Posts with the category “student-parents”

When I was first starting in Student Ministry, the big danger everyone was talking about was the idea of Relative Truth and Postmodern thinking. My argument was that if we can all make our own truth o...  Read More

I pulled out my summer clothes last weekend. I was already in the garage doing some cleaning and organizing, and it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. So I thought, “Spring is here! I might as well pul...  Read More

I sometimes get headaches when I don’t drink coffee in the morning.It’s my cross to bear.I don’t make a big deal of it; it’s just something I live with.Also, I’m still recovering from a concussion. I’...  Read More

There’s a scene in the Office that is deeper than the characters looking in a dump for sales leads they had mistakenly thrown away. Standing in the middle of the Scranton City Dump Michael and Dwight ...  Read More

There’s a theological viewpoint that has gained some traction fairly recently that includes the doctrine of “Limited Atonement.” To oversimplify, the belief is that Christ’s death was only for “the el...  Read More

Philip Yancey, in What’s So Amazing About Grace?, recounts the story of a bunch of professors at Oxford University who were sitting around one day arguing about the primary differences between various...  Read More

Misha and I stopped paying for cable nearly 20 years ago. Before streaming services took over, we decided to go with what we could find on the networks we could pick up with our TV antenna. We missed ...  Read More

One of Plato’s most famous ideas was his allegory of the cave. To oversimplify, he suggested that most humans are like prisoners in a cave, only able to see shadows on the back wall. Because those sha...  Read More

One of the Parkers’ go-to parenting books is Parenting with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. For a while it was used in some school districts as a structure for classroom management. To ov...  Read More

Dignity. Always dignity.  -Don LockwoodMy most embarrassing moment (out of the many I’ve had) happened on my high school senior trip. We were on our way to Washington, DC, and stopped at a rest stop...  Read More

I’m pretty sure most people would agree with the idea that things are not as they should be, even though we see beauty and joy all around us.People die.People don’t treat others the way they should.Pe...  Read More

I love my wife. More than anything in this world. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and I feel most complete as a person when I’m with her.But I have to admit to you that there are ways I don’t ...  Read More

I started my social media journey in college, flitting in and out of chat rooms, mostly to argue with people about politics and the existence of God. At the time, a quick response could take several m...  Read More

One of my favorite concepts to communicate to the church is something Mark Oestreicher probably put most clearly: “Teenagers are not a problem to solve, but a wonder to behold.” They have so much to b...  Read More

When I think about the things that have had the most impact on the lives of the Parker kids, the big moments leap out at me first. Moving from one state and church to the next, athletic and academic s...  Read More

There are moments in our lives when we are given the opportunity to “put our money where our mouths are”. We go to church, we sit in Bible studies, we listen to Christian radio, we may even maintain a...  Read More

What if we truly believed this stuff is true?What if we believed that God created the world, has infinite wisdom, power, and love, and that He knows how life works best?What if we believed that we hum...  Read More

I love square dance. When Misha and I were newly married, we spent several Thursday nights with the Arky Stars, a square dance club that met at the local Methodist church. We were by far the youngest ...  Read More

I’ve only tried to play Mousetrap a couple of times that I can remember. The TV commercials made it seem like a non-stop romp of fun, complete with traps and families bonding with laughter. In reality...  Read More

I have nutgrass in my lawn. I think the normal name for it is nutsedge, but at any name it’s a pesky weed. It’s a different color than the other grass and grows taller and faster, also. I spend more t...  Read More

It's tax time, that glorious moment when we list our income, assets, and profits for the government to claim a portion.Every year I worry that I missed something, left off a zero (LoL), or put a comma...  Read More

When I was younger I didn't care so much about wearing the right thing at the right time. Give me a pair of athletic shorts or ripped pair of jeans and an oversized t-shirt and I would be just fine. E...  Read More

My first jobs were with a family friend, our neighbor John Wayne Coletrane. He was about as country as you could get. He shared a large garden between our families and he set up as many money-making o...  Read More

The human condition is fraught with comparison. We evaluate each other, we size each other up, we compete and fight for better resources than the people next to us. Call it survival of the fittest, se...  Read More

There are moments in our cultural experience when the public persona of a celebrity is stripped away and we see someone "for who they really are". For some it looks like an angry tirade when they don'...  Read More

It's the biggest question we have to answer as believers: Who is Jesus?Is He a prophet, a good teacher, or a human who became God? Or is He God in flesh, the Son of God who died for the Sin of humanki...  Read More

I've had some dirty jobs in my life. Outside of our annual Muck War, the various Student Ministry messes and plumbing mishaps I sometimes have to address, I've worked at Sonic Drive In, Pizza Hut, and...  Read More

I can't remember a time when I was in mortal danger. Probably the closest I've ever been was when I rolled my dad's '65 Ford into the ditch when I wasn't supposed to drive it at all. In the moment it ...  Read More

I like to teach without teaching.We pick up messages all the time from our environment, from subtext, and from visual aesthetic that conveys information without explanation. I can generally tell in a ...  Read More

I was always a compliant child when I was young. I don't remember very many times when I was in trouble, though I did get a few spankings for throwing rocks at girls and a couple of times for fighting...  Read More

Do you remember the song from Sesame Street, "One of These Things is Not Like the Other"?One of these things is not like the other,One of these things doesn't belong.Can you tell which thing is not li...  Read More

My memories are full of snapshots from my childhood. They may be flawed and marred by the passage of time, but they give me insight into the formative years of my life.I remember one time when I was a...  Read More

There are moments in our lives when chaos rules the day. Forces from all around remind us that we really don’t have much control in this world.Yet we continue to grasp for control.We know the verse Ce...  Read More

If you could ask for anything, and you knew for sure the answer would be "yes", what would you ask for?One of my struggles as a leader is asking for help and delegating responsibility. A common occurr...  Read More

I don't know who needs to hear this, but God is in control, and He has your best in mind.We too often get so caught up in the details and disasters that surround us in the moment that we forget to loo...  Read More

If you haven't seen the 1986 movie The Mission, it's worth a watch. In addition to an oboe solo that will stick with you for days, the story puts into contrast 2 sides of religion that we've been high...  Read More

In 2009 I took a group of teenagers to South Dakota on a mission trip. As part of our cultural exploration day, we took a side-trip to Devil's Tower, Wyoming. In the middle of a vast plain, a single t...  Read More

Take a moment and write down 8 characteristics of someone who you would consider for leadership in our church. Most of us imagine a leader as someone who has a dominant personality, strong vision, ext...  Read More

Behavioral psychologists like BF Skinner have given us a picture of how a temptation becomes a habit. A stimulus presents itself, followed by a response, and then a reward. The nature of the reward (N...  Read More

The LIFE WITH GOD posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to disco...  Read More