conflict on Attacks

When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue. Attacks may be personal, understan...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...

Preaching Commentary Besieged from All Angles The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Jar...

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.

The reason we fight with each other, and often believe the worst about each other, is that we form convictions about things for which we care deeply. Unfortunately, we all care deeply about different ...

In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ...

Preaching Commentary Leaving Home I moved away from my hometown for graduate school when I was just shy of 30. I never went back. When I struck out from home, I lived in cities larger and more dive...

Leaving Home I moved away from my hometown for graduate school when I was just shy of 30. I never went back. When I struck out from home, I lived in cities larger and more diverse than anything I had...

Called to Pastor, Inclined to Argue When I was graduating from college in the mid-2000s, I was encouraged to take a career test to determine where my personality type would fit in the working world. ...

The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we bla...

Internal conflict is not only dangerous—it can threaten the long-term flourishing of any organization, including the church. According to tradition, during the Battle of Trafalgar, Lord Horatio Nelson...

The sight of any trouble strikes terror into the heart of those who do not have faith, but those who trust Him say, "Here comes my food!"

Arguments are ineffectual unless supported by events.

What is the greatest threat to the church of Jesus Christ today? There are so many threats to choose from. Some Christians would identify hazards like postmodern relativism working to unravel notions ...

O curse of marriage, that we can call these delicate creatures ours and not their appetites.

“You feeling strong, my friend? Call me elf one more time.”

Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the i...

When I meet someone with whom I disagree, whom I dislike, or whom I find threatening, I can do one of four things. I can kill them, I can create a structure of coercion so I can control them, or I can...

We argue with our alarm clock, which insists we wake up. We argue with our clothes that wear out or stop fitting. We argue with our bodies, we argue with our pets, we argue with bumps in the sidewalk ...

Most quarrels are due to a misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding is due to our failure to appreciate the other person’s point of view. It is more natural to us to talk than to listen, to argue th...

The Latin term for confrontation means “to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.” It merely indicates that you are turning toward the relationship and the person. You are face-to-face, so to sp...

I did some of my Clinical Pastoral Education Units in Gastonia. One of the units that I served was the Emergency Department. If there was an incident that was suspected to be gang related, they would ...

People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”

Anointed One, Heal our stingy, selfish ways Silence our accusations End the worship wars The congregation is invited to offer their own prayers of confession silently We remember our faithful sist...

The issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree. We Christians are called to use the “weapons of grace,” which means treating even our oppo...

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.

The key word in our definition of a disagreement (an unacceptable difference between two perspectives), isn’t “difference.” It’s “unacceptable.” Once the clash between perspectives becomes unacceptabl...

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything onto which it is poured.

In Exclusion and Embrace , Yale professor Miroslav Volf reflects on the themes of revenge, mercy, forgiveness and grace. Volf, who grew up in war-ravaged Croatia, speaks from a place of deep concer...