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Wait - Now Money Can Buy Happiness?

What is the relationship between money and happiness? A recent piece in The Atlantic highlighted research contradicting scholarly consensus holding that after a certain point of material prosperity, there is a corresponding decline or flattening in the increase of happiness.

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Children of God

As a very young youth pastor, I am going through my fair share of ups and downs. But at the same time, I have been able to experience these young souls who are starting to grow in their faith. Seeing these young souls become more in love with Jesus Christ is a tremendous blessing as a youth pastor. At the same time, I have been learning how intricate ministry can be...

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Shavuot and the Christian significance of Jewish holidays

I’m not entirely Jewish, but my Twitter rabbi is. I was speaking with her on the phone about Shavuot, the Jewish Feast of Weeks that this year runs from May 14 to 16. So what is Shavuot? Along with Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, Shavuot is one of three Shalosh Regalim, or pilgrimage festivals, during which all Jews were to report to the Temple in Jerusalem to present offerings to God. Shavuot is directly connected to Passover. On the second day of Passover...

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Batting .300

We've read the stats, and alarm bells are going off - young adults are fleeing the church! Well, the word fleeing may be a little harsh, but the truth is young adults are leaving the church at a frightening rate. I recently sat in a room with a few hundred people and listened to a report on this topic. The stat that stuck in my mind? Only one out of three young adults is still attending a church...

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Tim Lambesis and the Limits of Labels

A tragedy has occurred and people are reeling. Others are basking – even gloating – about another public Christian who has seemingly fallen from grace. Tim Lambesis, the affable, charismatic and thoughtful front-man for the metal band As I Lay Dying, has been arrested for allegedly attempting to pay a hit-man to assassinate his estranged wife. Fans are shocked and confused while detractors - and in the metal world there are many - are loving every minute...

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Your People

Your people make a difference. Pastors, staff, volunteers and your entire congregation represent your church in the community. The words they say and the way they act communicate something about who you are as an organization. When others interact with them, they are forming an opinion about your church based on those people, even if they’ve never visited your building, or seen your brochure or website...

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Q&A with JJ Heller

Over 4 years ago, when "Under The Radar" was only a few months old, one of our early listeners introduced us to the music of JJ Heller. She was a fairly obscure artist at the time and was about to get her big break that has made her a more recognizable name in the CCM world. However JJ and husband Dave's vision hasn't changed much at all. They are still creating heart-felt songs about real life and in response to a God that keeps teaching new lessons...

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ESPN's Surprisingly Civil Debate about Sin and Homosexuality

NBA player Jason Collins made headlines this week with his announcement that he is gay. Collins is the first player in the four major American sports leagues to do so. During an ensuing discussion of Collins on ESPN's Outside the Lines, analyst Chris Broussard stated that as a Christian, he believes that practicing a homosexual lifestyle is a sin. LZ Granderson, a fellow ESPN contributor who self-identifies as Christian and gay, responded on the program, resulting in a discussion...

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Dove's Beauty Campaign and the Danger of Always Looking at Ourselves

By now you’ve surely seen “Dove Real Beauty Sketches,” part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. In the video, a sketch artist sits behind a curtain and draws a portrait of a woman as she describes her own appearance. The same artist then produces a second sketch of the woman, this time based on another person’s description of her.

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Changing The Statistics in Tampa Bay

Motion Church is trying to change the statistics in Tampa Bay, Florida, the second least-religious city in the U.S. Only 35 percent of Tampa Bay’s population attends church regularly, according to the 2010 U.S. Religion Census. “People come here for fun in the sun, and are oftentimes running from something in their past,” says Motion Church pastor Aaron Lewis...

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Becoming Kingdom Builders

"Wealth Builders continue to amass wealth for themselves no matter how much they make, but Kingdom Builders change the rules of the game. They still try to make as much money as they can, but they do it in order to give it away. They use the wealth to fund God’s church and its mission in the world." (The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren) When Marvin Veltkamp read those words several years ago, they weighed on his heart and grew to inspire Kingdom Builders, a new initiative in the Southwest Michigan Kingdom Enterprise Zone...

