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  • Engage

    Is It Safe to Open My Eyes Now?

    November 5, 2020 / 0 Comments

    I write this post two days before the US elects its next president. By the time you read this, the election would have already passed.   The election results won’t make a difference to me. (Translation: I’m jaded.) Too many people have died from COVID, riots, and racism this year. Add to that unemployment, mask wars (a.k.a. selfishness), hurricane after hurricane, and fire after fire. We came into this election season an exhausted hostile nation—already overwhelmed with anxiety and grief. I can picture the devil high-fiving his minions right now over their victory at dividing our nation. There is no real winner here. Because a presidential election can’t buy peace…

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    Salma Gundi Salma Gundi

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    Sit Among Your Weeds

    May 18, 2018

    An Epiphany Reflection

    January 1, 2019

    In a Culture of Never Enough, a Culture at War, “Learning” Real Contentment

    July 18, 2016
  • suicide
    Engage

    On Suicide

    September 15, 2020 / 0 Comments

    The incidence of depression, anxiety and suicide has skyrocketed as the isolation and life-disruption from Covid-19 has ravaged our world. I wrote this post in April 2013.  Over the weekend, Rick Warren (pastor of Saddleback Church in California, author of The Purpose Driven Life) and his wife Kay revealed that their son Matthew had taken his life after a lifelong struggle with mental illness. In an email to his church, Pastor Warren wrote, “[O]nly those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness…

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    Sue Bohlin Sue Bohlin

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    New Year’s Resolutions and The Slow Process of Change

    January 15, 2020

    Feast on God’s Goodness

    November 23, 2016

    New Year: Looking Back and Forward Through the Lens of Struggle

    January 14, 2019
  • Engage

    Homogeneity is Easy (But Unity’s Better)

    September 12, 2020 / 0 Comments

    Can I be frank with you? Homogeneity is easy. Whole cultures exist where people have common stories and experiences, surrounded by people who speak the same language (both literally and figuratively). Exhausted from the fractalization, Americans daydream of such utopia, like Camelot or Wakanda or maybe Finland.    Meanwhile across our melting pot, we don’t share anything but angst. Is holding a door patriarchal or polite? Does our compliment show appreciation or reveal underlying racism? Requiring masks wise or a lack of faith? Is there any politician, educator, or mommy blogger who isn’t accused of being extreme and trying to ruin the country? Chasms cut and crosscut the nation, including…

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    Laura Singleton Laura Singleton

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    Praying for America with Franklin Graham in SC: Frustrated but Hopeful

    February 16, 2016
    Three Reasons Why You Can Lead a Bible Study

    3 Reasons Why You Can Lead a Bible Study

    June 23, 2017
    Capt. Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans

    Leaky Buckets

    January 31, 2012
  • Engage

    Flourishing under Siege

    September 9, 2020 / 0 Comments

    Psalm 139 intrigues me. We often turn to verses 13-16 to talk about God’s design of the unborn child in the womb. Verse 5, though, has always captured my interest. Both the NIV and NASB contain phrases that we have incorporated into American idioms: “Don’t hem me in.” And, “Don’t lay a hand on me.” Do you use these idioms in your country? In my individualistic American culture, we use these idioms to say to others, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do; don’t mess with me; don’t put limits on me.” Yet in Psalm 139:5, God himself hems us in or squeezes us (NET translation) and lays a…

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    Beth Barron Beth Barron

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    Different but the Same

    June 25, 2020
    Perseverance. Choose to persevere through the challenges you face. Count on God's promise to give you hope—now and future. Let that hope sustain you through the rough-and-tumble of real life.

    Perseverance in the Rough-and-Tumble of Life

    February 10, 2017
    Brittany Maynard

    The Euphemism of ‘Death With Dignity’

    November 4, 2014
  • Engage

    You’re Okay

    September 2, 2020 / 0 Comments

    The toddler in this YouTube sweetly passes on what others have said to her. For generations, mothers have often tried to soothe their fraught children with three simple words, “You’re okay.” As a child wails and reels from known and unknown causes, a mother will try to calm and reassure her child with, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” My mother probably said it to me, I said it to my children, and I watch them say it to their children. And their children will probably say it to their children. Mothers know more than their children, they know that things will be okay, things are not as bad as they seem,…

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    PJ Beets PJ Beets

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    Loving Well in a Blame-shifting Culture

