Author: Dan Pollak

Have you ever caught yourself using a phrase you absolutely hate, just because your best friend or your spouse uses it all the time? Or have you ever noticed that you’ve started adopting the exact same mannerisms as a coworker you spend forty hours a week with?  It doesn’t matter if you are a twenty-two-year-old college student, a parent…

An eight-year-old’s shoulders are roughly fourteen inches wide.  That is entirely too small to carry the weight of a crumbling marriage. It’s too small to carry the crushing, low-level anxiety of a digital world that never turns off. It is absolutely too small to carry the terrifying burden of abuse, severe bullying, or self-harm.  And yet, every single Sunday, kids…

Imagine it’s 9:15 AM on a Sunday.  In one room, you are sitting in a circle with a group of 1st and 2nd-graders. You’re handing out crayons and talking about how God created the world. A seven-year-old named Chloe, who has been quietly coloring a picture of a tree, stops. She looks up with complete innocence and asks, “If God made…

If you’ve ever watched a group of 2nd or 3rd graders at recess or a birthday party, you know it can be a surprisingly ruthless place.  It’s a world of unwritten, rapidly changing rules. In a matter of seconds, a kid can go from being someone’s “best friend ever” to being told, “you can’t play with us.” The social currency…

It’s 8:55 AM on a Sunday morning, and in walks Mason.  He’s a 4th grader, wearing a slightly oversized hoodie, carrying a water bottle covered in stickers, and before he even sits down in your circle, he’s already poked the kid next to him and announced that he doesn’t want to be here.  If you have lived around the Front Range…