Archive for the ‘Prayer’ category
July 9, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. July 9, 2014
The steam rose from the mug of coffee and disappeared in the air. I sat facing him and wondering how our conversation would flow.
“I was surprised you would meet me here, Lord.”
“You can call me Jesus. I don’t mind. In fact, I think I prefer it.”
“Oh…well…okay…Jesus. That sounds a little strange, but I’ll try to get used to it.”
“Would you prefer that I call you Bill…or Subject?”
“Subject?”
“The other end of the spectrum from Lord.”
“Bill is fine.”
“So Bill, what’s going on in your life?”
“A lot…church work…our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary coming up…grandkids…just a lot of stuff.”
“How is it with your soul?”
“What…my soul…that’s a hard question to answer. It would be easier to start with something simpler, like whether or not I think the Reds will make the playoffs in baseball this season?”
“Something that doesn’t dig as deep?”
“Something less painful.”
“Is talking about your soul a painful topic to explore?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m a pastor. Like the song, it is always suppose to be well with my soul.”
“But it isn’t.”
“No. Sometimes it’s like steam rising from the cup, inviting and comforting; but other times there is no steam left. The lukewarmness penetrates to my bones.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Jesus, you know. Why do I even have to tell you?”
“So you can discover what you are afraid to say.”
“That much of my life feels like a playground merry-go-round…that is always moving but never going anywhere.”
“That’s a powerful image. What is the picture that you wish your life would show?”
“I don’t know. It’s easier to describe how it is than what it should be.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Didn’t you just ask me that question thirty seconds ago?”
“And you started to answer it.”
“I guess it goes back to this cup of coffee. I’ve always had my coffee with cream and sugar. I add enough of each to the point that I miss the essence of what gets poured in the mug first…the coffee. I’m guessing that my soul gets disguised with other “stuff’ to the point that I don’t know how it is with it.”
“Wearing disguises protects us from what we’re afraid to find.”
TO BE CONTINUED
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Christ, coffee, conversations, how is it with your soul, soul, spiritual conversations
Comments: 1 Comment
July 7, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. July 7, 2014
Recently released findings from a University of Virginia psychologist indicates that most people are extremely uncomfortable being alone with their thoughts. Tim Wilson recruited volunteers for the research- mostly college students- from a church and a farmer’s market. Each person was placed in an undecorated room and asked to be alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. Many of the participants admitted afterwards that they had cheated during the time frame and checked their cell phones or listened to music.
After an initial fifteen minute period participants were asked to do another fifteen minutes, but this time they were given an out. They were hooked up to an electric shock. If at sometime during the fifteen minutes they wanted to be done with being alone with their thoughts they could self-administer the electric shock to themselves and they would be done. Of the participants “67%” of the men went for the electric shock rather than be alone with their thoughts. of the women 25% administered the shock.
Amazing, that so many would choose the pain of an electric shock over the uncomfortableness of being alone with their thoughts.
It also may say something about our reluctance to seek quiet. Quiet threatens, so we “self-medicate” ourselves with music, social connectedness, and cell phones. Think about it! A traumatic experience for many people is having their cell phone broken and having to go through a full day without it. As I’m writing this I’m listening to music on Pandora to help me focus.
How did our grandparents ever make it? They must have had to hum a lot!
For me as a Christ-follower there are other implications. How will I hear the whisper of the holy if it chooses to not come through my headphones? How will I see the burning bush if it doesn’t come through a lap top screen?
This is a quandry, a challenge, and an opportunity for me. I’m at the beginning of a month-long study leave. To call it quiet time would be too threatening, and, to be honest, not as productive-sounding. Not many people see a month of quiet reflection as being valuable.
Listen! I’m not necessarily comfortable with it either. If the button for the electric shock we close at hand I would might it numerous times.
I’ve come to believe, however, that I serve a God of quiet moments in a world of noise. It is often in the silence that he entertains and tames my thoughts, and reigns in my tendency to race forward like a wild pony.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: alone with our thoughts, being alone, meditating, quiet, quiet time, silence, thinking, thoughts, Tim Wilson, University of Virginia research
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June 21, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 20, 2014
Depending on who you talked to God was in it or grieved by it!