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"Just Pray"

Last week, I spent time in southern California at the CRC’s Prayer Summit. More times than I can count on my hand, the person I was talking to did something unexpected: after talking about issues and contemplating with deep, heartfelt honesty what was going on in their church to contribute to the issue, they would suddenly brighten up and say, with equal parts trust and resignation, “I guess we just have to pray.”...

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Powerful Transformation at Water's Edge Church

Two years ago, when the founding pastor resigned, Water’s Edge leaders wondered if the church plant in Birch Bay, Washington, should keep going or be shut down. Carberry was asked to help out and six months later was officially called by the parenting churches and local classis to pastor the church during a restart. Since then, attendance has grown from about a dozen to 40 each week. Though Water’s Edge may not be very big, there are some big and powerful stories coming out of it. Diane’s story is one of them...

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Earth Day Won't Save Us

When I was little, I had a strange obsession with the environment. I collected animal stickers, watched endless documentaries on the Discovery Channel and stayed up late at night worrying about the rain forest. It was a strange concern, one that made my parents and schoolteachers call me "mature for my years." But my concern, as I see it now, was the development of guilt, the anxiety that I continue to carry: How could I learn about oil spills and endangered species at school and not do anything? How could I...

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Making the Best of a Short-Term Situation

There are few things as sad to me, for both sides of the aisle, as churches who fail to recognize what an amazing asset short-term young adult attendees can be to their ministry and church culture. Many churches see them as consumers and fall all over themselves trying to give them what they want when what many of those young adults want is to serve...

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Creating a System That Sustains

In California, area church multiplication leaders are working together to create a system for identifying, assessing, training, and coaching successful church planters. Leaders gathered in March to explore the Church Leadership Assessment. This tool provides a thorough view of a potential church planter based on 34 “essential competencies” that are vital for church planters. It uses input from the potential planter’s colleagues, superiors, and people who have been discipled by the prospective planter.

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How Big a Stick Should Christian Foreign Policy Carry in North Korea?

The farther you get from Seoul, the more panicked people are that a nuclear holocaust is on the menu in North Korea. April showers bring May flowers, but they usually also bring saber rattling from Pyongyang. This is designed for certain concessions on aid, or moderated sanctions at the United Nations or more regional interests. Nuclear weapons have long been a kind of coming-of-age ritual for the world’s developed, power-broker states. But the nuclear brinkmanship unfolding north of the 38th parallel has ...

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Battling the Busyness Bug

Walk up to the average person on the street and ask, “How are you?” The common response will be either a quick “fine” or “I am SO busy.” Now, we know that there may be many mores responses, but for the sake of argument the “I am busy” mantra is very common. The air we breathe in America is built on busyness. A busyness that never slows down enough to ask the question: “Is my busyness self induced or from outside forces?” America is a culture where the fast, productive, and efficient win the race. Busy is good… naps are bad...

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Smart Drugs: Playing Fair or Playing God?

Last month, Will Oremus wrote a piece in Slate about his pill-a-day habit. Oremus, like many Americans, has been diagnosed with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is marked by poor attention span, impulse control and hyperactivity. Many people with ADHD take drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which manage these symptoms by controlling how many neurotransmitters your body releases into your brain. But people with ADHD aren't the only folks who benefit from these drugs... 

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Reaching College Students in Phoenix and Tucson

Secular college campuses are a huge, widely untapped mission field. Studies show that although 80 percent of Christian teens plan to keep up their faith in college, in reality 40 to 50 percent of these same students end up leaving their faith by the time they graduate. There is a great need for campus ministries that reach Christian students as well as students who have had little or no exposure to Christianity. So how do these campus ministries draw in both students who are familiar with faith and those who...

