Sometimes our ideas for roundtables come from your blog comments. Such was the case with this week's show. After we talked with the guys a couple weeks ago about being "confident vs. creepy," a firestorm set off surrounding the question of "women needing security." Several guys described the women they know as "too independent." Women wailed that they can't win: they're either pegged as helpless and naive if they live at home or have a low-paying job, or are decried as power-hungry if they own a home and have a blossoming career. Well, we had to discuss.

Girls Just Wanna Be Secure -- 00:00

Suzanne, Sarah and I met in the studio to unwrap what it means for women to want security without being stifled. What does "security" look like? Is it having a guy with mad martial arts skills? Someone who can buy his way through life? Provide the dog and white picket fence? We ponder our own preferences and pet peeves, and offer a few views on confidence and manliness while we're at it.

Jimmy Needham -- 15:16

Jimmy Needham loves accolades, but knows he has to keep his ego in check. He says the best way to do that (besides listening to his wife) is to admit (and confess) his love for the spotlight. Regularly. With the release of his new album, Night Lights, Jimmy has a lot to be proud of. One of our super summer interns, Katelyn Searcy, is a huge fan, and steps in to interview him about his career, his marriage, his ministry to singles, and a whole lot more.

I Want Christian Friends, But I Don't -- 48:52

Stephanie doesn't have many Christian friends at her college. She'd like to, but feels that most of the Christians she knows are fake. Much faker than her non-Christian friends. She's torn, because she knows that the company she keeps matters. So what's she to do? Dr. Chris Leland, head of the Focus Leadership Institute, knows college students and knows what it means to live your faith while in the fray. He offers some wise insight to Steph and those who struggle with disappointment in forming friendships, especially with those who claim Christ but don't always live up to our expectations.

One one level it's no surprise. In those years he used to say he wished he could be a professional thinker. Early in my life my parents could see that I shared his reflective nature, and they used to joke that I "got the professional-thinker gene."

But of course, there's no such thing. And that's the part that struck me the most as I read through Dad's writings. I got some traits through genetics and some traits through upbringing. I also got some personality traits from my father that can't be explained by either of those. I can't tell you how I got them. I only know that I did.

I'm not unique this way. It's a universal phenomenon. That's why adoptive children who never knew their birth parents often learn that they share aspects of their parents' personalities. It's a strange and wondrous thing, for good or ill. It's also undeniably real.

How are you like your parents -- in ways beyond what your genetics or upbringing can explain?

The title alone compelled me. I know I've found myself wondering if some thought I'm having, especially in relation to making a big decision, is merely my own intuition or the voice of the Holy Spirit.

The author, Phillip Cary, recounts a paper one of his students wrote, in which she equated "revelation" from God with hearing a voice from God in her heart. That hearing, the student noted, is a confusing prospect. How do you know if you're hearing God's voice or your own?

As it turns out, according to Cary, we needn't worry about which of the voices in our head is God's.

"None of them is," he says. "The revelation of God comes in another way, through the word of God in the Bible, and this is something you can find outside your heart."

So I agreed with Cary on some points. And vehemently disagreed with him on others. One thing is for sure, though: His article definitely got me thinking about what has led to what he calls "deeply flawed" theology -- all this fretting about distinguishing our panoply of interior voices from the voice of God.

One problem, as I see things, is that for quite a while now in the evangelical branch of Christendom we've been telling people -- and, consequently, telling ourselves -- that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."

Now, that idea isn't explicitly untrue. But such a conception of the gospel can encourage us to think God necessarily has a specific, predetermined path for our lives -- from the job we take to the person we date to the car we drive.

After all, He has wonderful plan for me, right?

Thinking in terms of plans and paths leads to questions like, "So how can I know if the option I'm about to choose is going to keep me on the path?"

It's an honest question. But the problem isn't that we don't know how to discern God's perfect, and ostensibly singular, will for our lives. The problem is we see our believing in Jesus as a means to an end, that end being the plan God has for us.

