HE SAID: I appreciate you seeking counsel as you may sense the seriousness of the ramifications of the relationship you desire.

As a "perennial" high school youth leader, I would be remiss if I didn't share some of the astute guidance I received under the tutelage of some very wise pastors and mentors. Please receive this word of caution out of concern not condemnation.

Before you venture down this road too quickly (even in your mind), please respect the ministry your youth pastor has been called to and the role he plays within the church. What may seem like an innocent attraction at this point, can jeopardize and derail what God has planned for him and the lives of those surrounding the both of you. 

As a youth pastor, he is accountable to his youth and pastoral staff, all of your parents and the congregation, and to God. He is being held to a much higher standard than another young man who is only a couple of years older. He is called to live a life above reproach with no "appearance of immorality."

Because of his position and your age, any contact between the two of you outside of sanctioned youth and church activities (or in private) may be construed as improper conduct.

I caution you about sharing your feelings with anyone except for a much older, mature, female confidant who is well acquainted with each of you. Discussing it, even with a friend you "trust," may lead to envy, jealousy, gossip, hearsay or rumors, all of which will be detrimental to his ministry and the group.

I strongly suggest you don't proceed, encourage, manipulate or promote a relationship or contact with your youth pastor beyond the bounds of "official" youth group activities. If a relationship with your youth pastor is truly called by God, it will wait a couple of months (or years), as in the case of those I have worked under in youth ministry.

Once you turn eighteen, graduate and are no longer a part of his ministry, if there is mutual interest he should be the one to take the initiative to pursue a relationship with you. What often gets us into trouble is following the tug of our heart rather than prayerfully seeking an answer and waiting for God's timing.

The numbers for Josh Hamilton are just mind-boggling.

Hamilton led the majors with a .402 batting average, 18 home runs and 44 RBIs entering Monday's games.

"He's a tremendous talent, nobody has ever doubted it," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. "When you see him put it together the way he has here, some guys get hot and some guys do what he's doing."

Hamilton put together an incredible seven-game span when he was 14 of 30 (.467) with two doubles, nine homers and 18 RBIs. His big week was capped by an RBI single in the seventh inning Sunday night in a 13-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels. He had a two-run double with a pink bat for Mother's Day earlier in the game, but in that last plate appearance cracked the bat he had used to hit eight of his last nine homers.

Instead of the scrap pile, the record-setting bat is headed to the Hall of Fame.

"Honestly, I don't even think about it at all until I see somebody and they remind me of it, or I talk to (media) about it," Hamilton said of his run. "I said after (the four-homer game), dealing with the historic part and talking to everybody, that it was over with. ... That's the only approach I have every day when I get here: do my work and try to have a good game."

The slugger, who can be a free agent for the first time after this season, became only the 16th major leaguer with that four-homer game last Tuesday at Baltimore. To put the rarity into perspective, there have been 21 perfect games.

Hamilton also homered in two other games in Baltimore. When Texas returned home to play the Angels, he had a two-homer game Friday night and went deep again Saturday. Frank Howard and Shawn Green are the only other players with nine homers in a six-game span.

"There are not many guys I've seen over the first 20 percent of the season who have swung the bat just with the consistency he has," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "I'm sure he's gone on stretches where he's hit like that. ... But where he is, he's locked in."

What Hamilton isn't getting caught up in are the numbers. Or the possible pursuit of Barry Bonds' 73 homers in 2001 or being baseball's first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski became the 15th player to do it in 1967.

If he was able to stay on this unbelievable pace all year, Hamilton could have more than 80 homers and 200 RBIs.

"I say we just take in what he's doing now and enjoy the ride," said Michael Young, the longest-tenured Ranger in his 12th season.

Hamilton led the American League with 130 RBIs in 2008, his first season with the Rangers. He led the league with a .359 average in 2010, when he was the AL MVP and the Rangers won their first AL pennant before he got a $24 million, two-year deal that covered his final two arbitration-eligible seasons.

While insisting it will be a business decision, Hamilton has said he won't let his contract situation become a distraction. Daniels won't comment on any potential negotiations with Hamilton or any other player.

The Rangers and Hamilton's agent have had some talks during the season, but had put contract discussions on hold this winter after the slugger's admitted one-night relapse with alcohol.

After being the No. 1 overall draft pick by Tampa Bay in 1999, Hamilton missed more than three full seasons in the minors and served several suspensions because of drugs and alcohol. He didn't make his major league debut until 2007 with Cincinnati, and was traded after that season to Texas.

Hamilton, who turns 31next week, said his focus isn't on the prospect of free agency next winter. He's more concerned with trying to play about 150 games, a total he surpassed only in his first season in Texas.