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Obscurity: The Elusive, Unwanted Gift

There are moments in life – times like funerals and Good Friday services are really good ones – where we should and need to reflect on our own fragility. The truth of the matter is that we have the learned ability, for the majority of our lives, to put off thinking about things of ultimate, existential importance. And it’s easy to understand why: spending time contemplating depravity, death, societal decline, cancer and our own weaknesses is the sort of depressing activity that only...

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Gleanings from Readings - You are a Theologian!

Did you know that you are a theologian? Whenever you think or hear or read or say anything about God, you are doing theology. Theological study is under attack and some of the attacks come from those who attended seminary. Too many pastors have concluded that seminary was a “spiritual desert” for them and continue to critique the seminary of today because of their past experience. I believe that such a critique needs to be re-examined. Calvin Seminary and other seminaries have been changing to address the concerns raised and are now focusing upon whole person formation for ministry...

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PLIA Helps Students Follow Christ at Dordt College & Beyond

This past Spring Break, 135 students from Dordt College spread out to 14 different locations across North America as part of the PLIA (Putting Love Into Action) program. Instead of doing what most college students do and using Spring Break to focus on themselves, these students used the time to serve others. We caught up with a couple of them and this is what they had to say...

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Why History's Bible Series Was Worth It

We’ve now reached the conclusion of the landmark History series The Bible. A record 10 million viewers plus have tuned in each week to this sweeping portrayal of the narrative of Scripture. The Bible has even surpassed American Idol - a Biblical irony, if you think about it. It’s always a risky prospect to attempt to portray a familiar story. The portrayals never quite seem to come out right...

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Why We Shouldn't Be So Quick to Set Sail with Rob Bell

I'm not a "farewell, Rob Bell" kind of person. I appreciate much of what he does. He caught a lot of flak for Love Wins, but I think he asks questions that Christians can and do need to answer. But I'm worried. Hear me out. There are plenty of culture warriors who won't give Rob Bell the time of day, especially now that he's publicly declared his support for same-sex marriage. I think the topic of same-sex marriage deserves careful, thoughtful and kind dialogue. But I'll save that topic for another day. To me, the most disconcerting aspect of what Bell recently said is this...

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The Current State of Christian Hip-Hop

The gospel hip-hop scene from an outside perspective: What you’re looking at is a camaraderie of brothers who love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. They are doing what they love to do, and want to represent the Lord in their lips and their lives and their words and works - through their lyrics, on the road, with their wives, and in their churches...

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Mentoring Program Encourages Kids to Stay in School

According to a superintendent in the Wyoming school system, by seventh grade students have made up their minds whether they are going to graduate from high school or drop out. A positive adult role model can play a vital role in giving at-risk kids the motivation to graduate from high school and even go on to college. A new program sponsored by One Wyoming aims to fight poverty by encouraging at-risk kids to ...

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The Character Missing from History's Bible

There’s been a lot of buzz about History’s new series The Bible, especially after the first episode earned huge ratings. As The Bible has begun to unfold, I’ve found myself intrigued by some credible versions of ancient stories. I’ve always wondered just how the conquest of Jericho really played out, and the frantic pursuits through the narrow alleys of that little town, as envisioned here, gave me greater respect for the courage of those spies. What’s more, the actors actually seemed grimy and sweaty in the desert, their hair looking like it hadn’t seen shampoo in a lifetime.

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Personalizing Netflix and the Danger of Closed Systems

Netflix - along with all of the other big-data algorithms that insist on telling me what I like, want or need - is shrinking my life. I just hit the “Personalize” button on my Netflix page and was prompted to input and rate all of the movies I’d watched in the past few years. Then, amazingly, after just a few seconds of processing, a “Top Ten for John” list appeared. Wow. The personalize button was then replaced ...

