Taking Care of Yourself—for real this time!
“Know your strengths, vulnerabilities, and triggers.” Check. “Get used to uncertainty and conflict.” Double check. “Experiment beyond your comfort zone.” Um…really? If […]
Category: Blogathons
Announcing the 4th Annual Back-to-School Blogathon!
Faith ON Campus is excited to announce the next Blogathon:
Back to School | August 6-8, 2013!
I know it probably feels like the summer just started — but the reality is that the new school year is just around the corner — so with that in mind, it’s time to make plans and preparations for this upcoming opportunity to come together for some collective thinking and sharing about how to make the most of this critical time of the year!
That’s what the Back to School Blogathon is all about!
Announcing the 5 Winners of Celibate Sex from Abbie Smith
A BIG THANKS to all who turned out for the 3rd Annual Sex & the Soul Blogathon!! So many great posts — and conversations begun.
And a special THANKS! to Abbie Smith for offering 5 copies of her forthcoming book Celibate Sex: Musings on Being Loved, Single, Twisted, and Holy.
Everyone who Tweeted, Shared, posted, or commented over the three-day event were eligible to win — and randomly assigned a number. Five numbers were then selected — at random — from Random.org.
The WINNERS of a copy of Abbie Smith’s Celibate Sex are:
The Cost of Being a Bridge Builder between LGBTs and the Church
I feel the costs of the corporate LGBT and Church disconnect have been well documented for what this culture war has left in its wake.
The broader LGBT community’s retelling of this story, in most cases, has the Bride acting more like Bridezilla than the Bride who, when the doors swing open for the first time, is standing in her gown, looking as beautiful as she has ever looked, ready to walk down the aisle and be sacramentally joined with God to the person she loves more than any other on the face of the earth.
And the Church’s retelling of this disconnect, at its core, is in most cases one of denominational and congregations division—separating what many thought was once one of the three unbreakable cords tied to the Lord for good works.
4 Sex Lies That College Students Believe
In my 10 years of sharing with singles (primarily college students) I’ve zeroed in on four lies I think we need to overcome in order to lead our students into sexual freedom and, more importantly, their true identity in Christ.
Nice Christians Don’t Talk About Sex
“It seems that more than ever the compulsion today is to identify, to reduce someone to what is on the label. To identify is to control, to limit. To love is to call by name and so open the wide gates of creativity. But we forget names and turn to labels.” –Madeline L’Engle
LGBTQ is the latest in a long list of labels used to identify people with sexual orientations that differ from the heterosexual norm.
The Future Consequences of Present Actions
As a pastor of students, and father of five small children, I am deeply troubled by the statistics describing the sexual practices of today’s young people.
Sometimes I wish I had the ability to sit down with students and allow them to look 5 years, 10 years, or maybe even 15 years into the future — so they could see how their present actions will have a direct impact on their future.
I honestly believe that if more students knew how their choices today would impact their lives in the years to come, they’d make changes in their lives.
At least I hope they would.
The THIRST
Jesus told the Samaritan Woman that ‘whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.’ (John 4:13 emphasis mine)
Never before has this Scripture come screaming at me as it does when I watch some of the interactions of students on the college campus. The phenomenon of dating is evolving, and the church isn’t keeping up. The idea of a more traditional mindset of dating where the guy talks with the family…especially the father…about courting his daughter is nothing more than a manuscript of a 1950’s sitcom that airs reruns on TVLand.
Gone are the ideals of respect, trust, love and commitment.
Maids and Margaritas and Sex on Warm Sand
What would it look like to be content in our waiting and with our sexuality, as both singles and marrieds, not because we’re perfect at waiting for sex or we’re perfectly sexual but because we’re content in our humanity, in our femininity and masculinity, in our longing for union with the trinity?
How Far Is Too Far?
“If God was looking down on you, would it look any different to Him?”
I was in college and struggling with setting physical boundaries with my current boyfriend. I knew that God intended sex for within the confines of marriage and believed there were consequences if I disobeyed, but I wasn’t sure where the line was. How far is too far? I knew I felt shame and guilt for some of the behavior I had engaged in, but was it really wrong or was I over re-acting?
I shared these thoughts with my friend and mentor, Jenn.