Relationships and Community on Being Stuck

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Erecting a Life Around Dysfunction

Author

Keywords

Scripture

John 5:6, Isaiah 43:18-19, 2 Peter 1:3, James 1:4, Hebrews 12:1-2

Remember Miss Haversham in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations? Her entire life was defined by the fact that she was jilted on her wedding day. People can become very attached to their pain and i...

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A Different Perspective on the Narcissus Myth

Author

Chuck DeGroat

Keywords

In his important book When Narcissism Comes to Church, professor and therapist Chuck DeGroat makes an important connection between shame, narcissism and addiction by looking at the myth of Narcissus. ...

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Lifting the Rock

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

One day a father decided to take his son to play at the local park. The boy quickly gravitated to the sandbox and found himself mesmerized by the colors and textures surrounding him. After a short tim...

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An Unexpected Friendship

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 6:2, Psalm 34:18, Proverbs 19:11, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, Luke 6:37

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

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An Unexpected Friendship: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 4:8, James 5:16, Proverbs 19:11, Romans 12:17-21, Luke 6:27-28

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

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Sticks & Stones in Your Bed

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:6-7, James 1:2-4, Psalm 94:12-13, Proverbs 3:11-12, Romans 5:3-5

Years ago, I read an old fairy tale about a wicked witch who lived in a remote cottage in the deep forest. When travelers came through looking for lodging, she offered them a meal and a bed. It was th...

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A Problem with the Maps

Author

Greg Gilbert

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 3:5–6, Jeremiah 17:9–10, Exodus 13:21–22, John 14:6, Psalm 119:105, 2 Timothy 3:16–17

ABC News ran a story about neighborhood roads that have literally become commercial thoroughfares because GPS systems are routing traffic there, rather than along larger highways. There are other prob...

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The Politics of Ministry Book Review & Quotes

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:21

Picture this: you are just about a year into your first call as a minister. Everything seems to be going swimmingly. You caught up with a seminary friend over the weekend and you slightly brag about h...

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Having Your Feet Washed is Difficult

Author

Stanley Hauerwas

Keywords

Scripture

John 13:1-17

I am more or less ready to wash someone’s feet, but, like Peter, I discover I am not prepared to have my feet washed. I am willing to play like I am a servant and wash the feet of someone else. When I...

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When Rulers Refuse to Listen

Author

Adam S. McHugh

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 12:6-16 , 2 Chronicles 24:17-22 , Jeremiah 36:20-31 , Luke 23:1-25, Acts 7:51-60 , Psalm 2:1-12

The kings Of history are rewarded with many impressive descriptors: majestic, exalted, glorious, sovereign. Men and women bow before such heights of nobility; even the eyes of wealth and status fall t...

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Communication Breakdown

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Exodus 17:8-13, Proverbs 3:5-6, Philippians 4:13, Psalm 133:1, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...

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The Stalker

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 13:6, Matthew 7:15-16, Matthew 10:28, Ephesians 6:12, 1 Peter 5:8, 2 Corinthians 11:14, Proverbs 14:12

Editor’s Note: This story is often told as a true story, when in fact it is probably fictitious. Nevertheless, there is a significant illustrative point: sometimes the things we fear most may in fact ...

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I Know the Way Out

Author

James K. A. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, John 15:13, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Job 2:11, Proverbs 17:17

I can’t help but recall here a scene from The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, who is struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable: This guy’...

Quote

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Grief

In grief nothing “stays put.”

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Walking in the Wrong Door

Author

Bob Goff

Keywords

We fixed up the house and swapped it for another house and then another and then another. During the first ten years we were married, we moved six times. It was like being in the witness protection pr...

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Losing Everything

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 3:15, Philippians 3:5-11, Matthew 19:16-30, John 12:20-26, Mark 8:27-38, Hebrews 11:1, Jeremiah 29:11

A ship went down in a storm, and only one man survived. He was fortunate enough to land on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. With just a few items in his pocket, he was able to build a small...

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From Apathy to Action

Keywords

When Rosina Hernandez was in college, she once attended a rock concert at which one young man was brutally beaten by another. No one made an attempt to stop the beating. The next day she was struck du...

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Author

Ann Patchett

Keywords

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

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The Stockdale Paradox

Author

Tod E. Bolsinger

Keywords

Scripture

John 16:33, Psalm 34:18-19, Hebrews 12:1-2, Philippians 4:12-13, Isaiah 40:31, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Romans 5:3-5

James Stockdale and what is now known as the Stockdale Paradox comes from his experience as a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam War. The Stockdale Paradox, made famous in Jim Collins’...

Quote

Author

Archytas of Tarentum

Keywords

Place

To be is to be in place.

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Stories We Tell Ourselves

Author

The Cruzman

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 7:1-2, John 7:24, Proverbs 3:5, Ecclesiastes 7:9

A man named Jack was driving on a dark country road one night when he got a flat tire. He saw a cabin in the woods and began to walk towards it. He told himself that the person who answered the door w...

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Passing the Buck

Author

John Maxwell

Keywords

Two shipwrecked men in tattered clothes slouch together at one end of a lifeboat. They watch casually as three people at the other end of the boat bail furiously, trying to keep the vessel afloat. One...

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Overextending Ourselves & The Tyranny of the Urgent

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 55:22, Isaiah 26:3, Jeremiah 17:5-8, Philippians 4:6-7

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

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Author

Albert Einstein

Keywords

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

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The Persistent Census-Taker

Author

John Maxwell

Keywords

If we want to connect with people, we can be like the census taker who had driven many miles down a remote country road to reach a mountain cabin. As he pulled up, a woman sitting on the porch yelled ...

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The Most Common Complaint

Author

Matt Haig

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:1-18, Psalm 88:null, Psalm 102:7, Isaiah 53:3, Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 15:11-32

A therapist once told me that the most common complaint he heard from his patients was the feeling that they didn’t belong. The feeling of being an imposter, or of being outside things, of not fitting...

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When We’re Wrong

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

To be told we are wrong is sometimes an embarrassment, even a humiliation. We want to run and hide our heads in shame. But there are times when finding out we are wrong is sudden and immediate relief,...

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Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:4–13, Lamentations 3:19–26, Isaiah 40:28–31, Matthew 11:28–30, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Psalm 42:5–11

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Quote

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Quote

Author

Charles Dickens

Keywords

“My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.”

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