The Independent Church Softball League was canceled after the sixth week of the season. Some said it was long overdue; others said it was a sign of secular humanism’s takeover of the world. Y2K was linked to it by some since most churches are about twenty years behind the times anyway.
It started with the Freewill Baptist Church Flames, who protested the fact that the Brethren Church Brethren were permitting a woman to play on their team. The Flames did not believe freedom extended to the opposite gender when it came to church softball. It did seem kind of odd that the Brethren would be the only team to have a female put a glove on.
The disagreements between league congregations didn’t end there. Torrential rains canceled all games during the second and third weeks of the season. It was either forget about them or plan for a few to be made on Wednesday night. The Apostolic Holiness Church could not allow that to happen. Many in their church believed that Jesus was going to come back soon…and it would probably be during their Wednesday night prayer meeting. Not many from their softball team attended the prayer meeting, but if Jesus did return on a Wednesday night, and they happened to be playing softball they were certain there would be eternal consequences. The Nazarenes weren’t too high on the idea either, but their make-up game was to be against Mercy Bible Church who hadn’t won a game since Jesus was here the first time. The Nazarenes couldn’t let a sure win slip through their fingers, all because of it being a Wednesday night.
And then there were the Independent Irregular Baptist Church, who no one much cared for. They voted not to let a new church join the league because several of the players had hair that came almost to their shoulders. They forfeited their game against the long hairs rather than be tainted by the association. Brother Rice of the Irregulars stated that long hair was the working of the devil, getting men to take on feminine characteristics. To quote him: “You let one little thing pass, and pretty soon a tidal wave of paganism starts arriving every Sunday to the church.” The manager of Mercy said he thought Brother Rice was splitting hairs.
The final straw of dissension amongst the league’s members was when a visiting evangelist for the church of the Flames was asked by his hosting church to give the prayer before their game with the Second Street Wesleyan Church team, and he preceded to pray that the Wesleyans would turn away from their wicked ways and be saved.
After long loud debate and accusations the league disbanded. Some of the best players from amongst the teams got together and made a new team that was sponsored by Rosie’s Bar and Grill and played in the City Tavern League. Most of them rediscovered that playing the game is fun!
Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Brethren, church, church softball, independent church, Nazarenes, secular humanism, softball
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June 3, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 3, 2014
I sometimes enter it early in the morning to be saturated by its quiet. I take a seat in the third pew on the right and settle in. In my world of changing agendas the sanctuary offers me one constant agenda.
To be still.
It is a hard thing to learn, to incorporate. The rest of my day is not based on my stillness, but rather on my movement. I move from meeting preparation to hospital bedsides to answering emails. Movement can sometimes take over our lives and push the stillness out.
Towards the end of the forty-sixth Psalm God whispers his desire to David. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10a, NIV)
Perhaps people have a hard time finding God these days because we have “ants in the pants” of our lives. We have un-learned stillness.
I sit in my pew and take in the room. The cross hanging on the front wall…empty…steady…reminding me of the One who conquered death itself; the cross that blesses me with a hope deep within my soul of what my life is about.
The stained glass windows echo stories of people’s lives…the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before. As I take each one of them in I glimpse the glory of days gone by and lives that impacted future generations.
The pews are solid in their weighted wood. To move one is a recipe for back problems. Their weighted anchoring reminds me of a faith community that has a foundation that can not be shaken. Through tempests and turmoils our anchor has held.
And then my eyes settle on The Lord’s Table, the place where two days earlier each of the sinners had taken a piece of freshly-baked bread and a little cup of grape juice and been told that these two elements were to remind us of the price of our spiritual freedom. Some folks cried tears and others stared with stoic expressions on their faces, but each had been freed.
Sitting in my pew I recall the moments of blessing and forgiveness, repentance and testimony.
