formation on Work-Life Balance

The twenties are a time when one asks, What will I do with my life? What is it that I really want in exchange for my life’s labors? Most denied that the key desire of life was for material wealth; t...

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

Note: This was originally posted on February 15, 2017 on the Stirring Our Affections website. Does our working shape us? Depending on what you do, you might answer that readily in the affirmativ...

Gracious God, in six days you created all things. On the seventh day you finished your work by resting. You also blessed and hallowed the seventh day, setting it aside as a day of rest. Teach me, Lord...

At the core of TPW's mission is the flourishing —the shalom —of pastors. We curate resources for sermons and services to put extra time into your schedule and take some of the hurry and stres...

Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The structure was completel...

Like me, maybe you set aside much of your normal work for the Christmas break and this week you have a lot to do! There’s a gravitational pull to “Hurry and catch up!” But that’s not the best way. ...

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview Dave Rimoldi, one of our ministry partners, from Soul Shepherding on the importance of sabbaticals in for pastors to rest, recharge, and refle...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

Spiritual formation is, in practice, the way of rest for the weary and overloaded, of (Matthew 11:28-30), of cleaning the inside of the cup and the dish (Matthew 23:26), of the good tree that cannot b...

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

The most powerful choices we will make in our lives are not about specific decisions but about patterns of life: the nudges and disciplines that will shape all our other choices. This is especially tr...

I’ve often shared the story of my first experience of solitude and silence at the beginning of 1990. It was led by one of my mentors, Wayne Anderson, as part of a class I was taking at Fuller Seminary...

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my funct...

A Friend's Question: How Do I Go Deeper? I was having coffee with a good friend, which everyone knows is the best place for conversation, when he blurted out the question: “How do I go deeper ...

A Digital Silent Retreat This spiritual exercise is from Laura Murray, ordained pastor, spiritual director, and TPW contributor. Laura is sharing a "Digital Silent Retreat" with us. We en...

Kristi Gaultiere. During the Advent season, I pick a character from the nativity scene to spend some time reading about in Scripture while praying and listening to the Lord. Our “ Surprising Joy ” Ad...

Preaching Commentary Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The ...

Have you ever been talking with someone, and as they listened, you felt like you were the only person in the room? The listener had no sense of needing to be elsewhere. They had no sense of needing to...

Here is the heart of the paradox: Technology is a brilliant, praiseworthy expression of human creativity and cultivation of the world. But it is at best neutral in actually forming human beings who ca...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

When was the last time we had an "easy" year? The past few years seem to have been full of difficulty and uncertainty for so many of us. It’s tempting to look back and see only the loss, str...

I’m not the first to say it, but Jesus is an absolute genius. I remembered this yet again in a recent conversation with a Christian leader with whom I meet regularly. We were talking about how one of ...

I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of Go...

Leaders—Called to Pray I don't know about you, but I've always had a hard time spending extended periods of time in prayer. Our lectionary author this week, Cody Sandahl, shares his own st...

Spiritual formation has become one of the major movements of the late twentieth century. Spiritualities of all varieties have emerged on the landscape of our culture—Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Zen, vari...

If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I?

I must register a certain impatience with the faddish equation, never suggested by me, of the term identity with the question, “Who am I?” This question nobody would ask himself except in a more or le...

There once was a town high in the Alps that straddled the banks of a beautiful stream. The stream was fed by springs that were old as the earth and deep as the sea.  The water was clear like crysta...

Technology is a brilliant, praiseworthy expression of human creativity and cultivation of the world. But it is at best neutral in actually forming human beings who can create and cultivate as we were ...