If You Need Inspiration, Watch This Jul19

If You Need Inspiration, Watch This

I can’t embed this video, I can only direct you to it. But I hope you click the link, give the 90 seconds it takes to watch it, and then send it on to others. It’s incredible. The video is a powerful and inspiring preview of the coming Paralympics Games in London later this summer. The Paralympics, if you are not yet familiar with them, is an international competition that includes athletes with motion disabilities, cognitive impairment, blindness, cerebral palsy, and amputations, among other things. The first organized competitions were started by some disabled veterans of World War II and have grown over the last half-century...

Mark 10:13-16

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God...

Happiness, Motivation, and the Power of Purpose

In recent weeks we’ve considered happiness from a variety of perspectives: what makes us happy, what doesn’t, and why we’re so bad at distinguishing between the two. Sometimes the insights offered have been surprising: turns out that getting more stuff or making loads of money doesn’t make us happy, while giving money away does. In this TEDTalk, Dan Pink — author of one of my favorites books in recent years, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future — offers another surprise: contrary to popular wisdom, we are rarely motivated or made happy by the traditional rewards and carrots of...

Mark 10:1-12

He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them. Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses...

Is the Church Too Much Like a Crack House? Jul17

Is the Church Too Much Like a Crack House?

If you’re at all familiar with Peter Rollins’ work, you know that he is one of the church’s more provocative writers and thinkers. Author of How (Not) to Speak of God and Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine, Pete is particularly gifted at shocking us into looking at our lives and the gospel – and especially our lives in light of the gospel! – in a new way. In this video from the great folks at Work of the People, Pete says the church reminds him a little too much of a crack house. That is, people take drugs to escape their pain – they’ve ended a relationship, didn’t get the job...