"I think about staying healthy first and foremost," he said. "This is the first year I've never really set any goals for myself. I usually cap everything at like .300, 30 home runs, 100 RBIs. This year, I'm just going out and playing. Where they end up, they end up."

He played only 89 games in 2009 because of an abdominal tear and a pinched nerve in his back. He missed a month of his MVP season with broken ribs after crashing into an outfield wall making a catch. He was out six weeks last year after he broke a bone in his arm diving headfirst trying to score on a foul popout, and had surgery for a sports hernia after the World Series.

"Josh is a big, strong man and he plays hard," Young said. "If we can figure out a way to keep him on the field for 150, 155-plus games, we're going to be really, really happy with what we see."

Mitt Romney's Mormon faith has shaped his life, but he barely mentioned it as he spoke to graduates at an evangelical Christian university Saturday.

"Culture -- what you believe, what you value, how you live -- matters," Romney told graduates gathered in the football stadium on Liberty University's campus in the Virginia mountains. "The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and at the foundation, the preeminence of the family."

Instead of a red-meat conservative policy speech, Romney discussed his own family and offered a defense of Christianity, saying that "there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action." Still, he was inclusive: "Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life," Romney said.

He had one sustained applause line in a 20-minute speech delivered days after President Barack Obama historically embraced gay marriage. "Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman," Romney said to a cheering crowd of students who have to follow a strict code of conduct that considers sex out of wedlock and homosexuality to be sins.

On Saturday, Obama was not seeking to revisit the issue of gay marriage. In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president didn't mention his history-making endorsement. Instead, he repeated his call for congressional lawmakers to take up a "to-do list" of tax breaks, mortgage relief and other initiatives that he insists will create jobs and help middle-class families struggling in the sluggish economy.

Having spent part of the week on the West Coast raising money for his re-election effort, Obama appeared in the Rose Garden of the White House to honor award-winning law enforcement officers.

It was Obama's first joint appearance with Vice President Joe Biden after Biden, according to aides, apologized to the president for pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the presidential campaign and inadvertently pressuring Obama to declare his support for same-sex unions.

Obama and Biden were all smiles as they walked to the sun-splashed ceremony together. Introducing Obama, Biden credited the president's commitment to law enforcement and the two quickly embraced before Obama spoke.

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell founded Liberty University in 1971 to be for evangelical Christians "what Notre Dame is to young Catholics and Brigham Young is to young Mormons," as his son, University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., said on commencement day. It's become a destination for Republican politicians looking to speak to the religious right, and Romney's campaign team -- planning the speech long before gay marriage became a central issue -- viewed it as an opportunity to address the kind of socially conservative audience that had been wary of him during the prolonged GOP primary fight.

For Romney, the challenge is twofold. His past policy positions, including support for abortion rights, don't sit well. But his personal faith is also an issue because many evangelicals don't consider Mormons to be fellow Christians. Evangelicals are a critical segment of the GOP base; many of those voters backed his GOP rivals in the prolonged primary.

When he locks in the Republican presidential nomination, Romney will make history as the first Mormon nominee from a major party. His faith is central to him and to his family -- he spent two years in France as a missionary, a time when he lived in occasionally primitive conditions. When he returned home, he attended Brigham Young University, a Mormon school, and married his wife, Ann, who had converted to Mormonism. As they built a life in Boston, Romney took on a significant leadership role in the church, serving as a lay pastor, fighting to build a temple in town and counseling families in need.

But he's mostly avoided talking about it on the campaign trail, largely avoiding religious forums and events throughout the primary season.

And at arguably the most religious venue he's addressed during the campaign -- since announcing his bid, Romney hasn't made a public appearance in a church of any kind -- he continued to keep his own faith in the background.

"This isn't a speech about Mormonism," senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters Friday on a conference call. Fehrnstrom pointed to the speech Romney gave in Texas in 2007 outlining his faith and defending religious freedom -- the last time the former Massachusetts governor has addressed his faith in any detail.

Still, it was clear the campaign was keenly aware of the overtones. Romney was introduced by Mark DeMoss, an evangelical who has repeatedly defended Romney's faith on the campaign trail. "I suspect I won't agree with Mitt Romney on everything, but I will tell you this: I trust him. I trust him to do the right thing," said DeMoss, who went on with a lengthy testament to Romney's values.

Despite the concern, surveys have shown for months now that whatever reservations Republican evangelicals have about Romney's faith, they are likely to back him in a general election.

A spokesman for Liberty said that Romney is not the first Mormon to speak at a university commencement. "This is our 29th commencement speaker, and 21 of those 39 speakers would not necessarily meet Liberty's doctrinal theological statement," said the spokesman, Johnnie Moore, explaining that anyone who teaches at the university is held to that doctrinal standard.

