What is moving in faith and family.

A recent survey found that two in three churchgoers failed a Bible literacy quiz. The people who scored best were the ones who attend church most often and read the Bible most often. None of that is shocking, but it should still sting a little.

Many of us assume that showing up on Sunday covers it. We sit in the pew, we sing, we nod at the sermon, and we figure the Word is sinking in. The survey suggests otherwise. Attendance helps, but the people who know the Book are the ones who also open it during the week.

Moses told fathers in Deuteronomy 6:7 (NKJV), "You shall teach them diligently to your children." You cannot teach what you do not know. Your wife and kids will not learn Scripture from a man who has handed that job to the pastor and the youth group.

This does not need to become a guilt spiral. Start small. Read one chapter a day. Read it out loud at the table. Ask your son what he thinks it means, and be willing to say, "I don't know, let's find out." That kind of honesty teaches as much as any answer.

If you are ready to stop coasting on Sunday alone and start learning the Word beside other men, find a Launching Pad near you, which is free to attend, and bring your Bible.

A Christian writer recently argued that phones should stay out of the church service. Most of us already know the reason. When the phone comes out, our thoughts get interrupted and our attention splits. We end up more attentive to the device than to the Lord, or even to the family of believers sitting around us.

This is a men's issue because we set the tone. A father who checks a screen during the sermon teaches his children something without saying a word. A husband who glances at notifications during worship tells his wife where his mind is. A man who leads or serves at church carries an even heavier example.

Scripture asks for a kind of attention that a buzzing pocket works against. Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God" (NKJV). Stillness is hard to practice when something in your hand is always asking for a look.

You do not need a new rule book. Leave the phone in the car, or put it in your pocket on silent. Bring a paper Bible if you can. Then watch what changes in how you listen, sing and pray beside your wife and kids.

If you want to practice that kind of focused presence with other men who are working on the same thing, come to a Launching Pad, which is free to attend, and see what it looks like to give a room of brothers your full attention.

An Ohio pastor has drawn wide attention for openly living in a polygamous marriage, and his stepdaughter has now spoken publicly about it, including how the church around him responded. We do not know every detail, and we should not pretend to. But the story raises a question every married man should answer for himself: who defines marriage, God or me?

Scripture does not leave it open. Genesis 2:24 (ESV) says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." One man, one wife, joined for life. Jesus pointed back to that same design when he was asked about marriage in Matthew 19. He did not adjust it to fit the mood of the age.

Notice who gets hurt when a man bends the rules for his own desires. Children grow up inside his decisions. A stepdaughter speaking out is a reminder that what we do at home becomes the story our kids tell later.

Notice the church's part too. Elders and friends are meant to speak up early and in love, before a man's private compromise becomes a public wound. Ask yourself whether you have men who are allowed to tell you no.

None of us is above drifting, and faithfulness is built in small, ordinary choices that are easier with brothers beside you. If you want men who will ask you honest questions about your marriage and your home, come to a Launching Pad, which is free to attend.

Angel Studios has announced a new set of content standards it calls Angel Promise. Going forward, its releases will not include sex or nudity, will not misuse the name of God, and will limit profanity. Whether a studio keeps a promise like that is something time will show, but the announcement says something about what many families have been asking for.

Plenty of men feel the pull to hand the screen over to whoever makes the next show and hope for the best. A studio's standard can help, but it cannot do the work that belongs to the father. David wrote in Psalm 101:3 (ESV), "I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless." Notice the words I will. It is a decision made by a man, not a rating handed to him.

A cleaner catalog makes the decision easier, not unnecessary. You still have to watch with your kids, ask what they took from it, and be honest about what you let in after they go to bed. Your sons learn what a man tolerates by watching what you tolerate.

Pick one thing in your home that you have let slide this week and deal with it plainly. If you would like other men beside you while you do, come find a Launching Pad, which is free to attend, and sit down with men who are working on the same thing.

A pastor in Ohio has taken a second wife, and the debate that followed has spread well beyond his own church. Tony Dungy stepped into it by pointing to Scripture and saying polygamy is a sin.

We do not need every detail of one man's situation to see what is at stake for the rest of us. When a leader bends God's pattern for marriage, other men are watching. Some start to think the standard is flexible. Others grow cynical about the whole thing.

The pattern is not hidden. Genesis 2:24 says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (ESV). One man, one wife, joined together. Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and Christ has only one bride. Paul also says in 1 Timothy 3 that an overseer must be the husband of one wife.

Most of us will never be tempted to marry a second woman. But divided loyalty shows up in quieter ways. It can be a phone, a flirtation, or a job that gets our best while our wife gets what is left. The question is the same either way: is she the one I am fully given to?

If you want to build that kind of undivided commitment alongside other men who are working on it too, come see what a free Launching Pad looks like near you.

