It's graduation season! Graduation speeches often have similar themes and are filled with cliché catchphrases. Are any of these typical graduation platitudes actually helpful? What should we be encouraging our graduates toward?

It seems we are preaching a different message on graduation day than we do in church every week. (We mostly attend graduations for homeschool and Christian school students...) You can do anything, you can be anything you want to be, follow your dreams....why are these NOT Biblical messages? Because they are contrary to what Jesus taught—deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.

What if instead of encouraging our graduates to dream big dreams, we encouraged them to pray big prayers? It's okay to have dreams and it's good to work hard, but are we really preparing our children for life by leaving out the parts where life is hard and dreams change and God calls us to do things we don't enjoy?

And while we're on the topic of platitudes and trite sayings, we chat about the ridiculous messages we see on church signs around town. Poor doctrine and trite sayings do not seem to attract visitors. So what are churches trying to accomplish with their signs? We don't really know, but at least you'll enjoy laughing at a few of our favorites!