God wants you to be cool, accepted, and favored. The Scripture says, “Let not mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man” (Prov. 3:3,4 NKJV). You can enjoy favor, acceptance, and popularity with both God and people. Here are 4 reasons why you should be cool.
- Cool, accepted people have the ability to influence others for good. That includes a witness of your Christian faith.
- Cool, favored people have confidence to do things others believe to be impossible or improbable.
- Accepted people find it easy and natural to show others God’s love.
- Cool people stand up for truth and don’t need everyone to agree with them or
even like them.
Six Ways Any Person Can Become Cool
Let’s get right to the point: you want to be accepted and popular with people. Who doesn’t? Now, you know you can’t try to gain popularity and “coolness” the way the world tries to manufacture it. So how does a person become “Christ-like cool?”
- You become cool when you stand up for what is right and don’t care who stands with you.
- You become cool when you reach out to the poor, the hurting, the lost – those who are “uncool”.
- You become cool when you take time for those whom many overlook – children. God loves kids, and so should we.
- You become cool when you freely admit your shortcomings, pick up where you have failed, and move forward with godly confidence.
- You become cool when you put God first in your words, your actions, and your plans.
- You become cool when you could care less about being cool.
Source: Every Teenager’s Little Black Book on Cool
by Blaine Bartel.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Blaine and Lori Bartel didn’t set out to build a place like this. They became it.
Blaine once lived at the top of the ministry world—national TV, a booming youth movement at Church on the Move, and a growing church in Dallas. But while the stage lights were bright, the darkness underneath was darker. A secret 23-year sexual addiction buried everything he valued—his marriage, ministry, finances, reputation, and identity.
Crushed and barely holding on to life, he spent over a year in deep therapy, wrestling with shame and fighting for healing. Then, somewhere on a windswept highway between Kansas City and Tulsa, he heard the voice that lifted him out of the soil:
“I am not going to give you a recovery. I am calling you into resurrection.”
Everything changed.
Blaine found complete freedom and began decoding a Jesus-centered path that leads men out of the grave and into new life. For more than a decade, he’s been guiding other men through that same resurrection.
Lori was walking her own road—rebuilding after 17 years married to a chronic alcoholic, carrying both the wounds and the courage of a woman who refused to stay broken. She was searching for purpose, for peace, for somewhere her heart could breathe again.
Then God crossed their paths.
They met over pasta at Ti Amo (“I love you”—God’s little wink).
A year later, in a simple wedding wrapped in hope, they said yes to each other and to a calling bigger than themselves.
Today—13 years in—they share one mission:
To pull men out of addiction and to rebuild the marriages addiction has shattered.
House of Resurrection is the fruit of the very ground that once tried to bury them—a sacred space for honesty, healing, and brand-new beginnings.
They are joyful parents of four grown kids, proud grandparents of two, and happiest anywhere with lakes, beaches, sunshine, and reminders that darkness never gets to write the final chapter.
