In his excellent book The Road to Character, David Brooks raises the following questions in the final chapter: • Toward what should I orient my life? • Who am I and what is my nature? • How do I mold my nature to make it gradually better day by day? • What virtues are the most important to cultivate and what weaknesses should I fear the most? • How can I raise my children with a true sense of who they are and a practical set of ideas about how to travel......

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This fall, I am teaching an undergraduate course at Vanderbilt focusing on the notion of success and the American Dream, a concept defined in many different ways.  We started the semester with some basic working hypotheses. First, in the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers say that there are certain inalienable rights from our Creator, including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  But what is happiness and how do we pursue it? Second, research has shown that the “birth lottery” plays a significant role in determining an individual’s starting point in......

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On Wednesday nights, we are starting a brand-new series with Hunter Mobley focusing on “The Enneagram and Relationships.” Dinner will be at 5:30 and his talk will begin at 6:15 pm. This will take place on Wednesday nights, September 25th, October 2nd, and October 9th. The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system that helps us better understand ourselves and each other. It is over 2000 years old but it was not thoroughly written down until the 1970’s and has become very popular in recent years. It helps us to come to......

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I recently gave a talk about the church of the future. This is a subject that I think about often and it’s on the mind of many church leaders. Within mainline Christianity, denominational decline and statistics are depressing. Many churches are aging and struggling to reach younger generations. However, some churches are thriving and bucking the trend. What have these churches discovered that needs to be shared? I’d like to identify seven key challenges that represent opportunities for growth and change. First: Authenticity matters. Younger generations can sniff out phoniness and superficiality.......

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Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco published a fascinating book in 1999 titled The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope. In the book, he gives a spiritual history of our nation and how each generation has worked to create a culture of meaning to make sense of life’s challenges, suffering, and purpose. In the early years, Delbanco says that the primary focus was on God. However, unlike in Britain, Christian faith became a free choice and was not forced upon the people. The role of the pulpit in those early years was......

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I was a freshman in college when the Columbine massacre occurred in 1999. I remember watching the news coverage in my dorm room, completely dismayed that somebody would do such an evil thing at a high school. If you remember, the killers asked some of the young victims to renounce their faith in God on the spot. When they didn’t, they pulled the trigger. I was a few years out of seminary when the Virginia Tech shootings took place in 2007, taking the lives of thirty-two people on a college campus. Sandy......

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We pray for the families who lost loved ones this past weekend in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH. Gun violence and rage continues to be a problem in this country. Ever since Columbine 20 years ago, mass shootings have taken the lives of far too many! Every time it happens, this is an absolute tragedy. There is too much loneliness, rage, and divisive rhetoric in this culture. Rabbi Harold Kushner once wrote a powerful book titled Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. The book is based on the story of Moses, a pivotal figure......

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