Instead, we need to view the gospel in terms of relationship. We need to see Jesus not as a means to an end, but as the end itself.

Jesus Himself is our goal.

Our prize.

That which we've been looking for all this time.

When we conceive of the gospel, and our relationship to God, as being primarily about relationship with God, the decisions we make about dating this or that person, taking this or that job, buying this or that car, all become much easier -- at least in my estimation and in my experience. Because we don't have to wait around for God to reveal His perfect will in a particular situation. Instead, we make whatever decision seems appropriate, knowing all the while that Christ is walking beside us on the path we're walking.

I should pause here and be clear: I'm definitely not saying that I don't think God sometimes has a particular path for us at particular points in time. To the contrary: You couldn't convince me that in certain situations -- my choosing to attend K-State, my participating in the Juneau Men's Project with Campus Crusade -- I merely divined from Scripture the direction I needed to go. I believe that in these two cases, and in myriad others, God provided me, in the parlance of Cary's article, "revelation."

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we need to embrace the idea, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, that making decisions according to God's will is not without its fair share of mystery.

But one thing isn't mysterious: the fact that the gospel is all about reconciled relationship with the God of the universe. And that relationship provides us the very freedom -- especially from our fears of making the wrong decision -- for which Christ has set us free.

Nice line, I've always thought. And a nice lead-in to this important article from the Witherspoon Institute. Its compelling argument: "Americans appear to accept same-sex marriage more than they really do, perhaps because they believe it to be more widely accepted than it really is."

A few weeks ago, a CNN/Gallup poll said 52 percent of respondents supported and only 46 percent opposed same-sex marriage, and was widely hailed as a breakthrough: the first time that position ever commanded a majority. But just days later, note authors Matthew J. Franck and Gwen Brown, a poll by Public Policy Polling (whose head supports same-sex marriage) found just 33 percent support it and 57 percent oppose it.

Why the difference? Public Policy Polling uses an automated calling system. Respondents have anonymity: They can choose answers from a list without thinking there's someone on the other line. In other words, they can say what they really think without worrying that they'll offend anyone.

Franck and Brown attribute this to what they call the Seinfeld Effect. That's a reference to a famous Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George respond to a (false) rumor that they're gay with vehement denials, but invariably tack on the disclaimer "not that there's anything wrong with that." They're not really sincere about it. They're just saying what they think they're supposed to say. Saying what they think everyone else thinks.

What we're seeing, the authors say, is what social scientists call the "spiral of silence." One side's reluctant to speak up, the other gets increasingly aggressive, and wins by default. The hard core will defend marriage, but they're increasingly isolated.

Which is why it's so important that we keep talking about what marriage really is, and what it isn't.

“My view is different from everyone else’s around me” is the opinion-killer for many people, even when the perception is a false one. Defenders of the institution of marriage need to know that they stand, not merely with more like-minded contemporaries than they suspect, but with countless generations of thoughtful people — husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, philosophers and lawgivers, prophets and priests — who believed as they believe.

That's every Christian's job. As Martin Luther said:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefields beside is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

CORRECTION: The attribution of the above quote to Martin Luther is incorrect. See response #22 for details.

Fear is something I've struggled with all my life. I'm kind of a 'fraidy cat. Several years ago, I wrote about it in "Fight Fear With Fear," when I described the crippling fear that seized me when I started college. Some experiences I've had in life that should have been the most exciting were the most plagued by fear.

And that's a pattern that's continued. To be honest, though I am joyfully anticipating the little boy who will join our family in December, I also have my share of fears over the event. But, I know that fear of the future or things of this world are rooted in a lack of trust:

Whom or what we fear comes down to an issue of authority. Do I truly believe God has absolute control in my life? If so, have a submitted myself fully to Him? Ungodly fear arises when I attempt to depend on my own judgment and perspective.

