Technology and Kids. . . Good? Bad? Ugly? . . .
Courtesy of: Online Schools Yesterday this infographic on “The Millennial Teenager” was making the rounds. My buddy Doug Fields posted it over on his blog. I gave it a quick look over there and was curious as to how Doug’s…
Read More
14 Takes On Seventeen. . . Julia Bluhm’s Noble Crusade. . . .
Exhibit A. . . both what you see and what you read A 14-year-old has me thinking about body image today. As far back as I can remember, any and every youth culture seminar I’ve presented has included at least…
Read More
Fifty Shades of Grey. . . . Deconstructing the Buzz. . . or, What’s a Christian To Do???
The chatting-behind-closed-doors about the latest cultural literary phenomena is making its way out into the open. Yesterday’s blog post on that heretofore dirty little secret known as the best-selling Fifty Shades of Grey generated loads of responses (phone calls, emails,…
Read More
Fifty Shades of Grey. . . Lady Porn and The Fall of Culture. . . .
The conversation was between me and two of the women in my life. . . my wife and one of my adult daughters. We were driving from church to Costco. The conversation began with some comments and questions about Fifty Shades of…
Read More
Junior Seau, Rachel Ehmke, and Edvard Munch. . .
Rachel Ehmke Every now and then there comes a day when it all gets piled on and you can’t help but think about the common threads that tie certain news stories together. Yesterday I heard about the death of…
Read More
Caring For Cutters – Part 3 on Kids Who Cut
Yesterday I posted a link on Facebook to my blog on cutting. One of my former youth group kids (who is now a mom in her 40s) commented under the link: “Last year, my 9th grade daughter could name 23…
Read More
Inside A Cutter’s Heart – Kids Who Cut, Part 2
If we care at all about kids we should learn to recognize, understand, and answer these visual cries of a generation longing for spiritual truth, emotional healing, and answers. Self-injurious behavior (SIB) or self-inflicted violence (SIV) has been defined as…
Read More
Kids Who Cut – Part 1
As a culture-watcher, I sometimes like to “rewind” as a way to gain perspective on just how much and how fast youth culture has changed. The practice serves to wake me up at times when familiarity with what was once…
Read More
A Dangerous Adolescent Sexual Practice. . . .
Last weekend we held our Hope and Healing for Broken Kids one-day training conference in New Jersey. During one of the breaks, I stepped in on one of the many serious conversations taking place in the room. People were talking…
Read More
Charles Colson: The Bulldog Who Shaped My Life. . . .
“Colson died!” That’s what my buddy Rich Van Pelt told me as he looked up from reading the news on his phone. That was on Saturday. Since then, I’ve been thinking about what Charles Colson meant to the church over…
Read More
Dick Clark. . . Gatekeeper of Youth Culture. . .
The history of popular youth culture as we know it is a short one. Real short. Post-World War II to be exact. And I think a case could be made for the fact that nobody other than Dick Clark served…
Read More
Facebook. . . Friends, Loneliness, And The Liquid Avatar Known as “Me”. . . .
Incredibly connected. Incredibly alone. We’ve been watching that reality unfold for years. We’ve been talking about this great irony as well. Technology has given us an amazing and unprecedented ability to be connected all the time to a greater and…
Read More