Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. Genesis 6:11

All of our hearts are sad and heavy after the tragic deaths of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. A young man armed with several guns apparently forced his way into a school and in a matter of minutes, took the lives and futures of so many innocent victims.

Almost immediately, politicians and TV pundits began talking about gun control and the need for more stringent legislation on the sale and possession of firearms. I am fine with that conversation taking place as part of civil dialogue.

I am a gun owner and have been all my life, but I realize it is too easy for some disturbed people to buy them in our sporting good stores. If there can be helpful conversations between the mental health community and our legislators resulting in laws that could eliminate this from our society, then count me in for support.

More importantly, let’s also talk about the subculture of violence in our country. Where is the outrage about the violent video games our kids are playing and the movies that are marketed trumpeting horrible scenes of carnage and bloodshed? At my house, my kids have gaming devices, but there are no games where any kind of weapon takes the life of another person, and my kids do not watch violent movies.

I challenge every parent, regardless of your views of the 2nd Amendment, to take a stand against violence in our homes. Let’s be a people of peace, who are following the Prince of Peace, and let’s teach our children that life is a gift from God which should be cherished, nourished and protected.

Let’s have these difficult conversations, starting in our homes and across the table from our friends, but let’s make sure we are tackling the root of the issue and not just the fruit.

Point your kids in the right direction – when they are old, they won’t be lost. Proverbs 22:6 (Message)

The holidays are especially difficult for people waiting for a prodigal to come home. Many are hoping that children, spouses, and friends will return to their faith and leave the destructive lives they are living. Empty chairs at dinner tables during the holidays are stark reminders that not everyone has decided to follow the Prince of Peace.

Recently, it seems I have spoken with scores who are feeling this pain and often I quote the Scripture above from Proverbs 22:6. I am not attempting to give them simple answers to complex situations, but this promise is rich, still. Most parents are hard on themselves, remembering all their failures when their children were home. All of us who have ventured on this road have stumbled along the way, wishing we had been more intentional with our message or our witness.

This passage is so hopeful, not because it promises an instant result from a prescribed spiritual formula, but because the real hope is not in our prowess as parents, but in the faithfulness of God who created our children in the first place. He is faithful to our kids and he wants our faith even when there is no proof that those we love are even paying attention to God.

The Holy Spirit is really good at getting our attention, especially when the prodigal has reached the bottom. Parents have told me that jail and prison were the salvation of their kids because nothing else seemed to shake them from their deception. I sure hope none of our kids end up behind bars, but I am prayerful that all of our kids will have deep revelation of just how much grace there is for them.

This I know – we must be faithful parents who speak truth, love deeply, extend extravagant grace, build real relationships with our kids and pray always for their heart to know Christ. Even after all this, I am even more hopeful that God is with our kids and will one day, bring them home.

If you want read more about this, get a copy of Sons and Daughters which tells the stories of many prodigals who have found their way home, including me.

For the past year or so, we have live streamed our Sunday services to people in over 90 countries. Anyone can watch the entire gathering from their laptop, phone or tablet anywhere in the world where there is adequate internet access. The technology has advanced super fast in the past few years, making it easier for churches of every size to take advantage for several good reasons.

1. People who are sick at home get to join us in worship. People who are caregivers and those with chronic illnesses can quickly feel isolated from their church families, but this allows church to literally come to them at a time when they really need encouragement.

2. Our members who are deployed in the military watch from bases worldwide.  We are a military town and we stay connected with them with live streaming. One soldier in Afghanistan told me recently his entire unit crowds around the laptop to worship with us live each week.

3. People “check us out” online before actually attending. Numerous guests have told me they were curious about our church and wanted to watch the service online to get to know us, and to see if we handled snakes. We don’t, by the way.

There are some challenges, for sure. The sound can be sub-par, so your worship team may complain a bit and some people will use the online streaming as a lazy excuse to stay home.  Don’t let either reason keep you from reaching more people with technology that takes your worship gatherings around the world at very little cost.

