Rural Churches Face Post-Pandemic Challenges … with Resilience and an Encouraged Theology Although resilient, small rural churches are contending with fallout from the pandemic.  “There were some differing opinions and strongly held, so I think that we need to reconnect and move beyond that,” says author, pastor, and professor Glenn Daman. His 2018 book focusing …

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Your Child’s Addiction to Toxic Screens  Research supports what many parents already know: toxic screens are hurting their children’s mental health. Melanie Hempe, a retired RN and founder of the not-for-profit ScreenStrong, works with families to eliminate childhood screen dependency. Video games, social media, and pornography are the most problematic. “They structurally will change the brain …

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Over 70 percent of Americans say they would like to grow spiritually, according to the Barna research group. That includes Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.  “When over seven in ten people say they want to grow spiritually, they are not necessarily saying, ‘Hey, I want to meet Jesus,’ ‘Hey I want to become …

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Marriage is a signpost pointing to God’s unconditional love. Marriage is so much more than compatible people with romantic feelings for each other, and we want children to know this. “Marriage is based on a promise. And it’s based on a promise because it’s trying to be a mirror to the love God has shown …

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Girls and Social Media  With more girls than ever reporting that they feel sad or hopeless, The Gospel Coalition’s Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra talks with Martha Manikas-Foster about social media’s impact on girls. They also talk about the precautions adults might put in place before approaching social media as a mission field.   More girls than …

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Scams come at us from every direction—postal mail, email, text, and telephone—and they’re getting harder to identify.   “It all comes down to you never know who you’re talking to on the other end of the phone or other end of the computer,” says New York State Trooper Officer Mark O’Donnell.   By knowing the characteristics of …

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If your prayers seem unanswered, or you feel the wait for God to act has been long, author and speaker Dena Dyer encourages confidence that God uses the barren seasons for His purposes. Dyer is the author of the recent blog post “Confidence in Barren Seasons: What Elizabeth Can Teach Us.” Have you prayed for …

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Good news! America’s 13- to 17-year-olds are, by and large, hopeful about the future.    …And there are ways the adults in their lives can help them hold onto their optimism. “Despite the current social climate and current challenges, teens are optimistic and they’re open. They long to see change in our world,” says Ashley Ekmay, …

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Before heading off to university, Daniela Angulo was sure that her on-campus conversations about faith would require all the apologetics knowledge she’d ever learned. “We saw secular college as a battlefield. That was what we expected,” she says. “We were expecting to go in with our weapons in hand.”   What she found instead surprised …

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Parents can be tempted to make the children the family’s highest priority. But giving our children the best of our time and attention is not actually what’s best for them, according to Dr. Greg Smalley. Smalley is an author and speaker who serves as vice president of Marriage at Focus on the Family. He …

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