RECENT BLOG POSTS

Speaking with Alec

Posted on: 02/7/11 12:57 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I’m back from my weekend speaking with my son Alec in Wisconsin; we had a great time together. Not only did we get a chance to tour Chicago on the way up, but we also got to share the stage and speak together one night.

Alec did phenomenal!

On Saturday night he shared his experiences being bullied, then shared some research about how “one friend can make a difference” in a kid’s life. He echoed that research with personal testimony, emphasizing how much he had longed for just “one friend.”

The response was amazing. Kids and adults were walking up to Alec afterwards and talking with him, sharing their stories, and asking him questions. I think it surprised Alec how many people connected with his story.

I closed the evening providing examples of what the compassion and love outlined in Phil 2 looks like: making friends with someone different than you, sitting with them at lunch, maybe even sacrificing some time with your existing friends to “sit on the bus” next to someone new. It all starts with “humility” –realizing that we can’t do it on our own and letting Christ love others through us!

The whole weekend of ministry was fun. I shared the Gospel on Friday night using the prodigal son story (the same one that I provide in my book, Do They Run When They See You Coming? as an example of how to share the Gospel. It’s also in the form of a ready-made talk with small group questions in my book, 10-Minute Talks). The adult leaders loved the small group questions for the weekend. Personally, I think that small group “digestion” immediately after the speaker is always the way to go– so I always provide small group questions when I speak.

Thanks for your prayers! I think we’ll be hearing an official “pizza report” from Alec later on in the week! 🙂

Posted in Bullying/Cyberbullying, Personal, Speaking/Training, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Fox Rejects John 3:16 Ad

Posted on: 02/4/11 9:19 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Wow… that’s too bad.

Fox just rejected a Super Bowl commercial that shows a guy looking up the meaning of John 3:16– good commercial by the way. Check it out:

(If you don’t see the embedded video, jump on my blog to see it)

Hmmmmm. How do you feel about this?

According to the Hollywood reporter, the network rejected the spot because it advanced specific beliefs. I guess there are several ways to look at this. First- we might think that’s really unfair. But on the other hand… how would you feel if there were commercials for Buddhism or Hinduism? (Funny side note: I had to ask my son Alec how to spell Buddhism. He spelled it right the first time. I asked him, “How did you know that?” He said, “Well, after seeing that in our school textbooks a million times, I know how to spell Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, etc… but I’ve forgotten how to spell Christianity!” LOL)

(ht to Todd Pearage)

Posted in Discussion Ideas, Entertainment Media, Faith, TV | | Leave A Comment

Contest Winners

Posted on: 02/3/11 11:58 AM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s time to announce the winners to our little contest.

As most of you know, last week I offered up any one of my seven books currently in print to 10 different people who would simply jump on our new MUSIC and MOVIE CLIP discussion pages and just rate the resource and/or post a comment. Here’re all the details of the contest.

Pretty simple. Hundreds of comments and ratings posted… 10 winners. Here they are.

Jeri
J.D.
Marilyn
Connie
Rachael
Justin
Tim
Aaron
Rod
Michelle

I just sent these 10 people emails congratulating them.

For the rest of you… you’re winners too (now I sound like that teacher at school… you know the one)… because you can make great use of our free MOVIE CLIP DISCUSSIONS and MUSIC DISCUSSIONS. Please continue to post your comments and rate them one through five stars, helping make it an even better resource!

Posted in Books, Contests, Movies | | Leave A Comment

Will I get to Chicago?

Posted on: 02/2/11 3:50 PM | by Jonathan McKee

The front page of my Sacramento paper today shows a picture of a bunch of people on the streets of Chicago walking through a blizzard. The paper provided details of horrible weather conditions and canceled flights, basically warning people, “I hope you don’t plan to fly to Chicago this week!”

Sigh! Tomorrow (Thursday) my son Alec and I are flying to Chicago and then driving up to Wisconsin where I’m speaking at a camp for the weekend. Our original flight has already been canceled and we have been rebooked to come in later in the evening. The temperature will be 8 degrees when we land, -9 degrees with wind chill factor. (And those of you who have been to Chicago and felt that breeze blowing across the lake KNOW how cold that wind chill factor really is!!!)

Despite the delay, if our plane actually gets to Chicago, I plan on giving Alec a little “taste” of Chicago. We’re gonna hit my favorite place, Giordano’s Pizza on the way up to the camp, and maybe even a taste of Gino’s or Lou’s on the way down. (Those of you in the know… what’s your favorite Chicago pizza place? Comment below)

Pray for our speaking weekend. I share the Gospel on Friday night, and then on Saturday night I’m talking about bullying– how one person can make a difference (using Philippians 2:1-5). Alec will be sharing a little too, sharing his story. Many of you have heard a little of our experience being bullied in my article, Voices of the Bullied, I wrote a few months ago. Also pray that I can survive an entire weekend with a camp full of Packer fans on a Green Bay Super Bowl weekend! (Aye, aye, aye!)