Through the years, I've become pretty comfortable with my own judgment and perspective. I feel the most confident when I see how everything is going to work out. But God calls me to fear Him alone, and in doing that cast out my own petty fears.

What is fear holding you back from? What might change if you let it go?

Mine has wandered now to two conversations I had -- one, several months ago with Liam, my brother-in-law, and another several weeks later with my good friend and seminarian, Brad.

I asked both of them, What might turn out to be our generation's public, corporate sin?

And just to be clear, I didn't mean our generation of Americans. Rather, I was speaking of, and write about now, our generation of Christ followers.

That question arises from my wondering if a public, corporate sin of the previous generation has been the politicizing, and coincidentally diluting and distorting, of the gospel. Which is to say, public demonstrations of the faith have consisted, over the past several decades, primarily of political discourse.

Let me here define what I mean by "political." I'm not referring to the public policy process, but rather all the spin, truth-bending and self-interest that so often attends that process.

OK. So, the problem with political discourse, at least as I see it, is that, among other things, it's binary: One's own side is all good, while the Others' side is totally and utterly bad. Only two options exist; you must pick one.

Flowing out of the binarity of political discourse is the dehumanizing of the Other. If my perspective is totally correct, only a crazy person could subscribe to the alternative position. While political discourse may be a convenient way of relating to the world -- after all, you either agree with me in total or you're crazy -- it necessarily leads to the dehumanizing of the Other.

All of which, as a side note, strikes me as inherently odd. Aren't we Christians called to love our enemies? To pray for them, even? An interesting thing about praying for one's enemies is that one ceases to have enemies; one can hardly continue hating another while also genuinely and earnestly praying for them.

All that to say, we do a disservice to the gospel, and to those who desperately need that Good News, when our mode of comporting ourselves publicly is primarily political.

Perhaps I'm committing the sin of painting in brush stokes that are too broad by saying this, but it seems to me that our generation is eschewing political discourse as the mode for Christianly public engagement. At least I am, as are so are many of my thinking friends.

If our generation isn't going to commit the sins that attend political discourse, what, then, will be our generation's public, corporate sin?

I'm not saying we necessarily will commit some sin of our own. But that we wouldn't seems unlikely. We humans, in our fallen nature, rarely inhabit that balance between extremes. In attempting to ameliorate one problem, we swing like pendulums right to another, and without paying our swinging much attention.

So I'll ask again: To what sin might we millennials resort? And who will become our Other?

But here's another, hopefully more positive question: How might we be wary of our generation's tendencies and reactions, and in so doing guard against them now before they become entrenched in the culture of our generation?

Our answers to that question will define us Christ followers -- and, consequently, our Christ -- for decades to come.

It's been a busy week in Minnesota. Monday we went to Itasca State Park, home of the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi. Here you can walk across the river at its source, and I think I have about 10 photos of myself at different stages of life doing just that.

Tuesday was the funeral for a man in my mom's church. He was 99, bless his heart. I got roped into making a "hot dish" (read: casserole) for the occasion, and then Amie and I served at the lunch following the service. Life in a small town = all hands on deck. Yesterday was a trip to the lake house where we sat on the dock as long as we could before the mosquitoes nearly did us in.

This morning I toured the local farmers elevator and learned the process of weighing, cleaning, selling and storing grain. Tonight is our last opportunity to eat sweet corn before we drive off tomorrow, Colorado-bound. Can you believe summer is coming to an end? Sad.

"The Rest of the Story" -- 00:00

Do you remember when we interviewed pro-tennis-player-turned-radio-host David Wheaton? He wasn't sure he was meant to be married, and the guys gave him a hard time about that. Well, that was then, and this is now. Less than a year after being on the show, David married Brodie, a family friend whom he'd known for 32 years and had dated twice. They've now been married just over a year. Their story is a massive encouragement to those of us who wonder if God is still working behind the scenes in ways we do not yet understand. And I told David that Boundless is taking at least some credit for getting him married. Because let's face it: We help people get it done.

