For several years now two friends and I convene in South Florida for an annual time of sharing, lamenting, thankfulness, praise, challenge, rebuke, encouragement, celebrating, and much needed sleep. Why do we do this? Because we need each other. I think God made us to be in relationships with others. It’s a part of what it means to be human. I consider myself blessed to have good friends. As 2011 comes to a close, I am very thankful that God has provided me with amazing friends.

The Bible explains the value of good friendships. When David heard of Jonathan’s death he lamented poetically, “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26). Friendships among God’s people in the ancient Near East are so foreign to the way Americans live life that most churches would probably throw men out for uttering words like David’s.

Since I started publishing articles, op-eds, appearing on national media platforms, and so on, I’ve come to understand two verses from Proverbs the hard way. First, Proverbs 18:24 reminds us, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Secondly, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). I have had various seasons of being attacked in painful ways, and it’s been revealing to see which of my so-called “friends,” who at one time pledged care and commitment, disappeared when the hate mail, phone calls, and vicious slander started to pour in. Needless to say, I learned a tough lesson.

You know who your real friends are when the bottom falls out and disaster visits your life. As the Bible teaches, mere “companions” provide no comfort net when “the going gets tough.” Friends, on the other hand, are there to walk with you through the storm. Present, committed, and unmoved. As I get older, I experience in new ways that the book of Proverbs is not only good but also true. Thank God for good friends.

If European cultural trends are a precursor to the future of Western culture, American Christians might find themselves discouraged. According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, Europe is home to only about one-quarter of the world’s Christians, compared to two-thirds just a century ago. Christianity began as a Middle Eastern religion and had its theological scaffolding establish primarily by Africans. Moving into Europe, Christianity had a culturally dominant role for centuries until the Enlightenment slowly loosened the grip of faith in that culture. Today, it seems that the Enlightenment is the dominant “religion” of Europeans.

The Pew report observes:

“About one-quarter of the global Christian population can now be found in sub-Saharan Africa, while 37 percent live in the Americas and 13 percent reside in the Asia-Pacific region. Brazil has twice as many Roman Catholics as Italy, while Nigeria has more than twice as many Protestants as Germany, where the Protestant Reformation began.”

While Christianity has a minor presence in Europe, according to the report, Christians are still the world’s largest religion, with nearly 2.2 billion claiming faith. Muslims remain the second-largest group, with 1.6 billion people.

What does this mean for Christians in America? Two thoughts come to mind:

1. We must recognize that ultimately these trends remind us of the sovereignty of God and of divine providence. Despite our efforts, we recognize that the Spirit moves wherever the Father wills. God has proven to work this way throughout the entire biblical narrative and Christian history. Where and why the Spirit works in the world continues to be a mystery.
2. European Christianity should be studied more closely as a model of what not to do in terms of how the church interacts with cultural change. How did Europe lose its Christian faith? What happened? What responsibility did church leaders and theologians have in becoming increasingly irrelevant to the culture? Is it possible that reading European theologians to strengthen Christianity in America might be unwise given the fact they didn’t tarry in Europe? These are important questions.

Admittedly, I’m not an historian and don’t know the answers to all these questions but if You Lost Me author David Kinnaman is right about nearly 60 percent of American young people involved in church life as teens drop out after high school, American Christians will need to look to Africa, Latin America, and Asia for leaders in the future.

From time to time I like to survey new health studies to add to the long list of things to say “oops” to. I found three interesting studies from the past month or so that I have to share. According to the latest research, I am glad I didn’t do any of the following: play high school football, head soccer balls, and eat fast food as a child. (My family ate nearly all of our meals at home—thanks Mom!)

First, according to a new study, high school football players have a high risk for strokes. Jared R. Brosch and Meredith R. Golomb examined teens who had suffered a stroke and discovered a high correlation with playing football. Bioscholar reports that researchers found “some of the potential risks include an increase of hyperventilation, repeated neurological injury, use of anabolic steroids, use of highly caffeinated energy drinks and an increase in obesity of young players.”