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Modern Family, Social Space & Missional Communities

All cultures throughout history have been viewed by the proceeding cultures through the use of cultural artifacts – cookware, weaponry, clothing, jewelry, art, etc. Perhaps one of the most telling artifacts from 20th and 21st century culture are our TV shows, reflecting both what we desire our world to be and what we already know our culture to be. While this could be traced all the way back to the days of black and white, let me just highlight the most popular TV shows of the past 20 years and talk a little about what they might mean for North American culture...

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Exercising Mind and Body: Transformational Fitness in the Whatcom KEZ

Three and a half years ago Sean Hall, church planter at Fountain Parish in Whatcom Kingdom Enterprise Zone (KEZ), realized he needed a lifestyle change. He was out of shape and knew he needed to be more intentional about getting active. Hall joined the local CrossFit gym. Below is a video featuring Rich Froning, a well-known crossfit competitor. In this video Froning informs us on what crossfit is and how faith plays a role in his workouts...

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UTR Brings the Hymns For Hunger Tour to Chicago (March 21-25)

We are excited to partner with 12-time Dove Award-winning artist Cindy Morgan and critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Andrew Greer on the "Hymns For Hunger Tour" presented by Food For The Hungry. This tour has some exciting goals:  (a) to give an audience a joyful, spiritual night full of folk-Americana remakes of hymns, spirituals, and some originals, (b) to partner with each host venue to benefit a local organization helping the needy in that community, and (c) to draw awareness to both the national and global needs as it relates to hunger...

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Gleanings from Readings - The Value of Theology-

A few months ago, I read four books in five days.  I relished this seasonal opportunity (over Christmas) to do a lot of reading and reflecting.  As I promised in my initial Medenblog, I will share some of the gleanings from these readings...

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Interfaith Prayer Vigils and Worshiping the One True God

The outcry over the censuring of a Lutheran pastor for participating in the Newtown interfaith prayer vigil has re-opened a nagging theological can of worms, one centered around this question: how do we determine who is worshiping the true God? On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Nicholas Wolterstorff was asked on PBS whether Muslims believe in the same God as Christians. He responded that since they, like us, hold the Hebrew Scriptures sacred, yes, they believe in the same God, “though they misconstrue the nature of God and His relationship to Jesus.”...

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The Phantom Tollbooth Interviews Dave Trout

The Phantom Tollbooth was one of the first Christian music and entertainment online magazines, around for over 16 years (since the early days of the Internet).  I was honored to be interviewed by them about the past, present, & future of UTR.  Better yet, that interview piece was the "cover article" for the month of February 2013 on their site.  With their permission, we are reposting the interview here...

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What Diversity Can Do

Diversity is a big word in my world right now. I’ve come to realize that, professionally-speaking, we work with a very diverse group of people who display a large diversity in skill sets and abilities. I get that and I appreciate that. What I didn’t realize is the extent to which diversity exists in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). The church is full of just as many or even a larger diversity of people...

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The Most 'Bible-minded' City in America

Every city needs a claim to fame, I suppose. Boulder, Colo. is America’s fittest city. Washington D.C. is America’s richest city. Houston, Texas, is America’s fattest city. Boston, Mass., is America’s brainiest (and drunkest) city. And now, thanks to a recently released study conducted by the Barna Group, we also know who can lay claim to the title of America’s most - and least - “Bible-minded” cities...

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Latino Young Adults & The Church

Since my father and mother came to know the Lord soon after I was born, I don’t remember ever not being part of a Christian family. Being born in another tradition, I remember telling my Sunday school teacher in Puerto Rico that I was a Christian because I was born in a Christian family and being rocked by her answer that I wasn’t because I had not made a public profession of faith...

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How Crumbling Churches Might Save Themselves

An engaging news story recounts how Great Britain’s Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) invested £7 million in renovating St. Paul’s Old Ford church, a “listed” building (as they say in England, describing what Americans would call National Historic Register sites) in London’s down-at-the-heels East End. The church, which is still a church, has also become a community center of sorts, hosting all kinds of non-profits, from tutoring groups to sheltered workshops. The people in the renovated church are all smiles, 24/7...

