One of the perks of being in a church youth group is having a standing group of people to spend time with in a setting that won’t make your parents worry about the status of your salvation. My youth group friends and I spent our summers playing putt-putt, Frisbee golf, diving off the platform at …
My youth group’s fine arts program was a robust organization. I’d been a part from its inception, proudly standing in the second row of the choir loft singing a song called “Sounds of Heaven,” a staple on Christian radio around that time. I felt grown and mature singing with the other teenagers, no longer a …
I was born into the church the way Prince William was born into the royal family; I had no choice in the matter. The level of involvement and understanding of Pentecostal decorum I had from a young age isn’t normal to most children, but I never knew any different. It wasn’t that I was expected …
In the year 2000, there wasn’t much in life I loved more than award shows. Not much has changed since then, but the 1999 Video Music Awards marked a pronounced shift in my pop culture trajectory. I hadn’t stopped talking about the show for months and I re-watched it endlessly on my VHS recording. I …
One of the most significant landmarks of my upbringing was Crider Road. Nestled between two Dallas suburbs, the trees clung to its entrance like heavy curtains making it feel more like a passage into Middle Earth than a service road in North Texas. The road wasn’t gravel but couldn’t be defined as fully paved either …
Continue reading "On Crider Road, Kick-the-Can & Change Around the Bend"
Ryan Brinson 