Souls in Transition -- 40:20

What's the spiritual landscape of young adults as a population? Christian Smith, sociologist at Notre Dame and author of Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, is a smart dude who has done a ton of research on the subject. He joins us here to unload some of his knowledge to give us a better picture of how and why today's younger generations worship the Lord (or not).

Classy vs. Trashy -- 1:01:55

Do bad girls get more dates? One listener wonders, and she wrote to us about it. Suzanne Gosselin helps me offer some perspective on the difference between being "interesting" vs. "in your face." If you feel you're being passed over because other girls are more flirty or forward than you, be encouraged. Modest does not equal "wallflower," nor does outgoing equal "obnoxious." Whew.

I'll be back in Colorado next week. Until then, enjoy the show!

Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? That’s the subject of lively debate among policy makers and academics. To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage -- a stage that all of us need to adjust to.

That's the opinion of Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

He is leading the movement to view the 20s as a distinct life stage, which he calls “emerging adulthood.” He says what is happening now is analogous to what happened a century ago, when social and economic changes helped create adolescence -- a stage we take for granted but one that had to be recognized by psychologists, accepted by society and accommodated by institutions that served the young. Similar changes at the turn of the 21st century have laid the groundwork for another new stage, Arnett says, between the age of 18 and the late 20s.

But is this truly a new life stage? Some question that. One major argument against Arnett's theory is the fact that not all countries share the "emerging adulthood" period we see in the U.S. marked by "boomerang kids" and "helicopter parents." Essentially, it is not possible for parents in third-world countries to continue supporting their offspring past childhood -- so the kids deal. They grow up.

To qualify as a developmental stage, emerging adulthood must be both universal and essential. “If you don’t develop a skill at the right stage, you’ll be working the rest of your life to develop it when you should be moving on,” [Richard Lerner, Bergstrom chairman in applied developmental science at Tufts University] said. “The rest of your development will be unfavorably altered.” The fact that Arnett can be so casual about the heterogeneity of emerging adulthood and its existence in some cultures but not in others -- indeed, even in some people but not in their neighbors or friends -- is what undermines, for many scholars, his insistence that it’s a new life stage.

While I certainly see the unique challenges for 20-somethings today, including the task of being economically secure (in a bad economy) and finding a spouse (something that didn't happen for me until 31), I question whether this is a distinctive life stage. Perhaps what is masquerading as "emerging adulthood" -- an all new life stage! -- is simply what we here have been calling adultescence. What do you think?

I wasn't sure at the beginning of the week if I was ready for the semester to start. Summer flew by. I was only beginning to get used to the lazier schedule. But after having attended my first class yesterday morning -- Recreation, Tourism, and the Environment -- I'm definitely ready.

If you're a fellow grad student, and you're anything like me, you have a love/hate relationship with grad school. On the one hand, you hate all the work and the deadlines and that very acute feeling of angst you get when you think about your thesis or dissertation and the fact that you have zero updates to share with your adviser.

On the other hand, you love to learn. You actually like reading academic articles, especially for their potential to shed new light on your topic. And let's be honest: Writing a really good paper or finishing a chapter of your thesis is such a rush.

The fact that we're enrolled in another semester shows that the love side is winning.

If you ask me, I think that the love side should win out for another, transcendent reason. That reason? Worship.

If it sounds like I'm heading off on a tangent, stick with me.

We who spend some of our time each week in church are often reminded that worship is more than just the 30 or so minutes we spend singing songs on Sunday morning. But how imaginative do we allow ourselves to be when we think of what all worship comprises?

For those of us in graduate school, our more-expansive view of worship ought to include our studies.