My room gives me a view for the rest of the day. It allows me to breathe in and breathe out…
…And be still!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: be still, communion, communion table, forgiveness, pews, Psalm 46, quiet, repentance, sanctuary, stained glass windows, stillness, the Cross, The Lord's Supper
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May 20, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 20, 2014
It’s the fourth day of my week-long fasting from drinking soda pop. I’m still alive! In fact, my body did not ache when I woke up this morning. I doubt that I can give credit to my unsoda-ed life for that. It may just be the one day this month when my knees and joints did’t feel like The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz when I woke up. Whatever…I’ll take it!
The past three days I’ve also cut down on the amount of sugar I’ve put in my coffee. Since I drank it without doing Larry from the Three Stooges facial contortions I’m going to keep limiting the sugar packets.
Why am I doing this? I’ve asked myself that question several times during the past few days, especially as I’m passing a Pepsi vending machine. I’m trying to be strong! I did have a dream last night about a Coke being poured into an ice-filled glass, hearing the fizz, and seeing myself floating on one of the ice cubes with sunglasses on.
I thought if I blogged about it once more it would make things easier, but now I’m thinking about an A&W frosty mug in my hand.
Pray that the images of an orange being crushed won’t await me in my sleep tonight.
I need to go by and see my dentist soon to pay off our balance, but I’m afraid I’ll call her Dr. Pepper if I see her this week…so I think I’ll wait!
I’ve learned that eliminating elevated amounts of sugared beverages if a little tough, but today is “hump day.” I assume that I’ll be sliding towards the celebration of a fluid finish line.
But “hump day” could also mean that I’m about to plummet to a sugar-depleted depression!
Optimistically I’m choosing the first option!
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: A&W, coffee, discipline, fizz, Hump Day, perseverance, soda, soda pop. Coke, sugar, sugar-free, Three Stooges, vending machine
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April 16, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. April 15, 2014
We live in turbulent times where going against the grain is often frowned upon. Just try doing the speed limit on the highway and see the extended middle finger get shown to you by drivers speeding by who have important places to be. Isn’t it interesting that going the speed limit is seen as being radical now.
Revolutions are occurring around the world in nations where governments are teetering on survival. Some of the revolutions are the rise of people against injustice, while others are radical revolutionaries bent on causing destruction.
Jesus was considered a radical by the religious establishment of his day because he questioned what was, and talked about a relationship with the Lord God Jehovah that was intimate and personal. He was seen as a revolutionary, and yet he was exactly on target. A peacemaker is seen as being a troublemaker if society is anchored to war and unrest.
I just finished Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. it’s the biography of the pastor, teacher, writer, and mentor who was executed by Hitler at the end of World War Two, just a few days before the Allied Forces marched into Berlin. At his memorial service on July 27, 1945 Holy Trinity Church in London, Franz Hildebrandt used a quote from Bonhoeffer in his sermon. On his last visit to London he had said, “Why should it always have to be the bad people who make the revolutions?”
What an idea! What a life mission for anyone of us! To ignite a revolution of lovingkindness and service! That describes the early church in Rome. In the midst of a culture that exalted Caesar to being a deity there were the Christ-lovers who cared for those who no one cared about. An epidemic swept through Rome that was leaving five thousand people a day dead. Family members who were sick were abandoned to die alone. Many of them were literally pushed into the streets and banned from entering the home again…to simply suffer and die alone.
And in the midst of that miserable situation a community of Christ-lovers emerged. They were seen as being revolutionaries of lovingkindness. They ignored the danger of the spreading disease and took the sick under their care, attending to their needs. Most of the sick passed away, but they departed life with a sense of peace as opposed to being seen as discarded and rejected.
That early Christian community was taking the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 about caring for those in need as the gospel to be lived out. It was a revolution committed to Christlikeness.
What might the next revolution be? Right in the midst of one’s community? Across a sea to a distant place of suffering? A decision to give as cup of cold water to someone passing by that I don’t know? An invitation to a worship service where Jesus will be proclaimed?
