Away We Go 2009 • Rated R Directed by Sam Mendes (2009) My wife hated this movie. She said it was vulgar and crude. I have to agree with her, particularly in the first 20 minutes of the film. But as we lay in bed after watching it, talking about why she hated it we discovered the value of the film. It’s in the questions it raises and the underlying hope that serves as its foundation. As actor John Krasinski says in the DVD bonus features, “It’s about searching for a place where you belong and searching for who you really are.” Away We Go is the story of Burt and Verona ...

In recent decades, the word “Christian” has taken quite a beating in our culture. Though I have some older relatives who do not follow Jesus, I am certain they’d be offended if I said they weren’t Christians. This is because “Christian” has become synonymous with “nice, decent, respectable American.” Were I to suggest that these nice, decent, respectable Americans—who were raised attending Sunday school, no less—weren’t “Christians,” I have ...

Adapted from a sermon given at Reformed University Fellowship, University of Oklahoma Women are beautiful. Women want to be beautiful, be seen as beautiful, be told they’re beautiful and on and on. There is a place in each woman’s heart for beauty. But what is beauty? Fergie is Fegalicious. She sings, “Fergalicious”: Make them boys go loco
 They want my treasure So they get their pleasures from my photo

 You can see me, you can’t squeeze me 
I ain’t easy, I ain’t sleazy 
I got reasons why I tease ‘em
 Boys just come and go like ...