Tag: Youth

  • Failure, control, and empowering kids in the church

    Failure, control, and empowering kids in the church

    The challenge of the Passion Predictions is that they force us to confront our failure to follow Jesus, to love in the way he teaches.

  • Our teens are overcommitted. Here’s Why.

    Our teens are overcommitted. Here’s Why.

    Mental health, anxiety, depression. Teens are facing more challenges than ever. Because we made it this way.

  • So This is Where We Are

    So This is Where We Are

    SO THIS IS WHERE WE ARE Teenage survivors speak out. The media follows the story. Some grown-ups pass pictures of the teens with targets on their chests. An adult talk show host teases a teen for not getting into all the schools. Calls come for advertisers to pull ads from her show. Some don’t. One…

  • Not the Sacraments, But the Sacramental

    Not the Sacraments, But the Sacramental

    A Fad That emerging church stuff is just a fad. the young priest said to me. This was right after I told him I had just come back from a conference. It was 2010 and a group of emergence Episcopalians sponsored a church planting conference called Episcopal Village. It was a clear nod to Emergent Village.…

  • How to blame youth for injustice

    How to blame youth for injustice

    So you want to learn how to blame youth for injustice in your city? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I think the way Baltimore’s Freddie Gray protests have been handled can serve as a great template for assigning blame to a defenseless population. First you have to start with a simmering kettle that is…

  • How Generosity Could Save the Church

    How Generosity Could Save the Church

    I’m going to come right out and say it. The economics of future-proofing the church are directly dependent on the generosity of older generations. If the church as we know it is to survive the next two decades, it’ll be because something changed. Either we changed or the culture changed. Or maybe the circumstances changed. Or all…

  • Childproofing Church

    Order, stumbling blocks, and what real Christian community looks like a Homily for  Proper 18 A  |  Text: Matthew 18:15-20   what we mean by sin When Jesus speaks to the disciples in this passage, He speaks of sin against each other. This isn’t so much fault-finding, which we all do so easily, but sin-naming.…

  • Making a church for all

    Making a church for all

    My entire life, I’ve felt lesser. As if my opinion didn’t matter. In church, that is. In the world, it was a completely different story. I was a good student, Honor Society and all that. In high school, I co-chaired a youth initiative for the regional community foundation and served the state on its youth…