Men, I recently went to see Cars 3 with my bride and our oldest grandson.  I loved it!  I encourage every man reading this blog to take his kids to see this great animated movie.  Better yet go with your father, who, of course, is the grandfather of your kids.  The truth be told, I fell…

Since I live in the northwoods, I have little access to a good fitness center.  However, I have been fascinated by several articles about Crossfit and SoulCycle fitness centers.  Casper ter Kuile of  Harvard Divinity School has noticed how gyms are starting to fill spiritual and social needs for many nonreligious people.  With over four million users,…

A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of a 37-year-old social media consultant who wrote on Twitter her concern for a friend not communicating.  “I don’t hear from my friend for a day – my thought, they don’t want to be my friend anymore,” she wrote, appending the hashtag #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike.  Soon thousands of people offered…

Recently at the conclusion of a Sunday morning service in our church I closed the service with prayer.  I had a picture of  people  standing by a door, wondering if they should cross the threshold.  Thresholds can be  important markers, helping us  interpret our progress on the  spiritual journey.  John O’Donohue asks,  “At which threshold am I now standing?  At this time in…

Be warned men, you will be afflicted by  the “Noonday Devil” on your journey to wholeness in Christ.  This is the term given to the sin of spiritual sloth and  discouragement, known as” acedia.”   The desert fathers of the fourth century called acedia, the noonday devil –  “destruction that wastes at noonday” (Ps. 91:6), because during the hottest part of…

I am preparing a sermon on Habakkuk.   Eugene Peterson says this  about Habakkuk. “That God-followers don’t get preferential treatment in life always comes as a surprise.  But it’s also a surprise to find that there are few men and women within the Bible who show up alongside us as such moments….Most prophets, most of the time,…

“We live in a world full of males who have prolonged their adolescence.  They are neither boys nor men. They live, suspended as it were, between childhood and adulthood, between growing up and being grownups.  Let’s call this kind of male Ban, a hybrid of both boy and man (Darrin Patrick).”  “The Peter Pan Syndrome” or “failure…

Stu Weber in his book “The heart of the tender warrior” observes that a man’s greatest strength is “staying power.”  This is  particularly seen  in men being able to make promises and then keeping them.  He quotes Lewis Smedes, “When a man make a promise, he creates an island of certainty in a heaving ocean of uncertainty….when you…

Anthony Esolen in his new book, “Out of the ashes” gives the reader a “trigger warning” regarding a quote from Henry James’ novel, The Bostonians, in which the character, Basil Ransom expresses his desire to save men from the most “damnable feminization.”  I have often used the term “feminizing” in my blogs.  The quote expresses the changing climate  of the culture with the passing of…

As one of the elders in our Evangelical Free church, I am committed  to supporting, encouraging  and working alongside our new pastor, who is a young man (34).  As his head elder, I am 75. I often think back to the days when I was young pastor.  Recently I was reflecting on the three years (age 32-35), when I…