU researchers discovered that “49 percent of the female college students they surveyed find pornography acceptable”. More from the Desertet Morning News: That information is groundbreaking because it is a subject that hasn’t been addressed by [...]
Where People Find Fulfillment
The Pew Research Center has a new study out: A Generation Gap in Behaviors and Values. The telephone survey (conducted from February 16 through March 14, 2007 among a randomly selected, nationally-representative sample of 2,020 adults) shows that while a younger generation of Americans are comfortable with cohabitation and out-of-wedlock children, they still value marriage. [...]
Success
Marty (SBC Outpost) has written a short critique of this article that laments the immaturity of young pastors. One sentence from Dr. Caner’s lamentation caught my attention: I shudder when I read blogs of men who have never grown a single church, or accomplished anything to deserve to have an opinion, criticize those who have [...]
How to Apologize
This article from Christianity Today caught my eye: Speaking Up for Asian Americans: How a Christian book’s racially insensitive content led to a demonstration of true reconciliation. An interview with the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah. When confronted with evidence we have offended others, human nature is to become defensive, to blame the other for misunderstanding, to [...]
Transitions
Sometimes the most interesting conversations in blogs are the off-topic comments in a post. That happened a couple of weeks ago in Art’s blog (12 Witnesses) A commenter asked, “If you were a church’s leading candidate for its vacant senior pastor position, how much leadership would you hope that the associate ministry staff would have [...]
Stress in the Ministry
What does a congregation do when they believe the pastor is approaching burnout? My pastor is a great guy. I didn’t have the opportunity to really get to know him the first four years we were members of the church because I was serving elsewhere as an interim pastor. The past year has been a [...]
Do Young and Old Give Differently?
I’m not questioning the conventional wisdom that senior adults tithe while younger adults do not. Although, maybe I should: I’ve never seen any actual research on the subject and conventional wisdom has a way of turning out to not be so wise when the light is shined on it. Instead, I’m asking about the behavior [...]
