christian living on Dysfunction

By failing to come to grips with how cultural dysfunctions deeply impact the health of the church, our leaders will continue to fail to discern an essential reality concerning the nature of change: Cu...

I’m convinced some company today could make a killing if it had the guts to market dysfunctional greeting cards. Most birthday or holiday cards gush with flowery sentiments such as, “To the greatest f...

The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the pri­vate, and the emotional hold sway. Yet. . . that is ...

God of Grace–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are good and You are almighty. You alone are worthy of our faith and trust and so we come to You with our hopes and hurts, our disappointments and dreams...

Heavenly father, we confess to you that we do not always think or act as the children which you made us to be. You tell us to honour our fathers and mothers, not to murder, commit adultery, steal or c...

O God, you are the sure foundation and the certain cornerstone. Building on you brings life, yet we often turn away and try to find hope by building on other foundations. Self-esteem, money, career, f...

Jesus–our Lord, Savior and Friend: Come into our hearts to save us and to rule. Come into your Church to direct and empower us with Your Gospel and Your Spirit. Come into your World to redeem the Lost...

Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave us a new circle of fri...

Thank You, Lord, for the gifts of life, of love and of care that come from You, wrapped in our moms and step-moms, in our grand-moms, great-grandmas, daughters, sisters, and aunts. We’re grateful for...

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

The Psalmist draws us into prayer saying: Come and hear, all you who honor God and let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him and God has surely listened and heard my prayer. Praise ...

We have set our hope on you, our living God, as those who set course for home from distant places. But we need your help if we are to keep on course: we need fresh sight of you, on which to check our ...

The absence of boundaries creates nonorder, and nonorder is not the end of exclusion but the end of life.

In her excellent book, Liturgy of the Ordinary , author Tish Harrison Warren deals with an issue on many people's minds: why is it that so many people, especially younger generations, don't...

In this tragic world, we are surrounded by discontented people. Every minute of the day, it is possible to see evidence of this restless discontentment in the way people respond to circumstances. Peop...

God invites us into his healing presence with these words: “I am the Lord, who heals you.” Diseased, depressed, dysfunctional, defeated, we come hungering for health that only God can provide. God c...

Everyone: Holy God, we live our lives struggling in our own burdens and failing to trust You with all the things that hold us down. Leader: Your Scripture says, "Come to Me all you who are wear...

What is the difference between people who thrive and people who decline over a long period of time? It’s not that they don’t get knocked down; it’s that they bounce back up. Every successful person I ...

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated...

Too many Christians are broken in a destructive way—so badly broken that they cannot carry out the great commandment of loving God and neighbor. Their inner turmoil prevents them from carrying out God...

Brokenness is God’s requirement for maximum usefulness.

We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent.

Wholeness is brokenness owned and thereby healed.

It goes against the grain to give an image of oneself that is anything less than perfect, and many Christians imagine that they will be rejected by others if they admit to any faults. But nothing coul...

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

Brokenness is God’s method of dealing with our dependence on anything other than Him for fulfillment and security. No matter how committed we may be to God, we’ll always fight the inclination to do th...

Silence. All human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.

We were created for goodness and perfection. That’s why we innovate, progress, and change. But if our progress loses its purpose, it cannibalizes our humanity, leaving us distracted and disoriented.

We are a society that despises lack. We despise weakness and need and insufficiency. We turn the other way and pretend to be watching oncoming traffic when the red light halts us and the beggar reache...

To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.