My monthly blog traffic is up 164 percent over the same month last year. Mindy, my advertising director, is pressuring me to raise my rates, to bring them more in line with the market.

I told her that I wanted to wait until May 1st. I want to give you, my faithful reader, an opportunity to get more than double the impressions at the same old price.

I spent most of last week parked in my chair. I was working hard to finish the first draft of my new book. On the day before I turned it in, I sat at my desk for 12 hours. It was no surprise that my back was sore—really sore—by the end of the day.

My first instinct was to buy a better chair. But after reading an article by Dean Karnazes in Runner’s World, I realized that the real problem was the sitting itself.

We all know the physical benefits to running. I won’t waste your time by repeating them here. However, people who don’t run, often miss the non-physical benefits. To me, these are even more valuable than the physical ones.

This week, I have been running outdoors. I have chosen to run in the heat of the day—usually when the temperatures are 90° or more. I know, I’m crazy. But I am loving it.

We live in a world that is desperate for fathers. I am not just thinking about the millions of children who grow up without the benefit of a biological father. I am talking about the need for men who act like fathers and are willing to assume the role of fatherhood—with their families and in their communities.

This beautiful infographic tells the whole story about Father’s Day with some interesting facts about fatherhood in general. I am offline today, choosing to disconnect from Twitter and Facebook to reconnect with my family. I hope you will do the same.

After attending the services at our church last night, I am still speechless. Good Friday commemorates perhaps the greatest mystery in the history of the world. How is it that God Himself—the Creator of the Universe—can suffer death at the hands of His creatures?

Last night, our church observed the ancient service of the Twelve Passion Gospels. Though I have participated in this service more than twenty times, I never cease to be amazed—and deeply moved. I am almost always brought to tears, as I contemplate God’s extreme love for us.

Financial advisor and author, Dave Ramsey, says that one of the keys to financial success is to spend less than you earn and do it over a long period of time. The key to weight loss is similar. Burn more calories than you consume and keep doing it until you reach your target weight.

This is also the premise behind LoseIt.com, a Web site and app that Gail and I have been using since the first of the year.

This blog post has absolutely no point, other than a good laugh. Kick back and enjoy the fun! Thanks to my brother-in-law, Jack, for sending this link to me.

For many evangelical Christians, the word eucharist is a scary word. It suggests ritual, sacrament, and liturgy. For them, this seems to be the very opposite of a personal relationship with God through Christ.

But eucharist is word that all Christians, regardless of tradition, should embrace. It is no accident that for two thousand years it has been central to the experience of millions and millions of Christians.

This is a technical post for power users who want to setup a vanity URL shortener for HootSuite. Admittedly, it is off-topic for most of my readers. This is something I wanted to do, and it turned into a bigger project than I anticipated. So I thought I would document my experience and post it for posterity.Hopefully, it will save others some grief.

As you may know, a URL shortener is a way to take long Web site addresses and shorten it to a fraction of its size. This makes it much easier to share links via Twitter and other social media services where you have a limited number of characters to work with.

Several days ago, my wife, Gail, forwarded to me a Franciscan benediction that she had received from a friend. I thought it was so good, I just had to share it.

Warning: this is completely counter-cultural to the feel-good, prosperity spirituality that is so popular today.