    January 15, 2021

    Fighting the Empathy Famine: Listening and Learning

    June 10, 2020

    Considering Ash Wednesday and Lent

    March 5, 2014
  • Engage

    Living in Limbo

    August 27, 2020 / 0 Comments

    Normal. Where has it gone? A few months ago my boys romped on playgrounds daily and bounced into their church classrooms on Sundays. Today we watch church online and debate whether it’s safe to start pre-k this fall. The routine we once enjoyed feels years removed. In its place we navigate endlessly changing regulations, mask mandates, and shifting data. As much as I want to believe this will be over soon, I know the end isn’t quite in site. So I’m learning to live in limbo. It’s a hard lesson, isn’t it? Letting go of the past and embracing the present—however messy and uncertain it feels. Here are a few…

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    Amanda DeWitt Amanda DeWitt

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    Fresh Perspectives on Women in the Bible–Phoebe by Lindsay Ann Nickens

    April 18, 2019
    Having a wise heart-women from Proverbs

    Having a Wise Heart

    September 27, 2019

    Three Things About Suffering

    May 27, 2015
  • Engage

    Above All Else––A Message for Weary Souls

    August 20, 2020 / 0 Comments

    As this over-the-top-difficult year wears on and hopes for a summer reprieve or a maskless fall fade, my mind can struggle to muster up positivity. I’ve heard I’m not alone. Apparently many of us wrestle with the lack of normalcy, inability to plan a way forward, and uncertainty of how long “this” will last.

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    Joy Dahl Joy Dahl

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    Better to Have Loved & Lost?

    July 19, 2018

    “This book will make you feel better about your own life”

    April 20, 2020

    Teaching Teens about Rape Culture and Modesty

    June 5, 2018
  • John Lennon Art
    Impact

    Imagine There’s No Lennon

    August 18, 2020 / 0 Comments

    “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky…” I find the above one of the saddest thoughts ever put to music. Unfortunately this song has become the Humanist theme song. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and shutdown, a bunch of celebrities decided to sing this song acapella and share it with the world… for some reason. Why? It is a melancholy, hopeless song… at least on the surface. And John Lennon is dead. Imagine there is no heaven, no place where people finally find rest from a life of toil and struggle, pain and sorrow. Imagine there is nothing…

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    J Drain J Drain

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    The First Opportunity

    November 20, 2012

    Leading Men’s Small Groups – Success Keys 4-6

    February 11, 2020

    The Comfort of Christmas

    December 7, 2017
  • Engage

    What Could Responses to Mask Wearing Tell Us About Ourselves?

    August 5, 2020 / 0 Comments

    Masks[1] were used in the 1600’s plague by doctors[2]and in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic by the public.[3] Meriam-Webster defines a mask as-a protective covering for the face; a comparable device to prevent exhalation of infectious material. Masks have been around for a long time. With COVID-19, the wearing of masks has resurfaced and has become a divisive topic among church goers. Both sides seem passionate about their choice. I have been a Christian for about 40 years and I have not witnessed a division like this before. Admittedly, school choices, hymn versus choruses, and vaccinations have caused some divisions. These topics might have been as divisive, but with time…

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    PJ Beets PJ Beets

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    Taming the "Look-Imagine-See" method of Bible Study by Melanie Newton

    Taming the “Look-Imagine-See” Dragon

    August 11, 2017
    Seeking Happiness, Finding Joy. Are you hungry for joy in your life? Know Jesus and know Joy!

    Seeking Happiness — Finding Joy

    January 24, 2020

    BLESSED – What Does Blessed REALLY Mean?

    March 2, 2016
  • Engage

    Spiritual Warfare: The Right Tool for the Job

    July 27, 2020 / 0 Comments

    In seminary, I had a Greek professor that drilled a mantra into our heads. Every day he reminded us,“You must have the right tools for the job.” There was even a song and a video to further bring this point home. What he meant was, when parsing Greek verbs and drawing countless diagrams you must have the right study tools to get the job done. Not employing the right tool for such a job would leave you frustrated having wasted way too much time and energy. This mantra can be applied in almost any circumstance but I want to focus our attention on the necessary tools for the job of…

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    Christen Jacobs Christen Jacobs

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    Life Without The Holy Spirit

    February 7, 2018

    Don’t Judge Me?

    August 6, 2019

    Thanksgiving: How the Practice of Gratitude leads to the Presence of Contentment

    November 19, 2018
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