The goal of faith-filled parenting is to raise children who will live and love like Jesus—to experience God in daily life and to embrace their callings as they help fulfill God’s dreams for the world. As the parent of two college-age boys, I know faith is fueled through the power of the Holy Spirit and …
By Rick LawrenceExecutive Director (This is an edited excerpt from my book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry.) I was invited to have lunch with six youth pastors who’d been singled out by a seminary professor as men and women who’d managed to build long-term thriving youth ministries. For two hours we talked about the centrality of Jesus as a …
By Rosina HendricksonVibrant Faith Coaching Team We recently celebrated Pentecost, the tipping point for the church’s mission to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” and teaching “these new disciples to obey all the commands” Jesus has given us. …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director In conversation after conversation with ministry leaders around the country, I hear the same word repeated over and over: EXHAUSTION. After constantly re-inventing everything you thought you knew about ministry while breathing in the toxic fumes of a culture that’s been exposed as fundamentally imbalanced, it’s no wonder that your soul’s …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director I was never in a garage band, but whenever I hear a phrase that sounds like the name of a garage band (my daughter said the phrase “dissected squid juice” the other day, for example), I tell people that it was actually the name of my band when I was in high …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director In John 21 we encounter Jesus’ disciples after His resurrection but before His ascension—they are disoriented, confused, and frightened about their future. That seems counterintuitive because, after all, Jesus has risen from the dead! But we underplay how surreal that must have been for these men, and how unimaginable their …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director In the wake of American gymnast Simone Biles’ decision to pull out of major competitions in the Tokyo Olympics to protect her mental health, a threat that the U.S. Surgeon General calls “a second pandemic” has been spotlighted. College counseling centers are already facing a flood of students seeking help …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director I read these self-referential words from Paul to his beloved “sheep” in Corinth today, and thought of you… “In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in prison, …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, says she discovered that people who live with a “marathon mentality” in life have developed a passion for something higher than themselves. “Grit is not just having resilience in the face of failure,” she says, “but also having deep …
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale was one of the most highly decorated officers in U.S. Navy history. At the outset of the Vietnam War, he piloted an F-8 Crusader during the aerial attack of three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, in what was later called “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident.” Later, in …