If you want to hear some of the highlights, I’ll tweet our experiences throughout the weekend.

Sunday afternoon we’re going to catch the first half of the Super Bowl on an airport TV (I know… lame!) and then board our flight home just after halftime. Hopefully the pilot will keep us posted of the score…

… that is, if we make it to Chicago!

Posted in Personal, Speaking/Training, Travel | | Leave A Comment

Wow! That’s a lot of mistakes!

Posted on: 02/1/11 10:12 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Okay… my poor web guy had a bad day yesterday. I’ll keep it simple– a bunch of stuff broke, and he worked a 20-hour day trying to fix everything.

That being said… our annual Super Bowl Quiz that we sent out to our EZINE subscribers this morning was ROYALLY MESSED UP!!! (to put it nicely)

No worries. We’ve got it all corrected and sent out a new “Big Game Quiz” to all our EZINE subscribers (you can sign up to subscribe to our free EZINE at the top right of TheSource4YM.com). So if you’re looking for a CORRECT copy of the quiz, CLICK HERE. (where I also detail exactly how we dealt with my web guy!)

NEW NOTE: Another mistake on the answer for number 37. The answer is actually C. The Steelers have only won 6 Super Bowls. (Now I’ll have to have Todd tortured as well)

Also, if you missed my blog yesterday, be sure to tune into the Law Abiding Texan informing us on what we can and cannot do this year at our “Big Game” party (that’s right, we can’t even call it a Super Bowl Party). CLICK HERE for that blog.

Enjoy the game! (I’m gonna enjoy half of it!)

Posted in Contests, Personal | | Leave A Comment

Super Bowl Party Confusion

Posted on: 01/31/11 2:43 PM | by Jonathan McKee

The Super Bowl is this Sunday. (My son and I will be at the Chicago Ohare airport waiting for our flight home- we’ll only catch the first half of the big game. DOH!!)

For years churches in the U.S. have loved to use the “Big Game” as a tool for connecting with people. Whether youth ministries, men’s ministries or church-wide events… we’ve seen them… Super Bowl parties.

A few things you should know about these parties.

Years ago some churches got into some trouble with the NFL. The short of it was this– the NFL wasn’t allowing live showings of the game on anything over a 55 inch screen. People threw a tizzy fit. So in 2009, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell changed that.

Some people are still confused about the rules and restrictions. No worries! Here’s a law abiding Texan with a mullet who will make things crystal clear for you:

CLICK HERE IF YOU CAN’T SEE THE IMBEDDED YOUTUBE VIDEO.

For those of you looking for some fun resources for the “Big Game” (see… I listened!), we provide a quiz with some fun “Big Game” party ideas every year (Here’s last year’s BIG GAME QUIZ and ideas).

This year we’ll be sending out the BIG GAME QUIZ to our EZINE LIST Tuesday morning (if you aren’t a subscriber to our free youth ministry EZINE, you can jump on TheSource4YM.com and easily subscribe at the top of any page). We’ll probably also post a link for the quiz on the WHAT’S NEW section on the front page of our site as well.

Enjoy the “Big Game!”

Posted in Church, Entertainment Media, Humor, TV | | Leave A Comment

Wow… it doesn’t get easier than this

Posted on: 01/30/11 4:58 PM | by Jonathan McKee

So last Thursday I announced a contest where I’m going to give away some of my books to 10 different people. I’m running this contest thru the end of this week… it doesn’t get any easier than this to win a book of your choice.

It’s like this. Jump on our totally revamped MOVIE CLIP DISCUSSIONS page and/or our MUSIC DISCUSSIONS page, comment and vote… and you’re entered to win. How’s that for simple?

The more of these dicussions that you rate/comment, the more times your name gets thrown in the hopper.

This is pretty easy folks. Most of you have already used many of these MOVIE CLIP DISCUSSIONS and/or MUSIC DISCUSSIONS … so it will be even easier. Just pop on the page, click on the discussions you used… then rate and comment.

Good chances for winning here– plus, you help us keep our pages more accurate with your feedback!