As Bonhoeffer said, “Why should it always have to be the bad people who make the revolutions?”
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Erix Metaxas, lovingkindness, Matthew 25, Revolution, service
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March 27, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. March 27, 2014
This is vacation week. I love vacation…and yet vacation is hard for me at the same time. That’s because it is hard for me to mentally vacate. After all, that is the meaning of vacation…”to vacate.”
Even when I vacate I have a tendency to only physically vacate. It is very, very difficult for me to totally check out. This week I’ve been thinking a lot about this coming Sunday’s message. We return Friday and I preach on Sunday. I’m not the type of person who can throw it together on Saturday with no forethought. The scripture and ponderings concerning it have whispered their way through this week. I don’t really mind that. It is part of the calling.
At least that is how I can justify it. My personality and work style would probably come to the same conclusion if I was a teacher, a lawyer, or a barista. If I was working at Starbucks I would probably be thinking about something related to caffeine. This summer I’ll be taking a month-long study leave. My congregation’s Leadership Team and Diaconate members have told me “to vacate the premises.” They know that I will be too easily pulled into things if I’m around. A study leave is suppose to enable you to leave in order to study. I’ll write a blog post each day, read books that I’ve been staring at on my shelves for so long they have gathered dust, pray, ponder, rest, and, of course…drink coffee.
But for it to have meaning I must vacate. It is not optional. It is just part of it. Part of the experience for me will be “learning to vacate.” How can I “not be present?” Many people are good at that. They can turn it on and off like a light switch. I’m more like a fire pit. The fire may be out, but there is some smoldering that is going on for a long long time.
One of my other “issues” is the guilt of vacating. Will people think less of me as a pastor if I scurry off? Do others think I am taking a long vacation that will be filled with sandy beaches, sun screen, and baseball games? Pastors have this need to be needed. Will my self-worth take a dive if I vacate for a while? Whose bedside can I pray at if I’m not around? Will people be able to function without the pastor on site? I’m convincing myself, although I’m not entirely on board yet, that they will do just fine without me around…that others in our church can say a kind word and utter a soft prayer for strength just like the one who has been ordained.
As you can tell, this whole area of “vacating” is a little uncomfortable for me although I’m looking forward to it. To draw a rough comparison, I had been looking forward to swimming in the ocean on vacation. After arriving at our beachside residence I turned on the TV. The sound of the ocean waves was softly waltzing into our room from outside, but on the TV was a nature film about seals and whales. It was very interesting until the scene appeared of a seal splashing around in the water juist a few feet from shore and an orca suddenly rising from the waves and snatching him in his mouth. Suddenly the excitement of swimming in the ocean was tempered a little bit!
Some things in life are like that. We approach them with excitement, and yet we fear that some teeth may be closing in on us. Once again, it is evident that I’ve got a lot to learn about vacating.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: beach, blogging, checking out, pondering, Prayer, rest, study leave, Vacate, vacate the premises, vacation
Comments: 1 Comment
March 7, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. March 7, 2014
Silence is golden…and increasingly uncomfortable, it seems! People are putting down $300 for headphones that will allow them to keep the noise in…their “noise preference”, that is!
There’s a reason why we wish for “peace and quiet.” The two are often linked together.
And yet, we live in a noisy world that elevates sounds and echoes and voices…and has a hard time knowing how to handle silence.
Millions watch “The Voice” each week. Nascar has a following of even more than that, as people flock to the raceways to cheer at the sounds of the engines revving.
Last Sunday I did a children’s story before the congregation received communion. I talked about the meaning of the elements…the bread and the cup…and asked the children to be extra quiet and still as we took communion that morning. We didn’t filter the silence with music…we just kept quiet. I’ve never had a communion experience quite like that! There was complete silence as we gathered together around the Lord’s table. it was…good!
A friend of mine recently made the comment that the silence of God sometimes brings people together.
We wait for a word, a leading, a whisper.
The noise has a way of drowning out lips that are sealed. We believe that God is ever-moving, and, as a result of that, we erroneously think that there must be constant chatter and loud praise.
