I was in conversation with a friend who was telling me about some Victorian queen and her reign: how she overthrew the king and took the country for herself. I asked how they knew all this to which the reply was “I read it in a book; I have a lot of books on this topic.”…The same person who told me they read all these historical facts in this book about a queen, said “You can’t believe everything you read; the Bible is just a book and Jesus is just a made-up character.”

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The seasons are changing here where I live in Queensland, and so is my wardrobe. The days for cool summer tops, shorts and sundresses are over. I am pulling my winter clothes out of storage. How quickly I forget the clothes I own when I pack them away for a season. I always pull out clothes I completely forgot that I have. But, as much as I used to love these pieces, not all of them make it back to the closet for another season.

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If there is one thing I despise more than training day at work, it’s virtual training day at work. My brain processes “being talked at” as life-draining, and “sitting still” as torture; so, combine that with a Disney-esque cadence and you will find me searching for mini-toothpicks to hold my eyes open.

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Often when I read the Bible, I come across a familiar passage. It might be that I’ve heard a sermon on it, or that it’s recorded in another place in the Bible where I’ve read it previously. I was reading through the Gospel of John during Lent. When I came to John’s final chapter, I read some verses that startled me, because they took me back to my childhood…

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Our culture seems to run on tropes, mottos and trite bromides. Cute household signs are one thing, but empty platitudes that fail the common-sense test are another. Many popular slogans offer nonsensical advice such as, “you can be anything you want to be” (anything?), “follow your bliss” (what if that’s heroin?), and “manifest it into existence” (try manifesting someone back from the dead). Here’s another: “God will never give me more than I can handle.” But…is that true?

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The Bible is clear that we who follow Christ have a duty to raise children in the way that they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Leading by example, teaching them how to love by loving them unconditionally, helping them serve others, sharing our faith with them through scripture, and praying with them. But in our news-saturated world, it’s common to hear about teens who are wayward or in mental health crisis, without a solid family for support, chronically breaking the law or worse, willfully hurting other students or adults. This is happening to kids in and out of church environments.

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