Yesterday I introduced several thought-provoking findings from the Cardus Education Survey, conducted to answer the question:
Do the motivations for private religious Catholic and Protestant schooling in North America align with graduate outcomes?
In yesterday’s post, I highlighted the findings related to education’s impact on spiritual formation. Today I am highlighting the findings related to cultural and community engagement.Continue reading
I’ve found an extremely enlightening study that provides some answers to this question and I wanted to share some of the key insights here.
An independent research organization called Cardus released a report last year on an extensive study they conducted with the largest-ever sample of Christian school graduates in North America. The key question was this:
Do the motivations for private religious Catholic and Protestant schooling in North America align with graduate outcomes?Continue reading
This is my third post in a series called “Letters For Christian Armour”.
Dear Children,
Have you ever wondered why a belief in Jesus leads some to become a passionate Christian but not others?
Many people assume that believing in Jesus should immediately result in a changed life. Depending on the individual, it may. For many others, however, there is a gap between the moment of belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the experience of a truly transformed life. I was stuck in that gap for a long time. I want to make sure you understand why belief alone does not automatically translate to transformation. Continue reading
My heart has been especially heavy this week. My second cousin, in her late 30’s, was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. A more distant teenage cousin passed away unexpectedly. A 19-year-old girl Bryan and I know lost her fight with cancer. I cried while reading a story about thousands of Ugandan children who suffer from “nodding disease,” which causes seizures and has led parents to tie their children to trees to keep them safe – as if starvation and war weren’t enough in Uganda.
I have been praying daily for all of these people and their families. This morning, I started to feel like my prayers have been an ongoing petitionary sequence of “please Lord,” so I made an effort to subsequently thank God for all of the blessings in my life.
Thank you Lord for our home. Thank you for all of our food. Thank you for my loving husband. Thank you for my three beautiful children. Thank you for the health of all of us. Thank you for all of our wonderful parents. Thank you for both of our jobs. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
After praying this, I felt intensely guilty and literally could not continue praying. The stark contrast between “please Lord, be with my cousin while she fights for her life” and “thank you Lord for our health” made me want to crawl into a tiny hole of shame.Continue reading
My twins love to do things that annoy each other (shocking, right?). I used to tell them that they are each free to do what they want as long as they are not hurting something or someone. I tried to emphasize the value of their respective freedoms. Then, in the car one day, Kenna started making (very) annoying sounds. When I asked her to stop, she said, “Mommy, I am free to do what I want if it doesn’t hurt you.”
Oh wow. I had created a big problem. I hadn’t predicted where this talk of freedom would head. (That looks pretty obvious in retrospect. I know.) At that precise moment, the emphasis on “freedom” in our family transitioned to thoughtfulness.Continue reading
I thrive on control.
I love projects that can be broken into goals, tasks and success or failure criteria. Nothing motivates me more than the opportunity to strive toward the successful completion of something. I actually have spreadsheets that outline every hour of my life with a color code for the activity so I can understand exactly where my time goes. I even have spreadsheets for my kids’ lives!
For a major “control freak” like me, having kids is a real wake-up call to the fact that there are some very important things in life that cannot be controlled via spreadsheet (gasp). I didn’t realize that, however, until a few months ago when I was trying to identify why I was always mad at my twins. Aside from the fact that they were being typical 3-year-olds, they were not behaving according to “my plan.” I had the mentality that perfect parenting could lead to perfect kids. I certainly never thought my parenting was perfect, but every time they misbehaved I felt it was a direct indictment of the quality of my parenting, and that led to misplaced frustration. . .at them. When they were good, I attributed it to me, and when they were bad, I attributed it to me even more so.Continue reading
The Wall Street Journal featured a story Friday on “Mormons and Baptism by Proxy.” Mormons believe in performing a temple rite that gives members an opportunity to obtain salvation for their ancestors. The practice has been in the news this week because Holocaust survivors and their descendants are outraged that Mormons have been baptizing those who died at the hands of Nazis – accusing Mormons of “rebranding” Jewish souls. The Mormon Church has responded by apologizing for these baptisms, which were not of members’ ancestors.
I am amazed that people are so offended by this religious activity that does not impact a non-Mormon believer. If you believe that the Mormons have done something through baptism to actually impact your ancestor’s soul, then perhaps you should become a Mormon – that implies you believe what they believe. If you don’t believe that the Mormons have done something through baptism that would actually make any difference, why do you care what they are doing? More specifically, why are you offended and calling for response from the Mormon Church? I don’t care if a Satanist comes along and baptizes my ancestors for the devil. I don’t believe that can impact me or my ancestors so I’m not offended by the belief.Continue reading
Every time I read my kids their “Children’s Bible,” my overly analytical mind starts contemplating just how hard it is going to be to teach them all they should know about the Bible. It seems like an infinite task ahead when we are still at the (age-appropriate) point of “God created everything” and “God loves you.”
This ambiguity and complexity has made me reflect on the importance of how Christian parents approach teaching kids about the Bible. If we are not careful to teach the facts of the Bible itself, we can effectively end up teaching a specific set of our own interpretations and feelings. Consider the implications of these three classifications (facts, interpretations and feelings).Continue reading
This is the second post in a series called “Letters For Christian Armour”.
Dear Children,
I recently noticed something very disconcerting in the mirror: two strands of gray hair. My heart fell into my stomach. At 35, I felt a tangible sense of my mortality like never before. I had crossed the divide from young to . . . well, not young.
When I was in my early 20’s, my dear grandpa George told me that he distinctly remembered the age when he no longer felt like a young man himself: 33. At the time, I was incredulous! Though it was still a decade away, I couldn’t imagine anyone feeling old at 33. I didn’t ask grandpa why he felt old at that age, but after my gray hair experience I think I know the answer: that was when grandpa started going bald. I bet it was his first undeniable sign of physical decay, like gray hair was for me.Continue reading
Last weekend my husband and I attended Pastor Mark Driscoll’s “Real Marriage” conference. If you’re not familiar with him, he is a pastor of a “megachurch” in Seattle and recently released a best-selling book called “Real Marriage”. The conference was basically four mini-sermons over the course of Friday night and Saturday morning on key points from the book.
The sessions weren’t interactive except for Pastor Mark’s challenge to score ourselves in two areas and talk about it later. On Friday night, we were asked to each score how good our friendship is. We had written the exact same high score. Check! We gave ourselves a mutual pat on the back for having a great marriage and retired for the night.Continue reading
