Nathan Branson
Whatever you read here is a way for me to hash out ideas until I can talk about them in real-time with whoever is willing to join in.
What if Books Were Advertised on TV and Youtube?
"I didn't know there was a book about that."
Will the popularity of Kindle help or hurt whether young people read? Will the fact that people power-browse articles on their IPhones negatively effect their reading habits? Aren’t people too busy to read a 350 page novel in 2017? These are the kinds of questions I hear related as to why people might read less than they did in the past. I’m . . .
Part 2: Seeing God in the Post-Prayer Present
The Hand from the Sky When the Urgency is Gone
“Belief in God has to be more than mental assent, more than a cliched exercise in cognition.” ---Ann Voskamp
Recently I came home from work, very hungry. I knew there was very little to eat, no crackers, no cheese, no yogurt, no left-over spaghetti or burrito ingredients. So I got the peanut butter and bread out of the cabinet, laid . . .
Part 1: A Method for Developing Internal, Private Gratitude to God
Does a person intentionally need to learn thankfulness?
"When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirsty by drinking, not by reading books which treat this condition.” ----Pierre de Caussade
I’ve always thought of thankfulness as a perfunctory virtue for old people and holidays. It was something adult mothers started to develop once they had children. By the time they had . . .
Write on the Whiteboard Every Class: My Advice to Teachers Straight out of Undergrad
An Old School Answer to an Common Problem
If I were speaking to 22-year-old, recently graduated, aspiring teachers I would give them one piece of advice:
Find a way to write on the white board every single class.
This is the one thing I've found that can wake up a sleepy class. I’ve taught freshman composition for 5 years now at the community college level. Like . . .
5 Digital Lectures by Christian Thinkers
Background Noise for the Commute or House-Work
Wrestling with questions in my faith has consistently led to growth. I have lots of questions about Christianity and how it works. Typically these questions float around subconsciously in my mind and I may randomly stumble across an answer in a book, sermon or lecture. Sometimes I write the question down and seek it out intentionally. However . . .
Posted in: christianintellect vs. emotionsjames ka smithjesuskaren swallow priorn.t. wrightpersuasionstraw man fallacytim keller
Creativity is Easy, Execution is Hard
On Executing "Big Ideas" and Leadership
When it comes to leadership, I find that execution of a “big idea” is as important as the creation of the idea in the first place.
My senior year of college at UNCW, I came up with an idea, in which my literature professor helped me to turn into an on-campus panel discussion.
One Saturday afternoon in the spring of 2006, I . . .
Five Memoirs that Guys in their Twenties Should Read
Stories That Help Make Sense of the Big Questions
I work on a regular basis with people between the ages of 17 and 25. As a community college English teacher, I am tasked with helping students write the 5-paragraph essay, find credible sources online and write clearly. I walk into work every day hoping to help students enjoy writing rather than viewing it as a soul-sucking chore. However, . . .
