Engage
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10 Things Volunteers Need: A Guest Post
God created us to serve and grow within community, and no local church can run without volunteers—that is, members of the body playing their parts. Recruiting and retaining volunteers can be challenging, but it’s possible when people feel connected to the church and to a larger purpose, find value in what they are doing, and feel valued for doing it. Pray for God’s leading as you determine volunteer roles and seek people to fill them. Then, consider things from a volunteer’s perspective: what pulls in a volunteers and keeps him or her thriving? A volunteer needs… 1. A compelling why Are you mainly trying to fill a slot? Why should…
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Jesus Understands Moms
My journey into motherhood began when my first child was born. Before then, I was a mom-to-be who read all the books available and thought she was prepared with the techniques of mothering. Oh, how naïve I was! I had made straight A’s in school for years, got lots of awards for achievement, but mothering this baby girl who was so unpredictable was the hardest challenge of my life. When I complained to the pediatrician at the first postnatal visit that my baby girl did not do anything the books said she should do (such as sleep 20 hours a day, be comforted when I rocked or nursed her), he…
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I Believed the Lie
Not many years ago, I realized I’d internalized a lie. A lie that wreaks havoc. One that many others have believed too. I believed the lie that the Divine One values his sons more highly than his daughters—that, by design, woman is inferior to man. The Lie of Women’s Inferiority In a human sense, this lie plays out by characterizing men as deserving of life’s focus and spotlight, with women functioning as accessories. In a reverse example, Ken tells Barbie in the movie Barbie, “I don’t know who I am without you… There’s no just Ken. That’s why I was created. I only exist within the warmth of your gaze.”…
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When You Can’t Forgive Yourself
“I know that God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself.” Lots of people find themselves trapped in self-recriminations, overwhelmed by regret and sorrow for things they have done (or not done). They beat themselves up, often secretly hoping this will make up for their sin. But they can’t get past it. You can read the Bible from cover to cover and not find a single instruction on forgiving oneself. That’s because it’s not there. We don’t have the power to forgive ourselves. It’s like trying to separate ourselves from our shadow. As I understand it, this idea comes from humanistic psychology. For millennia, people have recognized the freedom and…
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There Is Maturity in Moderation
“I’ll just have one,” I reasoned, as I reached for the mini chocolates. But it disappeared so quickly and felt so satisfying, I took another. And another. Proverbs aptly describes how I felt after my indulgence. “You have found honey—eat only what is sufficient for you, lest you become stuffed with it and vomit it up” (Proverbs 25:16). Well, that might be an exaggeration, but you get the point. Why can’t I stop with one? The alternative seems to be to deny myself totally, to abstain completely. Perhaps it’s better to not have any sweets at all. That works for me at home. I don’t regularly keep sweets lying around.…
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Clearing Our Vision
This past summer I had cataract surgery on both of my eyes. For years my eye appointments have revealed small cataracts growing ever so slowly, but finally they reached the point that they needed to come out. Immediately after the first surgery, I saw the world not only more clearly, but also more vividly. I was in awe of the beauty of the blues, reds, yellows and greens all around me. Just glancing into my back yard made me stop in awe of the beauty of nature. I was overwhelmed by simply walking into my closet and noticing how bold the colors of our clothes were. The world became even…
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OUR Father
Jesus begins the prayer he taught the multitudes (as recorded in Matthew 6) and his disciples (Luke 11) by telling them to start their conversations with God by saying “Our” Father. This little word, “our,” holds big implications for the entire prayer.
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Online Dangers: Keep Kids Safe
My friend Linda Tomczak has worked on the front lines of fighting human trafficking for years. She acknowledges that good parents, grandparents, teachers, and others having close contact with kids are movitated to keep them safe from predators. But we must remain vigilant. Here’s why: • Every 9 minutes, government authorities respond to another report of child sexual abuse. • Of aggressive sexual solicitations of youth (when the solicitor attempted to establish an offline contact via in-person meeting or phone call), 73% of youth met the solicitor online. • Only 1 in 3 victims will report sexual crimes to a trusted adult (source: International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children)…
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Hanging on to Hope
An unexpected divorce. An aging parent’s diagnosis. An unnerving wait in an emergency room. An untimely death of a friend. Events like these can shake even the most stoic among us. We detest conflict. We dislike difficult diagnoses. We despise death. And we should detest, dislike, and despise disruptive life events because they remind us that life is not the way it should be. Yet Jesus, on the eve of his crucifixion, told his disciples that though they would have trouble and tribulation in this world, they were to “Take heart! Have courage!” (John 16:33). How could Jesus tell his disciples (or even himself, for that matter) to “take heart!”,…
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The In-House Holy Spirit
The concept of in-house came to my mind as I was contemplating the Holy Spirit this week. “In-house, or insourcing, is a term used in business to describe the utilization of internal sources rather than outsourcing for activities.”[1] Advantages of in-house as opposed to outsourcing include: less time to understand issues and the way the organization works; better comprehension of the organization’s history and atmosphere; and escalated trust which increases knowledge sharing.[2] Clearly, the Holy Spirit is in-house for every believer (John 14:17; 1 Cor 6:19); yet, His presence and activities are largely ignored.[3] In comparison to a business in-house in the preceding paragraph, the Holy Spirit exhibits the following:…