Second, one of the coolest tricks in soccer is to watch a player score a goal by heading the ball pass the goalie. But heading the ball may not ever be a safe way to play the game. New research indicates that it may, in fact, lead to brain damage. Researchers used an MRI machine to analyze changes in brain activity of 32 adult amateur soccer players who headed balls 436 times a year on average. Those players that headed the ball 1,000 or more times a year presented abnormalities similar to traumatic brain injuries suffered in car accidents. That can’t be good.

Finally, we know that childhood obesity is a major problem in the United States and that children today eat fast food more than any previous generation. Unfortunately, all of the quick and easy food given to kids these days may be shortening their lives. The Northwest Indiana Times reports a new study from Northwestern University where researchers sampled thousands of teens, ages 12 to 19, and found that “they are more likely to die from heart disease at a younger age than today’s adults.” This means that today’s teenagers are expected to have more heart-disease-related deaths than previous generations. This should not come as a surprise.

How can we summarize the moral of these health studies? I was thinking of this: Use common sense. Getting big really fast for sports may not be worth it in the long run, God didn’t make our heads to hit things, like balls, with it, and eating bad food is bad for your health. This is may seem like basic common sense but it’s become the American way to fund studies to tell us things that we already know.

American common law definitions of marriage were historically shaped by the influence of Christianity. In God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition, John Witte Jr. does an excellent job of explaining the formation of marriage law, writing that what defined marriage for centuries in the West was its emphasis on procreation and fidelity, and the institution’s sanctity, civil use in curbing vices and establishing the foundation for education, and usefulness in maturing a couple’s Christian faith. This understanding no longer exists in our culture, and some argue that when Americans began divorcing in high numbers, redefined marital sexuality via contraception use, and reduced marriage to mere commitment, it set the stage for our current same-sex marriage debate.

Because church-going evangelicals divorce at high rates, this community of believers has lost its moral authority to defend the indissolvable nature of marriage. For example, I recently gave a lecture at New York University explaining the traditional view of marriage and was asked: “Then why is the divorce rate among conservative Christians so high?” It was a great question. I wish the divorce rate for believers was 0 percent. I couldn’t say much in defense. It seems that many Christians have forgotten that the Lord hates divorce (Malachi 2:16).

Because of the work of Howard Kainz, professor emeritus at Marquette University, many argue that married couples using contraception redefine sex in ways that render same-sex marriage unobjectionable. Kainz observes:

“[I]f you believe you have a right to non-procreative sexual intercourse, you have no right to criticize non-procreative sex by others—for example, by a gay couple. You may justify your personal practices on the basis of your genuine mutual love and commitment to lifelong fidelity. But homosexuals may be even more intensely in love with each other and even more firmly committed to mutual fidelity. They may even be more open to procreation than you are, through adoption or through in vitro fertilization. To want to have sex without the possibility of offspring, and condemn others for similarly non-procreative sex, would be blatantly inconsistent.”

Because of the sex/children connection, George Mason School of Law professor Helen Alvaré explains in two articles why American marriage historically did not divorce itself from children.

Lastly, the reduction of marriage to a mere contract between consenting adults has stripped marriage of its sanctity and its family-forming utility in shaping the common good, as John Calvin would encourage.

As a result, I’m beginning to wonder if the alternative marriage debate is not already lost. Christians do not provide a model of marriage in practice that makes a persuasive case against changing the traditional definition. A theologian friend says that the marriage debate in America is doomed unless it is defined as “a sexuality-based social institution for the union of the couple and the procreation and nurture of children.” Otherwise, marriage will continue to be defined by utilitarian moral relativists.

Eric Bergeson of the Crookston Daily Times (a small town Minnesota newspaper) recently wrote an opinion column lamenting that talented young people leave small towns. Because of a recent personal experience, I was left thinking, “There may not be many opportunities in small towns, but the people are so nice. Why leave?” I have no scientific proof to substantiate this claim but it seems that small-town folk are more genuine than city folk. After living in New York City now for a couple years—where people simply don’t have time to be nice—I have been trying figure out why it seems that people seem to be more personable in small-town America.