I’ll draw the names at the end of the week.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BLOG WITH ALL THE DETAILS

Posted in Contests, Movies | | Leave A Comment

Gaga Releases “Born This Way” Lyrics

Posted on: 01/28/11 11:33 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Lady Gaga’s Twitter fans received a tweet from her yesterday saying, “Maybe I should leak the lyrics to Born This Way today…” A few hours later, she released the lyrics to her song that will release February 13th.

MTV just covered the tweeting event, with the headline, “Gaga sings about love and equality…”

For those of you who haven’t heard, Gaga has become a huge advocate for LGBT (an acronym referring collectively to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people), specifically speaking against the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell,” and speaking loudly for LGBT rights, after all, she claims, they are “born this way.”

A glimpse at these newly posted lyrics:

DON’T BE A DRAG -JUST BE A QUEEN…

IN THE RELIGION OF THE INSECURE
I MUST BE MYSELF, RESPECT MY YOUTH

A DIFFERENT LOVER IS NOT A SIN
BELIEVE CAPITAL H-I-M (HEY HEY HEY)
I LOVE MY LIFE I LOVE THIS RECORD AND
MI AMORE VOLE FE YAH (LOVE NEEDS FAITH)

CHORUS:
I’M BEAUTIFUL IN MY WAY
‘CAUSE GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES
I’M ON THE RIGHT TRACK BABY
I WAS BORN THIS WAY

David R. Smith– my good friend, co-author of my new book, and author of many of our Youth Culture WIndow articles (including the brand new expose’ about Lil Wayne launching this weekend) — and I talked this morning for about an hour about Gaga’s release of these lyrics and upcoming song. We discussed the ramifications of speaking out about this issue. It’s an emotional issue for some, a political issue for many.

We’ve decided that we’re going to address the issue of homosexuality, despite the criticism that might come. Pray for us as we write a Youth Culture Window article this week. Pray that it would clearly communicate God’s compassion for everyone, but not stray from his unchanging call to holiness, even when it’s not politically correct.

You’ll see that article in one week.

Posted in Entertainment Media, Faith, Music, Sexuality, Social Media, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

A Little Movie/Music “Contest” for ya

Posted on: 01/27/11 11:02 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Okay… I’m feeling like giving some books away.

I’m going to give away 10 of my books. 10 people will win a book of their choice… and winning is very simple. Here’s how to play.

We just totally revamped our new MOVIE CLIP DISCUSSIONS page and our MUSIC DISCUSSIONS page on our TheSource4YM.com site (I have to specify which site now that we have our parents site also). These pages are awesome! Now they are each organized by the song/movie (and the songs can also be organized by artist), topic of discussion, and rating. This is a great tool… because once people start going thru and rating these discussion resources, people will be able to organize them and select them by the “highest rated.” Pretty cool, huh?

So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to check out some of these resources- just give a few of them a solid read-thru. Each of them provides small group questions, transition statements, wrap ups, etc. (all you need, really). Read em, then post a comment and rate em! (choose 1 thru 5 stars).

For some of you, this will be easy. You can start by just rating/commenting on the MUSIC or MOVIE discussions you have already used with your group. Let us know how the discussion went. Rate them suitably. I just did this myself on the Movie Clip Discussions page. I organized the list by Title, selected the “Batman Begins” discussion (my absolute favorite), made a comment and rated it.

Each time you post a comment and rate one of these resources… I’ll put your name in the hopper for a free book. Yep. If you rate 15 of our resources… your name goes in there 15 times!

I’ll draw 10 winners.

I’ll run this contest for a week or so then post the winners in my blog. Winners can select any of my books. So rate/comment as many of those discussions as possible!

Posted in Books, Contests | | Leave A Comment

MTV Goes Too Far?

Posted on: 01/26/11 6:10 PM | by Jonathan McKee

When I was in Korea, I quickly blogged with you about MTV’s new show Skins, a racy look at teen partying, sex and drug abuse.

I promised you more.

This week, we’ve featured an entire Youth Culture Window article about the show. I encourage you to take a peek at this article, and chime in with your own comments. Some great discussion already about whether MTV is just portraying reality (don’t students always lay around in a pile like this?)… or is MTV simply being irresponsible once again.

One thing for sure, MTV is definitely taking some heat with this one. Who knows. Maybe the execs are secretly giggling, welcoming the controversial publicity. But I wouldn’t be so sure. Being accused of “violating child porn laws” is a serious onslaught.

Take a peek at our article HERE.

UPDATE: Another article about MTV “standing by” Skins, despite the number of advertisers pulling out and despite the U.S. government investigation into possible violations of laws on the sexual exploitation of minors. Read about that here: http://reut.rs/eLhjbJ

Posted in Entertainment Media, Sexuality, TV, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment