My former pastor Bill Hybels did not learn how to fall safely. We all fall down in life, but have we learned to fall safely? When pastors and leaders for Christ fall unsafely it hurts them, their families, and the people they serve. As a mega church pastor with worldwide influence, Bill Hybels’ recent fall…
Most of us use our successes to hide our sense of failure. We’d be better to fail into Jesus’ arms of grace. Fail? Yes. Let me show you what it means to admit our failures and receive grace. I was a hero child. I was all about hitting home runs, getting straight A’s, and being…
Because Jesus rose from the dead we can be free of judgment and condemnation! As I shared in my confession last week I’ve been working with Jesus on my log rather than judging other people’s specks. (Matthew 7:1-5) I’m thankful for Jesus’ carpentry of the soul in my life. In his workshop I found a gem…
Have you ever walked and prayed through the Stations of the Cross at a retreat center? Or done a virtual “prayer walk” using the stories and prophecies of Christ’s passion that go with the ancient Stations? I have. Many times. It’s truly unforgettable. Divine mercy has flooded into my body and soul. The Gospel scenes…
To grow spiritually and become more loving like Jesus Christ we need to understand the stages of our development and how to resist the temptations that thwart our progress.
I’ll never forget being in Israel and getting up before dawn one morning to sit on a rock beside the Sea of Galilee. As the waves gently lap at my feet I imagine Jesus calling the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, and John at that very spot. “Come, follow me,” Jesus says, “and I will make you fishers of men…
Ignatian meditation is the most used method for Scripture meditation around the world. It was developed in the 16th Century by Ignatius of Loyola and used in his famous Spiritual Exercises, which Kristi and I completed on a thirty-day Sabbatical in 2015 under the spiritual direction of Tom Ashbrook, founder of Imago Christi. At the heart of The…
“I grew with parents who considered themselves too intellectual for Christianity,” Vicki Paxton shared with our Soul Shepherding TLC community of pastors and leaders. “They told me the Bible was outdated and irrelevant. It was full of silly stories about an angry god that wanted people to praise him all the time.” But everything changed…
When I knew Robert H. Schuller from afar I judged him negatively. I was writing a thesis paper on integrating Christian spirituality and psychology and I criticized the “Self-Esteem Theology” of the famous television preacher and author. A few months before I finished that paper and graduated from college I was shocked to learn on my…
Holy Week is a special opportunity to draw on Jesus’ empathy in new ways. You know that the last seven days of Christ’s life changed the world, but you may not have thought of them as filled with empathy for your pain and brokenness. Empathy is tuning into what someone else feels, validating the bigness of it,…