A scripture that always has intrigued me comes at the end of Genesis 16 and the first verse of Genesis 17. I won’t quote it here, but simply say that it indicates a gap of thirteen years in Abram’s life. God had promised Abram that he was going to father a great nation, but things weren’t happening quick enough. Sarai wasn’t getting pregnant and neither of them was getting any younger, so they took things into their own hands and brought in Hagar to be a substitute wife. They could only trust God so long with what was going on. The emptyness of Sarai’s womb was too much silence for them to handle.
And so God was “silent” for thirteen years to further help them to realize that HE was going to bring a son into the lives of Abram and Sarai. Abram means “exalted father.” Abraham means “father of many.” Thirteen years of silence can bring us to a more attentive place, and God strengthened that listening by changing a name.
Sometimes God seems to be silent in our churches and in our lives, and we panic and begun to orchestrate holy moments. And yet, it is in the silence that we can quite often go to a deeper search…a testing of our faith…a point of confession and repentance. It’s a pathway through the wilderness, and yet we are hesitant to proceed.
Quite often I ask a question of a men’s group that I lead. The flow of conversation about pro football, hunting, new car models, and building projects has been going non-stop…and then the pastor interrupts the warmness, the male bonding, by asking the question “So what has God been doing in your life?” Or “What’s God been saying to you ?”
Silence invades the conversation. I realize that it is easier, and not as threatening, to talk about Cabela’s and outdoor grills than holy conversations, but the quiet that follows the question is deafening.
Some of our most meaningful times together have then flowed out of that question that is allowed to simmer for a bit.
Silence does end up leading us to the gold.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Abraham, Abram, chatter, headphones, noise, peace and quiet, quiet, Sarah, Sarai, silence, solitude, The Voice
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February 21, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. February 21, 2014
Earlier this week I wrote a blog about “Adult Bullies in Churches”. It got more views, clicks, hits, or whatever you want to call it then any other blog post I’ve had except one. One of the comments about it was from someone who wondered about pastors and churches that are bullies. I promised that I would pursue the suggestion. Since I’ve been a pastor for just shy of thirty-five years it is right in my backyard. I’ll try not to be threatened by it, but also offer a balanced view of the situation.
Quite honestly, I think there have been, and are, pastors that bully. Most of the time the bullying is veiled behind an appearance of spirituality. The pastor conveys the idea that he/she is closer to God because he/she is more into the Word of God, and spends more time meditating about the ways of the Lord. People who question the pastor’s leadings and motives are often subjected to scorn and ridicule “in the name of Jesus.”
When a pastor communicates by words and actions that he is closer to the Lord than anyone else a power play in is the works. When a pastor keeps promoting his vision that the Lord has given him…that, ironically, needs to be funded by the congregation, beware of the pleas that question how committed the people of the Body are.
I remember the words of an American Baptist pastor from Michigan, Jack Harris, spoken many years ago. Jack who served churches for a span of time just shy of Methuselah, said that the pastor was the sheep dog. Jesus was the shepherd. The pastor is entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the congregation headed in the direction of the Good Shepherd, not trying to be the Good Shepherd.
Some are uncomfortable with such a picture. They think a sheep dog has a little bullying in his actions, but the sheep dog is always about keeping the herd safe and headed in the direction they should be headed. Sometimes that requires a little more barking, but it is never to make the barker look more important than anyone else.
There are also pastors who firmly believe that they have been empowered with the authority to do anything. They view themselves as being like Moses, who was up on the mountain with the Lord receiving some divine words, and then had to return to the chaos of people dancing around a golden calf. I think it is easy for pastors to take on the “Moses Mentality” that the people they lead are prone to screwing up their lives. Thus, they need a strong voice that doesn’t put up with any nonsense and indicates it is either the pastor’s way or the highway. If such an ultimatum doesn’t work the pastor will sometimes even bring Satan into the equation. In other words, it is either his way or he’s going to hand them over to the Dark Side.
