After 85 days of BP’s oil rig spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the cap is finally on. That’s good, but it’s definitely not good enough. I’ve been thinking a lot about starting over recently—mostly about money, but also about mistakes. On one hand, we live in a society that allows people to declare [...]

I think Lucy grew up and went to work for Millsaps College in the Admissions and Financial Aid departments—and I feel like Charlie Brown. Part of the reason I asked Devin to apply to so many colleges (31: apparently a Fairview High School record) was so that he’d have lots of options. After visiting a [...]

Jim Hancock shared an interesting article from Wired magazine called “Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution.” First, I like the description of intrinsic motivation: We have a biological drive. We eat when we’re hungry, drink when we’re thirsty, have sex to satisfy our carnal urges. We also have a second drive—we respond to rewards and [...]

According to this article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Danny Passmore was arrested for aggravated sexual assault of a child. I always get sad when I hear about these kinds of things–mostly for the victims. I’ve worked with young people as a teacher and youth minister my entire adult life, and I see the devastating effects [...]

I was going back through some of my notes from our college search process with Devin, and here are a few things we were told that I found interesting: First, regarding athletic scholarships: 118 colleges play NCAA Division I football, and 238 play Division III. Certainly, we hear more about the NCAA teams, because so [...]

I was listening to the local Christian radio station the other day, and that was the tag line used to describe the host of one of their shows: “The poster child for God’s unconditional love.” To be honest, I don’t actually listen to Christian radio all that much–I’m more of a Classical music guy, which [...]

Guys get the reputation (often honestly) for not wanting to follow directions, either verbally or in writing. We’d prefer to do it ourselves, convinced that we can find where we’re going or that we can put together that cabinet without trying to decipher the diagrams. I’m sure there’s a great faith lesson here, as well, [...]

The winner of a Koran recital contest and general knowledge competition organized by Islamist militant group al Shabaab in Somalia was rewarded with an AK-47, two hand grenades, an anti-tank mine, and a computer. Read the full story for more. Here’s my dilemma: I’ve been to Christian churches that practiced “sword drills,” where people looked [...]

First, this is just plain fun. Ceremonies like weddings should have more expressions of fun like this. Second, isn’t it interesting to think about how different generations respond to this sort of thing? This would’ve been unheard of 30 years ago; 60 years ago, it would’ve felt like an affront to the institution of marriage, [...]

Affirmative Action is one of those policies that always seems to have controversy around it, and kids in my youth ministries usually have staunch opinions that either mirror or are completely antithetical to those held by their parents. Seldom do I hear a teenager (or many adults, for that matter) talk about hotbutton issues like [...]