Does a Steady Diet of On-Screen Gore Lead to Violence and Apathy?

I have been sickened by the places the human mind can go when it's allowed to.

My dad had to sit with me every night for a solid month. A MONTH! If those lights went out, I was terrified! No amount of rational or sane thought would drive out the images clawing through my little brain. I knew, I mean I just knew that if I went to sleep that he would get me. And when I say he… there’s only one person I could be talking about: Freddy Krueger! Oh he paralyzed me with fear. I was about 10 the first time I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street. The only problem was that I wasn’t allowed to see movies like that. And now I’m having horrific nightmares about him? Even at that young of an age I knew that this equation didn’t quite add up. So I told my parents that the huge cardboard cutout of Freddy at the local movie store was …

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The Next Generation

How Does Society Move On After Newtown?

We live in a broken culture . . . There is much goodness out there but there is just as much bad.

3 a.m. comes awfully early. When that alarm goes off like that it doesn’t wake you up, it scares you up. My wife and I got out of bed barely into December 15 and proceeded to get ready for our flight to Florida. We were flying to Orlando to interview for a position in Gainesville.  Our flight left St. Louis at 6:25 A.M. and so we got up earlier than anyone should be made to. I also made the strongest cup of coffee in the history of coffee. We had an uneventful flight to Florida. We went to pick up our rental car for the 2 hour drive north and as we headed onto the turnpike we made phone calls home. During the drive we heard just glimpses on the radio about another school shooting. Our hearts sank at the scattered news reports that we were …

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Cheryl Rowland

9:18 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012

Both Joy FM and my church have started doing these random acts of kindness.   more ›

The Conversation No Teen Wants to Have: 'Mom, Dad—I'm Pregnant'

What in the world does a teenager know about taking care of a baby?

Heart pounding, your teen sits next to you with their boy/girlfriend, they’ve asked to talk with you and your spouse/significant other.  You know that it can’t be that good because they’ve never asked to talk to you like this before. Your teen child looks at you and says, “Mom/Dad I’m/we are pregnant”.  You sit there absolutely shocked and stunned.  Anger or shame or maybe both begin to well up and you can feel the adrenaline starting to pump through your veins. “How could they do this to me?” “What were they thinking?” “How are they going to raise this child?” Questions start running through your mind and you struggle to collect your thoughts.  You look at your child and you can see they are reading your face waiting for some kind of …

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