For example, in my recent travels I was having breakfast at the Three Squares Restaurant in Waupaca, Wisc. (population 5,887) when I noticed that patrons not only said “hello” as they walked by my table but they also asked, “How are you?” At first glance, this may sound like no big deal, but there was something different about the way people asked me that I’ve only experienced in small towns. I could be wrong but I felt like people really wanted to know. It was as if I had permission to ask one of them to pull up a chair so I could tell the details of how I was doing that day. It seemed so genuine. I say this having grown up in the South (Atlanta) where people would say, “Hey, how are you,” give you a hug, and 20 minutes later will slander you at church to your friends. The Waupaca “how are you?” made my pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries taste even better.

When I pulled my rental car into the parking lot of Burgertown Dairy Freeze in Bigfork, Mont., (population 1,658) I was rendered speechless by a guy who parked just as I did and nearly walked over to me to say, “Hey there, how are you?” I stuttered back in a confused tone, “I’m fine, how are you?” As I sat down to eat the one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever had in my life, with a fantastic huckleberry milkshake, a family of three approached my table with their 5-year-old son waving enthusiastically and saying, “Hi, hi.” I felt like I was in a movie or something. Where I’m from kids do not say “Hi” to strangers even when they are with their parents.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I was engaged so genuinely is these towns. I’m not sure if I could live in a small town, but they are certainly now my preferred destination when I need a break from the city. Is there anything better than down-to-earth, genuine people and good food? Three cheers for small towns!

If interviews my college students conducted in New York this semester are any indication, marriage in America is dead. I don’t mean “in trouble” or “struggling,” I mean dead. Many of the New York 20-somethings questioned have no confidence in matrimony and have reduced it to merely a contracted long-term dating relationship. When my students, in asking about cultural views, came to the topic of marriage, these New Yorkers in their 20s responded with some of the most heart-wrenching descriptions of the institution, which to me signals trouble for the future of American family life.

Here are just a few of the sample responses:

• 24-year-old male from Manhattan: “Don’t even get me started! Well, marriage is a piece of paper. It’s a certificate. I mean legally, that’s what marriage is. Marriage was not originally supposed to be about love, the way it is understood now. I think it was largely about families given tax benefits and now it’s become completely distorted. What does it mean to be married? It doesn’t mean anything anymore. It doesn’t mean [expletive]. It used to be about commitment but people get divorced all the time now.”
• 27-year-old male from Queens: “Traditionally it has been a man and a woman who are in love, and, under God, are brought together, to live the rest of their lives together and have a family. This is ideal. For me, well, you might call me a hopeless romantic, but it’s when you find someone you love and you get to know everything about them and they know everything about you, and you grow old together. It’s possible, I think. It could be a man and an elephant, although I don’t think the elephant could have the same feelings. It’s just two people, not just a man and a woman, could be a man and a man, could be three men. Ideal is monogamy, I think it’s possible, but it doesn’t really happen.”
• 21-year-old female from Midtown Manhattan: “I actually kinda don’t really believe in marriage. People can be happy just being with another person they love for the rest of their lives without being married. I think marriage is something that society kinda says that when you get to a certain age you’re just like “Oh, I have to get married; that’s the right thing to do,” and I think a lot of people kinda look down on you when you’re not married. So, I think it’s just a societal thing.”

These three by far are not the most extreme examples, but they do best represent the overall beliefs shared by most in the 50 to 60 surveys we conducted.

What Christians should find troubling is (1) their definition of marriage seems to have little or nothing to do with procreation, and (2) marriage to them is nothing more than a relational contract between people with strong feelings for each other. If young Americans only believe feelings and a contract to be the essence of marriage, then it will be increasingly difficult to convince them that something like same-sex marriage or polygamy should not be legal.

