I was a speaker at a high school in my city last month. I asked several teens to share their dreams.

One said, “to be on Broadway”.

Another said, “to have a family that gets along.”

One girl said, “I want to go to college and be a doctor.”

I watched another girl. She was quiet throughout the entire presentation. Finally she said, “I don’t have a dream, but I have a fantasy. Want to hear it?”

Well, the truth is, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it. Later, she told me her fantasy, which in reality was a dream for any other girl. The reason she called it a fantasy is, according to her, “my dreams don’t come true, so I might as well call it a fantasy.” (more…)

~Real Quote~

Howard Hendricks said, “I don’t worry about failing, but that I’ll succeed at something that doesn’t matter.”

~Real Quotes~

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, “Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.” Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they’re still there.” Erma Bombeck

My new book — Making It Real, Whose Faith Is It Anyway?– will be released in just 10 weeks! It’s a discipleship series for teens and it’s designed for teens who want to take their faith to the next level.

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~Real Quote~

Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God. God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him. –Oswald Chambers

Shameless audacity.

Reckless confidence.

These words are normally words we don’t attribute to Christianity. Aren’t we supposed to honor God? Isn’t he the supreme being of the universe? How can words like “reckless” be a good thing in faith?

Except in this case it means trusting in something bigger than yourself. How many times did God ask ordinary people to do what seemed “reckless”? They left familiar worlds and people and did extraordinary things that some might not comprehend, or thing they were qualified to do. . .

Today I received a post from a 16-year-old girl on my MySpace. I want to be a speaker, it said. I want to dance and worship with all my heart and some people may not get it, but I just want to abandon everything and worship him with all that I am. I want to speak about God and share my faith.

Where do I begin?

With reckless abandonment. Trust that God is with you. There will be practical things — like connecting with others who have this gift; learning it from the outside in; praying; preparing.

But the reckless abandonment will be throwing open her life and heart to the possibilities that God can do through and in her life.

What about you? (more…)

It’s on the news. Adults are talking about it on blogs, in forums, on the telephone with a friend. What can you do? How do you avoid lunatics walking in with a gun and harming students? (more…)

I Hated Christianity
Christian Music Today.com, 9/25/06
by musical artist Sara Grove, about musical artist Jonny Lang

Excerpt: The first time I saw Jonny Lang, he was a 15-year-old kid, perched on a stool, his hair in his eyes—and playing his guitar and singing like he’d sold his soul to the devil. He was an irrefutable talent, and quickly became a young legend in the world of the blues and beyond, touring with The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and Sting, among others.

I didn’t see Lang again till a few years ago when my husband Troy and I were watching The Late Show with David Letterman, and Lang was the music guest. When he took the stage that night, he was a very different guy we’d seen years before. As he sang, Troy and I looked at each other and said, “What happened to him?” (more…)