Our searching out and delighting in the truths of the universe as God created it constitutes worship -- from studying how supernovas form to deconstructing The Great Gatsby to dissecting various economic theories. All of it. The deeper we search for truth and meaning in the world the more we who place our faith in God see His fingerprints all over everything. I am convinced God takes delight every time I realize one more way my studies in geography -- which span philosophy, sociology, psychology, and many other other social sciences -- corroborate the truths in His Word.

All discussions of how pursuing a graduate degree has a tendency to discourage marriage aside (because this is Boundless and we know those discussions are going to arise), consider this blog post permission to believe that your being in graduate school is glorifying to God.

Now go do the best job you can of worshiping our Creator with the mind He created in you.

...

If you're in grad school these, let's hear from you. What are you studying? How's your thesis topic shaping up? Despite the frustrations -- the late nights, the dead ends, the research rabbit trails -- what keeps you going? And what goals do you hope to attain with your degree?

Lewis celebrated the freedom of friendship. "I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine," he wrote. "No claim, no shadow of necessity." But he understood that freedom in the context of God's will, at work to bring us blessings, and to make us better in the process.

Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing.

Friendship is a unique kind of love, he wrote, distinct from the romantic or other kinds. "We picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead," he wrote. "That is why those pathetic people who simply 'want friends' can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends." Friendship must be about something, he said -- some common interest, "even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers.

But:

The common quest or vision which unites friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another. On the contrary it is the very medium in which there mutual love and knowledge exist. One knows nobody so well as one's "fellow." ... If, at the outset, we had attended more to him less to the thing which our Friendship is "about," we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.

There's much more there than I can recap here, and it's all rewarding reading. But this much is a good start, both to appreciate the true friendships you have and to evaluate whether some of your relationships are friendships.

Does this spark any thoughts?

Friendship, Lewis wrote, "is born at the moment when one man says to another 'What? You too? I thought that no one but myself. ...' " Trouble is, a common taste or viewpoint doesn't have to be a good one: "We all know the perilous charm of shared hatred or grievance." And even if that grievance has a legitimate foundation, it can easily take on an unhealthy quality.

He goes on:

Every real friendship is a sort of seccession, even a rebellion. It may be a rebellion of serious thinkers against clap-trap or of faddists against accepted good sense; of real artists against popular ugliness or of charlatans against civilized taste; of good men against the badness of society or of bad men against its goodness. ... Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue; but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. ...

The danger is that this partial indifference or deafness to outside opinion, justified and necessary though it is, may lead to a wholesale indifference or deafness.... Like an aristocracy, it can create around it a vacuum across which no voice will carry.

As usual, I recognize what he's talking about because I've caught myself doing it. I've been blessed with several close friendships, and I know how easy it is get angry on behalf of a friend who's been treated badly, all the more when I have been too. To some extent, we need to vent those feelings, and that can take a while. But we have to watch out that we don't let them take over and create a cycle of frustration and resentment.

My healthiest friendships are the ones where we're both aware of that risk. We support each other but also try to help each other see things clearly. We respect each other enough to want the other to do that for us. As much as we have in common, we know that a pair of totally like-minded people -- forever saying "you're so right, you're so right" -- aren't truly helping each other.

Have you had any friendships where, in an effort to help each other, you've fed unhealthy attitudes in each other? What have you done/are you doing/should you do to keep things in balance?

As you're reading this, I'm in Minnesota hanging with my fam. I pulled my city-slicker friend Amie (the same one who met me in Europe) along on a roadtrip through the prairies of South and North Dakota all the way over to Minnesota. We drove through the Black Hills up into Theodore Roosevelt National Park and over to Medora, ND. We then tooled down the Enchanted Highway, known for its large and randomly-placed metal sculptures of everything from farmers to prairie chickens. We drove on miles and miles of open prairie, stopping repeatedly to clean the bugs from our windshield before arriving late Wednesday night at my sister's farm. We'll spend a week introducing Amie to the glories of the upper Midwest. Maybe I'll have her share her impressions with you when we return. Until then, it's a "for the guys" show this week. Check it:

Confidence, Not Creepiness – 00:00

We want guys to lead. We want them to be assertive. But then we ladies say, "Whoa ... wait." What gives? Are we just confusing them with our push me-pull me drama? When it comes to relationships, there's a fine line, and a panel of gents joins me to discuss the balance between being intentional and strong vs. overbearing and stalkerish. They've got plenty of opinions, so listen in.

