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I lead a retreat called “A Walk with Good Shepherd.” I developed this in 2004 and have used it many times since then, most recently with a group at the Prince of Peace Abbey. You can use this handout to guide you in a time of Scripture meditation and prayer for a personal retreat or…
Today we are desperate for God’s wisdom on our sexuality. These Bible verses on sexual purity will get the conversation started on the right track. You don’t need me to tell you that our world today is really messed up in it’s understanding of sex. “Sex sells” so it’s used everywhere in our society from…
We who are part of the ministry of Soul Shepherding love the soul! Our focus is to minster to the souls of pastors, leaders, and other servants of the Lord. So it’s very important to us to understand our souls and yours so that we can nurture them under God. “Transforming the Soul” is an updated version of…
Why does God allow suffering? If he is all-good and all-powerful couldn’t he stop injustice? We’ve all asked this question. For all of human history people have wrestled with question of why does God allow suffering. Much of the pain and suffering that we experience or see others going through is undeserved. It’s hard to…
“Rejoice in the Lord!” “Rejoice in the Lord!” Again and again praises, prayers, prophecies, and principles in the Bible invite us to “Rejoice in the Lord!” Twelve times the exact phrase, “Rejoice in the Lord!” is used (Psalm 32:11, 35:9, 64:10, 97:12, 104:34; Isaiah 29:10, 41:16; Joel 2:23; Habakkuk 3:18; Zechariah 10:7; Philippians 3:1, 4:4).…
Solitude is one of the most important disciplines for the spiritual life, especially for pastors and leaders who need help unhooking from ministry stress to experience God restoring their souls. There are many Bible verses on solitude to guide us in this practice. Kristi and I regularly practice solitude and silence and we encourage pastors,…
What Bible verses on thankfulness are especially important for us to live by? I’ve made a study on this to grow in gratitude and also to share these verses with family and friends around our table at mealtimes, especially on Thanksgiving (see “Thanksgiving Turkey and Prayer“). The Virtue of Thankfulness To be thankful to God…
We’d like to share with you an eye-opening exercise that we’ve done with groups of pastors and ministry leaders. We pass out a two-sided sheet of paper to everyone with all the Scripture references from Matthew’s Gospel of Jesus’ “Gospel of the Kingdom.” Fifty-one times the Good News that Matthew presents is that the “Kingdom…
To understand the formation of the whole person and how we can become more like Jesus we need to understand each functional dimension of our personality from the inside out. The Psalms of the Bible help us with this. It is by praying the Psalms that we learn to come alive love the Lord and our…
Your fingerprint is unique to you — it’s a physical mark of your identity. What about your personal identity? What defines who you are? Imagine if the cross of Jesus Christ was the most dominant marking of your self-image? You’d know that you are so loved! You’d be so stable and confident! You’d be enthusiastically…