Truthfully, supporters of traditional marriage between one man and one woman will likely lose the public debate about alternative forms of marriage until they can successfully tie marital sex to procreation as normative and stop divorcing themselves. But in the end, if moral norms do not define the practice of marriage in America, then we can’t be surprised when young adults say that marriage “doesn’t mean anything anymore.” Honestly, can we blame them?

In his new book Forever: Why You Can’t Live Without It, Paul Tripp does a fantastic job of explaining why believers and nonbelievers alike misunderstand what Christianity is all about. There has been a tendency in our culture to pitch Christianity as a means of achieving personal peace and affluence (as Francis Schaeffer often tried to counter). But Tripp points out that if we were honest, we’d find “thousands of sad, defeated, disappointed, doubting, and soon to be cynical Christians out there.” Why? Because we forget about what Jesus accomplished for His people. As such, many Christians simply go through the motions of faith. The life is gone. Faith doesn’t make much sense. And many believers are left feeling miserable.

According to Tripp, here are signs of a miserable faith:

• Disappointment with God. Thinking that God has not given us the life that He has promised.
• Lack of motivation for ministry. A passion for ministry is not a result of training but comes out of a deep conviction that God is who He says He is.
• Numbing. When we’re disappointed with our lives, we’ll find ways to escape and self-medicate.
• Envy of others’ lives. Miserable faith focuses on the joys of the lives of others that we believe we deserve.
• Letting go of the habits of faith. If faith isn’t working out like we want, then why pray, worship, read the Bible, etc.
• Greater susceptibility to temptation. If God’s not doing His part, miserable people believe that they should not do theirs.

Alternatively, a vibrant faith, Tripp suggests, hinges on properly understanding the role of grace in pointing us to the eternal implications of the resurrection as described in 1 Corinthians 15. Without the resurrection Christianity makes no sense. In fact, the resurrection provides the catalyst for life-giving faith. For Tripp, the resurrection of Jesus and the hope of forever accomplish the following: (1) They tell us what is really important in life; (2) they have the power to radically change the way we approach the responsibilities, difficulties, and opportunities of daily life; and (3) they teach us delayed gratification.

Without the resurrection pointing us to eternal life, Christians will lose hope to persevere to the end and will fail to properly align life’s realities with expectations. Tripp’s Forever is a wonderful reminder of what really matters in the Christian life so that we don’t turn our faith into an empty religion that neither glorifies God nor frees us to live life to the fullest (John 10:10).

Tim Tebow is a godly man and a good football player. There is no question about his character, the importance of his faith, and his development as a player in the NFL. But the young Denver Broncos quarterback has become a controversial figure because of the very public displays of his faith. For example, he has been recently mocked for his bended-knee prayers during games, which is now officially known as “Tebowing.” But has he inadvertently brought this criticism on himself? Is praying publicly between plays what it really means to “be a Christian” in pro football?

Jesus said to his disciples, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). One has to wonder if Tebow’s actions are a shrewd way to be a Christian in sports.

In a discussion about this on my Facebook wall someone asked, “How many Christians have you seen get down on one knee and pray at work? If he really wanted to live out his faith, he’d do his job well and love those he works with.” Is there a difference, then, between living one’s faith and acting it out in public? How many surgeons who are Christians get on their knees and pray in the operating room? How many Christians who are public school teachers get on their knees and pray at the beginning of each class? Or a mechanic? Or a bus driver? Is what Tim Tebow is doing even necessary?

It’s also important to remember that Tebow’s actions are set in a context of “secular fundamentalist intolerance,” as one of my friends points out. “It’s time for individuals under this banner to be treated as a rival orthodoxy and to be challenged and refuted on such grounds,” my friend added.

As such, it makes sense, then, that Tebow is being mocked so openly. But how useful or wise is it for him to continue to put his religious practices on public display? What would be lost if he lived out his faith by simply working hard at being a better player and loving his teammates well? After all, this is what the rest of us have to do at work every day.

In the final analysis, it seems Tebow might help himself and the kingdom by getting off of his knees, taking the verses off of his face, and being faithful to Christ without the public acts like all the other Christians in the NFL have done for decades.