Thabiti Anyabwile was a Muslim – 36:19

He was given the name Ron Burns at birth, but converted to Islam and changed his name in college. Then God chased him down and changed him forever. Long-time Boundless friend Thabiti Anyabwile talks here about his journey to Christ and his passion for witnessing to Muslims as detailed in his book, The Gospel for Muslims. He encourages us all to step beyond the stereotypes and misperceptions to share Christ boldly with our Muslim friends.

I Can't Get Over Her – 58:08

It's been three years since the breakup, and he's stuck. He can't get over how the relationship ended and is having a hard time moving on. He's drifted out of his church, and his friends told him he needs help. So he wrote to us. Focus counselor Danny Huerta has some compassionate yet practical advice to help this listener heal and move forward with hope.

Which was why I was delighted that my sister, Jenni, and her husband, Liam, both independent of one another, sent me a link to the New York Times article "Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain."

The article is part of the Times' "Your Brain on Computers" series, which I now have every intention of reading through. In this particular article, five academics, all brain scientists, head off into the wilderness on a rafting trip down the San Juan River of southeast Utah. For most of the trip they're out of cell phone service, away from computers and left to think about how electronic technology, and the lack thereof, affects the brain and, more broadly, the human experience.

My sister and brother-in-law sent the article to me, I'm sure, because of the conversation we three had just this past weekend.

Interestingly enough, the setting and situation mirrored the article: We were out in the Rocky Mountains, west of Colorado Springs, discussing whether or not technology is morally neutral.

OK, so actually we were driving in my air-conditioned car on our way to Sonic for lunch in the next town over. Which is so much like floating on a river for three days. But we were talking about the moral implications of technology use. Just like professors.

Our conversation really got going when, half believing it, half trying to be provocative, I claimed that technology is not morally neutral. Liam disagreed. How can technology not be morally neutral? he countered.

OK, I granted, no technology has agency unto itself, and therefore -- obviously -- can't force its users to make the choices they do while using that technology. But, I counter-countered, technology is developed by flawed humans: Any particular technology has built into it the biases of its builders. And in any case, we often don't understand the secondary effects technology has on us.

We all agreed that technology necessarily affects, in some decidedly negative ways, how we relate to ourselves, to creation and especially to one another -- which is distinctly moral territory.

I bring up this article and this weekend's discussion to ask some questions: In what ways do technology and electronic gadgets affect us? How might we use technologies like blogging and Facebook in redemptive ways?

Do you find your own use of technology altering how you relate to the world around you?

These are questions I think our generation -- we who are accustomed to various electronic technologies, but who can remember life before the ubiquity of cell phones and wireless Internet access -- is uniquely suited to answer.

Here's another question: What about we who interact here on Boundless? I mean, here we are, talking about relationships and spiritual things -- on the Internet. Is it possible that our discourse -- how we talk to one another and even what we talk about -- is different from what it otherwise would be because it's taking place on a blog?

I understand it sounds like I'm hatin' on technology. But I don't think I'm too much of a Luddite. I'm not convinced that we necessarily need to avoid technology altogether. After all, I haven't abandoned my cell phone, my laptop or my Facebook page.

Or blogging for Boundless, for that matter.

But I do think we need to think much longer and much harder about the theology of technology. Let's make sure we're asking the questions -- on a river in Utah or on the way to Sonic; any place will do -- that our technologies beg of us.