Romney's selection as commencement speaker was an issue for some students who graduated from Liberty this weekend. When the school announced Romney as commencement speaker, hundreds of angry comments were posted on Liberty's Facebook page by people who said they were students or alumni, objecting to giving a Mormon a platform. The school responded by affirming its welcome to Romney.

"There was some concern in my family, yes," because of Romney's Mormonism, said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army colonel whose nephew is a member of the 2012 class.

Ahead of Romney's remarks, University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said the school's invitation to him should not be considered an endorsement. He noted that his father, the school's founder, said that Christians should vote for the candidate who shares their political positions "not the candidate that shares his or her faith or theology."

When someone dies young, people often view it as a tragedy - a life cut short, with wasted potential. Premature physical death can indeed be tragic. But there's another kind of death that's a blessing, especially when people are young: death to self.

So don't wait until you're old to put your selfish ways to death and start living in freedom. Here's how you can die young to live for Jesus now:

Choose to trust Jesus with everything. Don't compartmentalize your faith. Instead, decide to trust Jesus with every part of your life - from your relationships to your work. In prayer, give Jesus all of your needs, desires, fears, hopes, and dreams, trusting Him to handle your concerns and work to give you what's best. This will free you from the pressure of trying to make things work out yourself in the ways you want and the frustration of hitting the limits of your own power to control your life.

Realize that death is the new life. Thanks to Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross for you, you no longer have to live just for yourself (a goal that will ultimately destroy you through sin). But when you decide to sacrifice your own desires so that you can live the way God wants you to live, you can enjoy an abundant life that wouldn't be possible otherwise. In this fallen world, you'll definitely face suffering - but if you've died to your selfish desires, you can learn valuable lessons from the suffering you go through, which will accomplish good purposes in your life. Through death, you can experience life that includes blessings such as: contentment, sanctification, faith, love, peace, hope, becoming more like Jesus, and protection from evil.

Realize that down is the new up. When you put yourself down where you belong by honestly and humbly admitting your sin and need for a Savior, you're free to lift God up where He belongs - into the center of your life - and experience the blessings of His grace. Ask God to root pride out of your life wherever it's lurking, because pride can drag you into sin in any situation. Whenever you see how limited your own strength is, decide to rely on God's unlimited strength to help you. Let go of your need to pull yourself up, prove yourself, or fight for yourself and instead choose to trust God to do more for you than you could ever do for yourself. Pray for less of your own selfish efforts and more of Jesus' power working through you in your life. When you do, you'll discover blessings like: wanting God over happiness, being easily content, not complaining, not needing to be heard, not needing to win, not fearing failure, and not requiring perfection.

Realize that less is the new more. When you're constantly pursuing more of your own desires in life, you become trapped in a destructive cycle that pressures you to seek more but never really leads to fulfillment. In fact, the more you rely on something to be what only God can be for you, the more you end up worshipping the creation rather than the Creator, and the less satisfaction you experience as a result. Ask God to help you stop using things simply for your own desires, and start using things to glorify God (such as by living simply and generously giving to help people in need). With less stuff you'll have room in your mind and life to experience the blessings of more surrender, self-control, time for what really matters, rest, giving, love, peace, and faith.

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Nick Minaj, 29-year-old New York genre-bending rapper, recently spoke about how the church saved her family, and how God is her hero.

In an interview on "Nightline" earlier this month, Minaj said she wanted to kill her father Omar when she was a child due to his abusive past as a drug addict.

"I wanted to kill [my dad]. I used to wish he was dead," Minaj said in the interview. "We were afraid for my mother's life because whenever he would have a real bad outburst he would threaten to kill her."

However, Minaj told The Guardian that her father turned his life around by going through rehabilitation and being saved in church.

"He's still with my mother. He went to rehab and cleaned himself up," Minaj said. "Eventually they started going to church a lot, and he got saved and started changing his life. He's away from drugs now. He doesn't instill fear in people anymore."

Christian rapper Lecrae has confirmed that his fifth studio album to be titled Gravity will be released in the fall of this year, according to a report on Rapzilla.com.

Along with dropping his next album, Lecrae will embark on the Unashamed Tour around that time.

The rapper will also release his first mixtape titled "Church Clothes" that will be hosted by Affiliate's DJ Don Cannon on May 10.

This year has been one of major recognition for the Reach Records artist, who appeared on the BET Hip Hop Awards in the famous freestyling exhibition that featured some other popular secular hip hop artists including Eminem, Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes, Ludacris and Wale.

Lecrae also appeared on DJ Statik Selektah's album Population Control that was released earlier this year in a song called "Live and Let Live." He also is set to collaborate with other hip hop artists including 9th Wonder, Murs and Dee-1 sometime before the end of the year.