Behavior Change in Younger Children

I’ve been appreciating Brian’s posts on parenting teens. I’ve learned a lot from it. Recently, I read this article on getting behavior change in younger children and I thought it was both helpful and hurtful. First, let me explain the helpful parts.

The Goal of the Crowds

I am continuing to read Ellul’s Meaning of the City.  In chapter four, he is talking about how Jesus relates to crowds by referencing the feeding of 5000 in Mark 6.  As he discusses their relationship, he describes the crowd with a beautiful statement about how it and Jesus relate:

The End of Cain’s Story

I’ve begun reading “The Meaning of the City” by Jacques Ellul. It’s old, but it’s an outstanding book. He points out something I never noticed - that after Cain kills Abel and is then given his punishment and protection by God, Genesis tells us Cain’s reaction: to have a child and build a city. It’s the city that Ellul is interested in, and I was fascinated by his observations.

Failure or Fraud? Neither!

I’m new to pastoral ministry, and I obviously find it quite a bit different then my old job in a large corporation. It’s not harder (or easier), just different. Because it’s so different, I have some ups and downs as I grow accustomed to ministry.  My last seven days haven’t been the best, and this article really helped.

Religious Life in Michigan

Some of you may read USA Today, and caught a survey about the changing nature of religion in the US.  It’s here, and it’s a fairly interesting read.  For instance, it shows what many of us are saying - The nature of religion in the US is changing.

New Testament Hospitality

The Bible commands us to be hospitable in several places (particlulary elders), and I have always assumed I knew what that meant.  You know, have people over for dinner, put visiting missionaries up overnight, things like that.  But in the NT context, I’m not sure I’ve seen it correctly. 

Marriage and the Single Gal

In The Atlantic I read an article by a single lady who is getting older, and she has decided she should consider settling on a man.  The article is rather long, but it gives a lot of insight into our current world.

Campus Culture

I have been following the “Hook-up” culture with some interest, because it is far different than the campus culture when I went to school (no, I’m not going to tell you when that was).  However, I tend to prefer scholarly study over random thoughts on a subject, so I was attracted to this article because it is by a sociologist (Kathleen Bogle) who has studied the culture.  There are two quotes that jumped out at me:

What I Do At Seminary

GRTS is now making the seminary students put some of their papers on a website that is accessible to the public. They are doing this just as my time there winds down, so I don’t have much at the site, but I thought if anyone in my church is interested (or anyone else, for that matter) you can read a couple of my research papers. I don’t have grades on them yet, so you can guess what the grade will be!! Links are below the fold:

I’m Thinking About Sex (Again)

Last week, in this post, I mentioned that I was rethinking my assumptions about sex. Part of my impetus for this was this book by Sam and Bethany Torode, which was very provocative. I want to note that the authors have changed their mind, and they posted a response to their own book here. Since I didn’t agree with all of their original conclusions, this new response is less than persuasive for me.