All tagged relationship
What if we could think this differently about our partners in life and leadership? What if, rather than holding them to an impossible ideal of relationship or partnership, in the hopes that we would never be wronged, we treat them with love and respect and care even though we know they will hurt us, wrong us, annoy us?
This year, as we embark on new endeavors and seek to build and foster relationships that align more closely with our purpose, let us remember that God is ever-present, guiding us through each change and loss. In moments of despair, we should recognize these opportunities for growth and be willing to step into the newness of life God offers us.
Part of the responsibility we have as God’s co-creators is that we help our flock create the kinds of connection that God desires to have with them by modeling it for each other. If we truly believe that God’s best for us is to be fully in His presence in right relationship with Him, then we must take seriously the responsibility to unleash that presence on earth as it is in heaven through our roles as royal priests who make God known, especially to the neighbor you turn to greet.
God is with you, God knows you, and God loves you. Don’t ever forget it. Because we are often hardest on ourselves. And if you are running from God, God isn’t far from you.
While the intended audience of the book “Thriving as a Single Person in Ministry” is two-fold, I would like to offer this book as a necessary resource for church leaders of single staff members.
You see, wrestling with God is not all bad. When we wrestle with God, we are intimately connected to Him. We couldn’t be closer.
While there are lots of lessons to be learned from this research, for us as church leaders, the big take-away here is that what matters most is group interaction.
If we can all agree that dry seasons with the Lord are a part of the human experience, what practical steps can we take to get out of them?
I thought of Jesus, his short life on this earth, and the way he died. I thought of the relationship I now have with him, and I thought of the perspective it brings.
God’s ideal of family relationships is mutual subjection without any kind of discrimination as expressed in Ephesians 5:21, exercising it from the perspective of the new creation that Christ has inaugurated.
You can either work on the conflict or get over it. Pick one. Surely the relationship means more to you than being right about what someone should have done.
If Jesus is God, if he is the ONLY way to salvation, and if we declare his lordship over our lives, then this is not just a matter of belief; it must be a matter of becoming, our daily lives TRANSFORM.
The peace of God is transcendent. It is beyond the comprehension of the world.
Don’t miss out on the best things because you won’t get in there and deal with difficult things. Sometimes, if people will just stay in the room, it will be enough.
Even in the shallowest of conversational waters, people are hesitant to talk to each other. The big and small conversational fears are seriously paralyzing us.
Have you sometimes been humbled by a pastoral situation, entering or exiting in a clumsy or awkward way, or struggling to get a sermon or initiative off the ground?
Do your people know how to sincerely welcome guests? Even if they used to, the pandemic has altered how we interact with others, and they may have forgotten how.
These conversations were gifts because, though strangers, we were able to connect as humans despite the vile history.
People are desperate to be understood, and listening is the most validating thing you can do for another human being.
My challenge that day was complicated: keep walking uphill while fighting the wind and trying to find the next trail marker amidst the fog.