If you want to radically change the lives of men and women in low-income neighborhoods, then emphasize the kingdom in your teaching. Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to mentor young people from low-income neighborhoods and broken families. In that work I’ve found that the biggest conceptual hurdle was not the gospel but helping young people graduate from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. When you have no money and no hope for the future you are likely to spend all of your energy thinking about gratifying desires today.

“Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,” say the Epicurean. This is motto of short-term thinking. Paul challenges this way of thinking by focusing on the believer’s future resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:32). There is more to life than this life. Moreover, our ultimate satisfaction with life cannot even be found in this life but in the one to come for those who are united to Christ.

Jesus teaches us not to store up treasures on earth but to think about our lives in light of heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). In fact, Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom (Matthew 6:33) helps condition us to embrace long-term thinking and delayed gratification. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and all that that entails, and rest in the sovereign providence of God for what we need today and tomorrow. This is not only good practical theology, but it also liberates us from the short-term thinking that dominates low-income communities and keeps people from making wise choices.

In Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God, George Ladd rightly stresses the importance of the kingdom this way:

“The Kingdom of God is the redemptive reign of God dynamically active to establish his rule among men, and that this Kingdom, which will appear as an apocalyptic act at the end of the age, has already come into human history in the person and mission of Jesus to overcome evil, to deliver men from its power, and to bring them into the blessings of God’s reign. The Kingdom involves two great moments: fulfillment within history, and consummation at the end of history.”

If the kingdom is not the central theme when working in low-income communities we may not be helping people as much as we think. The ability to practice the virtue and wisdom of delayed gratification in this life is primed to perfection by the gospel of Jesus Christ, which orients our lives toward the priorities of the kingdom to be consummated at the end of history.

As American mainstream culture continues to enshrine the religion of secular humanism in our metamodern world, there is hope that someday there will be another Great Awakening in this country. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield led the first one, while James McGready and Charles Finney were at the forefront at the second. A possible Third Great Awakening will only come about if the laity leads it, because too many of today’s pastors are caught up in celebrity pastor narcissism.

The seduction of becoming a famous, celebrity pastor is too much of a temptation for those who have fallen prey to the belief that the only way to be effective is to build an empire and legacy around oneself. The explosion of conferences and events built around particular pastors’ personalities to gain a following could be evidence of this seduction. As such, many pastors are so caught up in gaining Twitter followers, writing fluffy books, and making a name for themselves as an “author, speaker, teacher, pastor” that they have disqualified themselves to lead cultural renewal.

An example of a lay-led movement is the Cal-Pac Prayer and Repentance conferences emerging in the United Methodist Church on the West Coast (see conference video below). In the spirit of the Methodist-influenced Second Great Awakening, lay leaders like Eaar Oden are on a mission to lead his church to revival on the basis of gospel-driven repentance and prayer. On the movement’s Facebook page you’ll find references to J.C. Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, R.C. Sproul, and Bible quotes from the ESV.

Oden explains the importance of these conferences this way:

“Two-hundred and thirty-four years ago in 1767, John Wesley preached a sermon titled ‘the Repentance of Believers,’ where he preached on the continual need for repentance, beyond the initial repentance unto salvation. These are his words: ‘There is also a repentance, which is required after we have believed the gospel, and in every subsequent stage of our Christian walk, or we will not be able to run the race which is set before us. And this repentance and faith is as necessary to continue to grow in grace as the former faith and repentance were to enter into the Kingdom of God.’”

Such conferences led by the laity are not for the purpose of hosting celebrity pastors to speak. Instead, participants spend 80 hours of interrupted Bible reading and prayer, followed by a total of two hours of listening to speakers, culminating in a huge fellowship meal.

We live in an American culture that breeds narcissistic celebrity pastors who want a following (1 Corinthians 3:4), so if any Holy Spirit-driven movement is going to bring about revival, it’s going to happen among those who are not exalted (Matthew 23:11-12). Perhaps it will be regular, non-famous women and men who simply read the Bible, pray together, and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Imagine the possibilities.