A college student woke up on a football Saturday feeling lucky. He built a parlay with fifteen separate pieces, and every one had to hit. Then he went to the parking lot outside Kyle Field at Texas A&M and watched parts of his bet play out in stadiums far away.

Think about that picture. He is standing at one game, but his attention is split across a dozen others, and his joy depends on strangers he will never meet. Sports betting now sits in the pocket of nearly every man with a phone, and many young men are learning to watch games this way. The game stops being the point. The wager becomes the point.

Scripture speaks plainly here. Proverbs 13:11 (ESV) says, "Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it." God honors patient work and faithful stewardship. A parlay promises the opposite: a big payoff for a small stake, and a feeling of luck in place of a plan.

Ask yourself some honest questions. What am I hoping for on a Saturday? Is my heart at rest in what God has given me, or leaning toward the next big win? What do my sons see when they look at me during a game?

If you want brothers who will talk through questions like these with you, face to face and without a lecture, come find a free Launching Pad near you and sit at the table with us.

Some American couples who said yes to adopting a child from another country are now stuck overseas, waiting for permission to bring their children home. Among them are Josh and Katie Derrick of Cleveland, Tennessee. They have been foster parents for years and have adopted several children here in the States. Then friends of theirs adopted from Malawi, and the Derricks saw pictures of children there waiting for families. They could not shake it. They believed God had laid it on their hearts.

We will not tell you how to feel about the policies behind the delay. What stands out to us is the father in the story. Saying yes to a child is the easy part for a lot of men in the moment. Staying put in a hard place, away from work and home and your other kids, while the paperwork crawls, is where a man shows what he meant.

James 1:27 (ESV) says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." Notice the word visit. It means showing up and staying present, not sending good wishes from a distance.

Most of us will never wait in a foreign country for a child. Many of us will wait on a teenager who is drifting, a wife who is hurting, or a prayer that has gone unanswered. Faithfulness in the waiting is the same muscle, and if you want other men beside you while you build it, come find a Launching Pad, which is free to attend.

The Archdiocese of New York and survivors of clergy abuse have agreed to an $800 million settlement that would end more than seven years of lawsuits. No amount of money repairs what was done to a child, and the survivors know that better than anyone.

This is not someone else's problem. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus spoke with great severity about anyone who causes one of His little ones to stumble. He treated harm to children as a grave matter, and so should we.

Here is what we take from it as men. Abuse grows where people value reputation over the child. Leaders stay quiet. Fathers say it could never be him. The hurting child carries it alone. More than seven years of legal fighting shows how long pain can sit unanswered.

Husbands and fathers, ask yourself some plain questions. Do you know who is alone with your children? Would your son or daughter tell you if something were wrong, or are they afraid of how you would react? If you serve in a church, do you know how it handles a report of abuse? Believing a hurting child and acting quickly is not disloyalty to the church. It is obedience to Christ.

If you want to grow as a watchful protector in your home and your congregation, come and sit with other men at a Launching Pad, which is free to attend.

A university administrator in Kentucky has been granted a religious exemption from using artificial intelligence at work. He is a humanist, not a Christian, and his reason is worth hearing. He said using AI would cause him to hand off his thinking and decision making, and that would violate his convictions.

You do not have to share his worldview to respect the instinct. Many of us already let software draft our emails, summarize our reading and suggest what to say in a hard conversation. Some of that is just a tool, like a calculator. But a man can slowly stop wrestling with hard questions because an easy answer is always one tap away.

Scripture gives us a deeper reason than he has. Proverbs 3:5 in the NKJV says, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding." Notice what that asks. It does not tell us to stop thinking. It tells us where our weight rests. Husbands and fathers are called to discern, to pray over decisions and to carry the load of leading a home. That is not work to outsource. Wisdom grows by use, and a mind that never struggles goes soft.

Ask yourself this week what decision you are dodging by letting something else make it. Pray it through, open the Word, and talk it over with another man. If you want men to think and pray alongside you, come see what a Launching Pad is like, because it is free to attend and built for exactly that kind of conversation.

With the midterms only days away, Christian writers are asking a hard question: how can you tell when a political conviction has turned into an idol? It is a fair question for men, because we usually set the tone in our homes.

Caring about justice, your country and your neighbors is not sin. The trouble starts when the thing we care about slips into the place that belongs to God. Scripture is blunt about it: "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3, NKJV). An idol does not have to be carved. It can be a news feed, a candidate, or a cause that gets our best attention and our deepest fear.

Here are a few questions worth asking yourself. Do I spend more hours on commentary than in the Word? Does my wife or my son see me get angrier over a headline than over my own sin? Do I treat a brother in Christ like an enemy because he votes differently? Would a lost election shake me more than a lost week of prayer?

If an honest answer stings, good. Repentance is where freedom starts. Your family does not need a man who has all the right opinions. They need a husband and father whose peace does not rise and fall with the polls.

If you want to sort this out alongside other men asking the same hard questions, come to a free Launching Pad and see what it looks like to put Christ first together.