Even if the entire story was a fabrication, we so deeply wanted it to be true. Slater was the personified wish fulfillment of anyone who's ever worked in the service industry and been at the wrong end of ill-tempered customers. He did what all of us have dreamt of, and he did it with a panache few of us could probably even cook up in our wildest fantasies.

Someone once told me everyone should work in the service industry at some point in his life. It gives you the ability to understand the plight of those who serve. But even if you've served a mile in their sturdy black shoes, why is it so easy to become indignant when you receive bad service? The answer is simple, says Smith: pride. Deep down, we all feel like were a little more special and deserving than the next guy. But treating poorly those who serve us has deeper implications:

Here’s a sweeping statement that I have no trouble standing by: If you’re nice to your friends, but a jerk to the guy who got your coffee order wrong at Starbucks, you’re actually just a jerk. The way we treat people the world would see as beneath us reveals our character. Moreover, rudeness, impatience and intolerance toward the people serving us isn’t just a minor character flaw. It’s a flat-out sin.

My husband, who used to work at Starbucks, would agree. A steady flow of local pastors frequented his store. And he could gauge the health of a church based on how its pastors treated the baristas. He also cringed to hear the chatter among workers after they had encountered a "jerky Christian." Smith continues:

It may sound elementary, but the people serving us are humans. They have goals, hobbies, loved ones, stresses, fears and, most importantly, feelings. It may be hard to swallow, but many of them are also smarter, more competent and nicer than us. When we’re wronged, or treated without sensitivity or consideration, it wrecks us. The person behind the counter at McDonald’s is no different. As anyone who has worked in the service industry can tell you, one terrible encounter with a customer can ruin an entire day. God forbid that encounter come at the hands of someone who professes to be a Christian.

So Steven Slater may be a phony, but that kinship customer servants everywhere feel to him reveals something important: People are prone to treating those who serve as second-rate citizens. But in God's world, no one is second-rate. As followers of Christ, we need to consistently proclaim that message. Our role is to remind people that they are infinitely valuable. So valuable that Christ died for them. That's the kind of attitude that makes a difference.

McCracken's article is an appropriately heavy-handed critique of evangelical churches' attempts to woo people into the pews -- especially younger people.

He lists some examples of churches' attempts to appropriate cool, from in-sermon references to pop culture icons to metrosexual makeovers for the pastor to "an obsession with being on the technological cutting edge."

McCracken also notes "wannabe cool" Christians' use of sex as a "popular shock tactic":

Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia, created a website called yourgreatsexlife.com to pique the interest of young seekers. Flamingo Road Church in Florida created an online, anonymous confessional (IveScrewedUp.com), and had a web series called MyNakedPastor.com, which featured a 24/7 webcam showing five weeks in the life of the pastor, Troy Gramling. Then there is Mark Driscoll at Seattle's Mars Hill Church -- who posts Q&A videos online, from services where he answers questions from people in church, on topics such as "Biblical Oral Sex" and "Pleasuring Your Spouse."

As an ever-so-minor critique, I was a little bit disappointed that McCracken included in his lead-in to his discussion on sex-as-shock-tactic Lauren Winner's Real Sex and Rob Bell's Sex God. I'll allow that each book's title might be a bit much. But both works transcend cool without even trying -- and in a way a project called My Naked Pastor never could.

I very much appreciate that McCracken asks the questions such marketing techniques beg: "[A]re these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to church? Is this what people really come to church for?"

And I love his answers:

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that "cool Christianity" is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it's easy or trendy or popular. It's because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It's because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched -- and we want an alternative. It's not because we want more of the same.

Preach it. Brother.

I'll go ahead and wrap up this blog post with two questions:

1. Is Christian culture too worried about being cool?
2. What constitutes this "real" Brett says we want? I have my ideas, but I'm curious what you all think.

(By the way, Mr. McCracken, a fellow twentysomething, is author of the recently released Hipster Christianity. I was able to get my hands on an advanced reader copy several months ago, and though I only read through the first few chapters, I can say it is a worthwhile read.)