people on Dysfunction

Statistics show that 80 percent of new pastors leave the ministry within five years. A friend once remarked, “If they were able to pastor churches without people, they might last ten years.” Most past...

Arguments are ineffectual unless supported by events.

The first step in backsliding is to put one's service for Christ ahead of one's love for Christ.

Good people will mirror goodness in us, which is why we love them so much, Not so mature people will mirror their own unlived and confused life unto us, which is why they confuse and confound us so mu...

A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister co...

A people can be judged as better or worse according to what they love, and their nation can be assessed as healthy or unhealthy according to the condition of what they love.

Have you ever seen As Good As It Gets, the late-nineties film starring Jack Nicholson? In it, Nicholson plays a cranky, misanthropic writer in New York City, snapping at anyone who crosses his p...

Too many people hear the word capacity and assume it’s a limitation. They assume their capacity is set—especially if they’re beyond a certain age. People give up on the idea that their capacity or the...

I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure; try to please everybody all the time.

One of my favorite sayings is, no matter how difficult it is to hear, “Reality is always your friend.”

“When you blow out the candles in that 50th birthday cake your first thought is going to be, ‘The fewer people I have anything to do with, the better off I’m going to be.’” *for contrast (and...

Pastor: Who are you? Ministers: We are God’s people, called by God’s love in Jesus the Christ, not because we are adequate or worthy, but because of God’s ac­ceptance of us. Pastor: Why have you c...

To bless is to bridge. A blessing is a bridge to belonging, built right in the place we feel separated from hope. Words of blessing bring us back to the beautiful truth of being human: we belong to on...

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

Leo Tolstoy, the writer of some of the most beautiful and complex stories in literature, had this to say on the topic of human nature and qualities that define us: One of the commonest and most gene...

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 ...

Did you know that the history of the word “fellowship,” is, rather simply, a relationship among fellows? The idea of a fellowship being that two or more people have been bonded together in some signif...

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

Bear one another’s burdens, the Bible says. It is a lesson about pain that we all can agree on. Some of us will not see pain as a gift; some will always accuse God of being unfair for allowing it. But...

The story goes about a young man (or woman!) with dreams of growing a small church nestled in rural Oklahoma. Despite his relentless efforts, the church continued to teeter on the edge of extinction a...

Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have non...

In his book Breaking the Rules , Fil Anderson talks about the scandalous reputation of Jesus: He breaks all social etiquette in relating to people. He acknowledges no barriers or human divisions....

Lord God, You have called us to yourself and made us into a people. We belong to you, and we belong to one another. But in our self-focused lives, we have forgotten that. We have lived for ourselves. ...

The Greek word for the gathered church offers some insight into how the apostles saw their gatherings. Though the language offered a variety of options for words to describe the gathering church, the ...

If you’ve decided your healing is dependent on other people acknowledging their faults you’ll still be waiting in your grave.

The Church, as described in Ephesians, is the foretaste of a reconciled humanity. Its existence is itself part of God’s mission to the world.

O Lord and Father of the household of faith, we thank you for the gift of faith worked within us by your Holy Spirit. We thank you for having called us to yourself, for consecrating us to your ser...

A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....

The most insidious deception in human history is the lie that says, “God is against you.”

Inspired by 1 Corinthians 1:2–3 Leader: To the church of God in this place, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints: People: We come together with all those in every place wh...