Accusing people of being of the world is a favorite bullying tactic. Sometimes I get discouraged by those who choose to follow other pursuits and interests instead of being at church on a consistent basis on Sunday morning. The temptation to focus on the lack of commitment gets especially strong around June and July.
A last thought! A pastor has been called to lead, but the leading must mirror the Philippians 2 passage about Jesus, who “being in very nature God (Not us! Don’t think that I’m saying we’re God, or God-like, but rather with a leaning sometimes towards being “Godly!”), did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” (Philippians 2:6-7) Being a pastor is more about serving than it is about getting one’s way. A pastor gets the privilege of administering the communion elements, baptizing a new believer, talking to someone about a major life decision, conducting the union of two people coming together in the covenant relationship of marriage, saying the final words as a follower of Jesus is lowered into the ground, sitting with a heart-broken family who has lost a special person. If a pastor’s base grows out of bullying and intimidation it leads to a fracturing of everything else, including the devastating fracturing of people’s lives.
Being like Jesus will always be more about a basin of water and a towel than a charge up a hill.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Bully, Bullying, leading, Moses, Philippians, power play, servant, serving, sheepdog, shepherd
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February 18, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. February 17, 2014
We shouldn’t expect it to be different from how it has been. The church has always had bullies. John wrote about one in his third letter. His name was “Diotrephes.” (3 John 1:9-10) He had a reputation for gossiping maliciously, being inhospitable, and keeping others from being hospitable. Diotrephes didn’t invent bullying. He just excelled at being one.
The Sadducees were bullies. They were also “sad, you see!” Sorry, reverted to my Southern Baptist childhood Sunday School class there for a moment!
In this age when there is a growing emphasis on “anti-bullying” in our schools, at our workplaces, on our sports teams, and in our neighborhoods, we must realize that churches have the worst kind of bullies. They are the worst because they clothe the bullying in spiritual language and act like Jesus has ordained their actions.
Churches are also the worst place for bullies because we believe strongly about grace and forgiveness. We’re suppose to love our brother…even the ones who will use that to intimidate us. As one person said many years ago: “Churches put up with people that no one else will.”
Adult bullies in church come in all legal ages. They are not gender-specific, or based on a certain level of income. They come in all shapes and sizes, some with frowns, but others with smiles that fool.
How do adult bullies in church do what they do? One vehicle that is used is making people think it’s all about the person instead of the mission of the church. Bullies think they are irreplaceable, that the church’s one foundation…is them! Part of their intimidation, strange as it sounds, is getting people to buy into that idea. When that happens other members of the church start saying things like, “We can’t afford to lose them. They give so much money!”
Money is a power play for much of our culture, but it should never hold that kind of sway in the church. Money is a way of showing gratitude, not getting people to follow what I want to do.
Adult bullies in churches use fear to keep themselves in power. Fear fosters spiritual immobility.
Other bullies in the church use their special talents to hold people hostage. “If she leaves who will teach the elementary age Sunday School class.”
“There’s nobody else to play the organ. Give him what he wants.”
Talents become a trump card, not a way of performing an act of service.
So what does the church do when adult bullies throw their weight around? Love them, but hold the door open for them also. The church is bigger than any one person. The mission is more important than any one threatening individual. The agenda of the Kingdom of God is more urgent than the preference of any “self-proclaimed king.”
There are times in any church’s life where it is essential for someone to step up and give words of conviction or exhortation. That’s not bullying, that’s motivating. there are times when a church needs someone to lead the charge. That’s not bullying, that’s spearheading a charge.
It is easy to forget that Paul compared the church to a “body”, where every person is a part, and every person is important. God’s plan is for a smoothly functioning Body of Christ. The reality is we often fall short. The reality is that there are periods where the Body is functioning smoothly, that there is a rhythm…and then long gaps of dysfunction.
May the Lord help us!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Body of Christ, Bullies, Bullying, Diotrephes, intimidation, ministry, power figures, Sadducees
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Words from WW Blog 