Just a few weeks ago, I released my newest book, entitled Sons and Daughters. It is a collection of stories from my family and from friends that I have met over the past decade. The book attempts to answer three very important questions that each of us must answer:

1. Is God a father?

2. Does God really want to adopt us into his family?

3. If the answers to the first two question are yes, how will this change the way I live with others?

This book is one of my core life messages and I really hope you will take the time to read it. The book is great for all ages, but I especially believe young couples, high school and college students will find the message of sonship really compelling. The ideas in the book will help us be better parents, better spouses and better friends.

You can order it right now by clicking here or pick it up at any bookstore, including the bookstore at New Life Church. I sure hope Sons and Daughters encourages and strengthens you.

I went to a Denver Broncos game with some friends this past weekend and had a great time cheering for the home team. We arrived about two hours early, paid $10 to park in a lot that almost two miles from the stadium and navigated our way with a throng through a circuitous route lined with souvenir vendors and potholes.

Once I arrived at the main gate, a security team waved a wand around me looking for hidden weapons, scanned my ticket, but not one person smiled or greeted me warmly. There was not even free coffee or a free gift for first time visitors.

The food was pretty good, but terribly expensive. My seats were certainly not spacious but there was a cupholder, so that was nice. The music blaring overhead was a mixed bag of 70’s rock-n-roll and modern pop hits, and really loud, even for me.

Once the game began, there was tremendous unity among the fans, most of whom were dressed in identical orange apparel. At key moments, like third down plays, the entire crowd anxiously stood to their feet and no one seemed to care that things were getting a bit emotional. Everyone, it seemed, came ready to engage and participate. They really cared about the details of what was happening. People were asking questions, debating strategies and even dancing in public when the Broncos scored. It was an authentic worship experience for many.

As the 75,000 fans exited the stadium, they cheered wildly all the way back to their various remote parking lots, this time dodging storm drains and spilled food in the dark of night.  No one seemed to mind the five hour gathering, the crowds, or even the cigarette smoke billowing from the masses.

All this confirms to me that the “guest experience” at our local churches may be a bit overrated and overstated. It seems that passion for what happens at the gathering trumps any inconvenience. We all seem to give a lot of grace to the imperfections of institutions or traditions that we admire or respect.

We should be intentional about communication, super friendly, and provide worship space that is clean and comfortable. But the NFL is proof that people will overlook lots of challenges for things they believe are important.

My new book Sons and Daughters just released and I love the conversations that have started, especially from this chapter that I call “Fake Trophies”.

My daughter, Callie, played soccer this year on a recreational team that got “rode like a rented mule” every Saturday for four months straight. Callie is a fairly competitive kid and played well during practices and games, but not everyone shared her zest for the sport. In fact, based on empirical evidence, I can say that there were girls on her team who didn’t even know there was a ball on the field.

At the end of the season, Callie and her teammates were invited to a pizza party, along with all of the other teams in her league. The coaches made a big deal about the girls’ involvement and then proceeded to hand out trophies to each and every girl. Regardless of whether she was part of a winning team or a losing team, regardless of whether she dribbled like a pro or ever even made contact with the ball, every single player received a trophy—the same trophy as everyone else.

I think there’s a correlation here, between this ubiquitous sheltered existence and the fact that we’ve got a rash of twenty-somethings still living in their parents’ basements, with no plans to leave, no plans to achieve, and nothing but time on their hands. They were never challenged as kids, they never learned how to compete, and they’ve never been forced to recover from failure. Now they find themselves aimless and passionless and weak, while we shake our heads in disbelief.

Between the years 1940 and 1970, as a country we sent people into space, we invented computers, we created suburbia, and we revolutionized automobile technology. This was a generation that had endured a world war, had been challenged in combat, and had parents who had survived the Great Depression or had survived the Depression themselves. Competition was a celebrated part of the culture, and winning and losing mattered deeply. Heroes were honored for their victories, and grace was disbursed to the defeated. Losers learned tough lessons, and winners had to practice harder to stay on top. It was an age of innovation and persistence in the face of challenge and turmoil and angst. And every member of that generation was better for having prevailed. They understood the value of improving and overcoming. They didn’t need fake trophies to prop themselves up. Hard work was deeply honored, as opposed to mere limp participation.

This is just an excerpt from this chapter. Read the entire book and then let me know your thoughts.