About Real Magazine

Real Magazine.com is a blog devoted to helping teens discover faith and life.

Real life.
Life isn’t full of easy answers, especially as a teen. You’ve got questions—and so do we. Dating, terrorism, fashion, war, sex, poverty—geometry. We readily admit that we don’t have all the answers, but we’re here to help you explore this thing called life. Sometimes it’s messy, but together maybe we can make something of it.

Real faith.
While we don’t have all the answers, the one thing we do know is Jesus. Or at least we try. A lot of people claim to be Christians, but a true life of following Jesus is not so easy. If you don’t follow Jesus, that’s OK. We’re not here to cram him down your throat. But we’d love to tell you about him.

If you do follow Jesus, welcome to the club. Following Jesus isn’t easy, like we said, but it’s especially hard as a teen. So many students who loved Jesus in high school, find themselves in their twenties sleeping in on Sundays and wondering what it was they once believed in. Our goal is to help Christian teens become Christian adults—we want you to embrace your faith, make it your own, and make it something that will last the rest of your life.

Real teens.
We’re not talking about the airbrushed teens you see on the covers of magazines. We’re talking about living, breathing, getting a speeding ticket on your 16th birthday teens. Doh. Sometimes teen life is incredibly harsh. And sometimes it’s a whole lot of fun. We want to be honest about the whole gamut of reality for a teen.

That’s it in a nutshell. We probably left a few things out, but what are you going to do? It’s not like we’re being graded. Whew.

History
Real Magazine began in 1996 as a by teens, for teens magazine started by 17-year-old editor Brad Abare. The stunning layouts and inspiring articles used to appear monthly in your mailbox. But all good things come to an end, and the last print issue of Real came out in December of 1998. Real Magazine is no longer available as a print magazine.

Though Real Magazine.com had been around for a while, in the summer of 1999 it embraced its online destiny. It flourished for several years with articles, reviews, artwork and even mp3s. Eventually it became too much work and the last update was posted in 2003. You can still see the remains of that now-defunct site.

On Easter Sunday 2005 Real Magazine.com joined the blogosphere and relaunched as a blog for teens, hoping to challenge and encourage teens in a timely matter unrivaled by those pokey magazines that only show up once a month. That pretty much brings you up to date.

Meet the Staff
Kevin D. Hendricks - Blogger

Whoa. Short staffed, huh? Maybe you should help out.