Some time ago, the folks at Zondervan recorded a video of me discussing The Divine Commodity. I had never seen the footage, but recently discovered it on their site. If you’d like to know a little more about the book and why I wrote it, here’s your chance.

In other book news, my friend and colleague from Leadership Journal, Brandon O’Brien is close to releasing his first book The Strategically Small Church. I’ve already read an advanced copy and it’s really fantastic. Brandon does a great job of showing how intentionally small congregation may be the ideal instrument to impact our rapidly shifting culture. But he does this without discrediting the role of larger churches. What I especially love about the book is how much research he put into…

One of the most popular blog posts I’ve written was a theological exploration of evil through the lens of the film, The Dark Knight. To continue the theme of superhero movies and theology, let’s talk about Superman.

After traveling a few weeks ago, I retuned home late one evening after the kids were in bed. After debriefing with my wife, I decided to vegetate by watching Superman Returns…the effort by director Bryan Singer to “reboot” the Superman movie franchise for Warner Brothers. Most critics, including myself, were very disappointed by the film. Superman Returns gives homage to Richard Donner’s Superman films (starring Christopher Reeve) by lifting characters, plot devices, dialogue, and even laugh lines from the original movies. But it had none of the Donner films’ magic.

The failure, I…

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season prior to Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden sparked curiosity when he appeared in public and on television with a smudge of ash on his forehead. One news anchor in the UK had no idea what it was. “What’s happened to his head?” asked Kay Burley on Sky News. “It looks like he’s walked into a door!” The co-host speculated that he had fallen on the ice while attending the Winter Olympics. (As if we needed more evidence that Britain is an utterly post-Christian secular culture.)

Biden is a practicing Catholic, and the ash was part of the Ash Wednesday mass he had attended earlier in the day. While usually associated with Roman Catholic expressions of…