Takeaways on Parenting and Ministry from the Massive College Cheating Scandal

If you haven’t heard (aka you are a hermit in a cave) there are over 50 people who are charged in a massive cheating scandal to leverage their money and influence to subvert the system and get their children into prestigious universities. Among them are Lori Loughlin (Aunt Becky from Full House) and Felicity Huffman …

Trusting God after Newtown

I wasn't going to write about it as this blog post will surely become lost in the sea of characters of different people posting about different things in the wake of the deaths in Newtown, CO. Quite honestly it actually makes me nauseous and a little uneasy to try to reflect about what happened. Because …

A Gay Response

I know I am a little late but I was intrigued by the recent "coming out" of news correspondent Anderson Cooper who is a prolific journalist/reporter for CNN. Cooper is just another individual in a long string of people who have announced to the world that they are gay. I thought about blogging then but …

Penn State and Youth Ministry: Lessons Learned

a 267 page report (Freeh Report) by the former FBI director has concluded that Penn State and its officials concealed the sex abuse scandal and failed to report it to authorities. Read this quote: The report concluded that Paterno, president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz "failed to protect against …

Breaks, birthdays and Bin laden

So it has been almost a month since my last post and since I used Facebook and I must say that I actually feel great. I activated Facebook and discovered I had missed some things but overall I really was ok. I am not sure how mug facebooking I will do but it will not …

College Football: A Journey in Darwinism

Herbert Spencer actually coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" but it was in response to reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1864.  The idea is that only those species who are strong enough will survive.  The latest installation of this is painfully evident in college football with the knowledge that Cecil Newton lied about …

Teaching Youth Responsibly About World Religions

A lot on my mind today for a number of different reasons so I will try to keep this post near 1000 words ;).  I read the Tennessean this morning and saw that a "pastor" in Gainesville, Florida has plans to burn 200 copies of the Koran (Quran) on September 11 to memorialize what happened …

Dear Obama…

If I could have a conversation or if I could have one letter to the president this is what I would say. Dear Mr. President, My name is Robbie Mackenzie and I was originally born (1981) in Toronto, Canada but have lived in the U.S. since 1982.  My family and I have enjoyed what America …

How far would you go?

As funny as this is I imagine you and I would do the same for our loved ones.  Or would we?  There is some danger in getting hurt and the mother risks launching the cub and the cub getting hurt.  The mother risks hurting herself in the process as she climbs the tree.  The other …

Pat Robertson and Haiti

Please watch the video below before you read what I write.  In context, Robertson does call this a tragedy and there are some kernels of truth in that God does work in the midst of a tragedy.  However, I disagree with his hypothesis that this tragedy is somewhat the result of the "pact" the Haitians …