Turn on the TV and you'll find "America's Next Top Model" on CW and "Next" on MTV.

There are even stores specializing in the "next" through "fast fashion," such as H & M and Zara, which replace their entire line of clothing every few weeks.

Our preoccupation with "next" has replaced our earlier fascination with "new." The difference? New is what something is; next suggests a special insight. Christians can be captivated by "next" as much as anyone.

Just think church. Pastors often joke about a "migratory flow pattern" among Christians in their community who are constantly church-hopping to the "next" thing in church life. They move from one church to another, looking for the next hot singles group, the next hot church plant, the next hot speaker, the next hot youth group. Many times they end up full circle where they began, because their original church suddenly became "next."

Perhaps ticket buyers (i.e., parents) long for a different era of animation. If so, Disney's sequels will do a much better job of reminding them of the animated classics than the slick gagfests in today's theaters. Despite their straight-to-DVD status, there's nothing cheap or knocked-off about the animators' work on these sequels. They have a rich, hand-drawn look that few studios' CG efforts can match....

And unlike the current crop of animated features, Disney's direct-to-DVD sequels tell their stories simply, without a constant barrage of slapstick and winking pop-culture references. All three films I watched were entirely free of crotch-kicking, and the only fart joke belonged, appropriately, to a skunk. Instead, the jokes tend to be quiet, the action gripping if only occasional, and the entire pace of the movie enjoyably slower than you're likely to see onscreen these days. How much slower? Lady and the Tramp II and Cinderella III even make time for character-defining songs, the way animated movies used to.