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What Science Gets Right - and Wrong - About Love

In an Atlantic piece provocatively titled “There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting Love (According to Science),” researcher Barbara Fredrickson is cited as suggesting that love is neither a “long-lasting, continually present emotion that sustains a marriage” nor “the yearning and passion that characterizes young love.” Instead, it is what Fredrickson calls a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.”...

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Church at Work

Many articles and books that make the judgment that the church is “not working” or is “out of touch”. I have the privilege of visiting a number of churches and I want to share a story about seeing a church (actually two churches) at work...

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How to Love Your Church Amidst the Chaos?

Every church has problems. A quick skim through the Bible makes this truth clear. The church of Corinth was immoral. The church of the Thessalonians was obsessed with predicting the return of Jesus. The church in Ephesus was infiltrated with false teachers. Almost every New Testament letter was addressed to churches who had serious problems. Your church might not be all that bad...

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JAM'n in Wyoming

A new multiethnic church plant in Wyoming, Michigan, has been christened “JAM,” short for “Jesus and Me.” Planter Cisco Gonzalez says his vision is that the new church will be a “Spanglish-flavored grassroots movement of reproducing worshiping communities dedicated to reaching and equipping disinterested and unchurched people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.” In keeping with Hispanic culture, JAM seeks to...

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Maturity By Submission

One of the topics I inevitably talk about with most young adult Christians that I know – and one of the most misunderstood topics in the Church at large, in my opinion – is how submission works and how it’s essential to the life of healthy churches/leaders. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a pretty tectonic shift happening in the Church over the last 30-or-so years where the assumed authority of leaders has all but eroded and parish-based church affiliation has given way to ...

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Campus Chaplains..A Key to Engaging Young Adults

I think Home Missions is under-appreciated. The face of missions is changing: North America is more in need of missionaries/missional people than at any other point in the last 100 years or so (I’m no historian…don’t quote me on that number), and countries like Brazil, Nigeria, and South Korea, which used to receive missionaries, are now sending them in droves. It’s becoming an increasingly popular refrain in the North American church, at least in certain crowds, that we need to learn how to be “missional Christians”...

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Is Atheism a Religion? Not Nearly as Much as the Super Bowl

There’s been much hand-wringing of late about the fact that unbelief is on the rise. An increasing number of people self-identify as atheist and as having no particular religious belief. Given the growing numbers, a recent New York Times Room for Debate feature highlighted an atheist "church” in London and posed the question, “Is atheism a religion?” ...

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American Airlines and Intentional Rebranding

There are always going to people who don’t like what you’ve done when announcing a rebranding or your organization.  That’s where American Airlines finds itself now.  After 40 years of using the same branding, the legacy carrier recently revealed a new logo, plane livery and other identity changes...

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Catch & Release Leadership Development

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a chance to find yourself in a church or organization that is really, really good at leadership development. If you have, you’ll know that one of the marks of these kinds of organization is that they’re constantly losing talent. Churches and organizations that are truly effective in leadership development are constantly having to replace leaders – whether they’re a college football coaching staff, a business, a church or a non-profit organization...

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Dear Abby and Jesus as Advice Columnist

Though I confess to not having thought about her in years, as I read the obituary for Pauline Phillips - a.k.a. “Dear Abby” – I quickly recalled a time when thoughts of her work were on my mind often. These were the days when I was a brand-new editor at Marriage Partnership magazine and a good chunk of my job entailed sifting through letters from readers and deciding which questions to pass on to our advice columnists...

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What Style of Preaching Resonates Most With Young Adults?

I felt God calling me to be a pastor when I was nineteen. Preaching as been on my mind ever since, and now that I am finally doing what God has called me to, rarely a waking hour goes by that I don't think about it. I love every part of bringing God's word to His church, and I love listening to good preaching. I know what 'style' of preaching that I prefer, but I wonder what the general preference is among other Christian young adults...

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