relationships on Growth

Glorious One, you alone are our Rock and Redeemer. We trust you, your Holy Word, your Holy Wisdom, to put all things in right relationship. Make us wise. Let the words of our mouths be acceptable to ...

There has been a paradigm shift going on in neighborhoods in the United States since the end of WWII. For decades before the 1940s, neighborhoods were places where people were known and were active. W...

God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit–You know what it’s like to be many and one at the same time. In You, we too are many ... yet one. You’ve made us one body—a single family unified for one purpose; with ...

Preaching Commentary A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our mon...

Human flourishing is first and foremost a flourishing of relationships—our relationship with God and with others. But human flourishing is also a product of fruitful work that reflects our God who wor...

Sharan Merriam and Carolyn Clark, in their fine study Lifelines , effectively show that life is fundamentally about two things—our work and our relationships. And maturity is found in having the c...

The Texas-based pastor Matt Chandler spent a decade working with teenagers, and during that time, he realized how a specific change takes place between sixth graders and ninth graders. As Chandler say...

It takes time to build and sustain healthy relationships. Time pressures can erode the quality of relationships and create fragmentation and isolation.

Everything significant starts with relationship. At the end of the day, your faith, your family, your work, and your leadership are all based on who you relate to and how you relate. Your life is moti...

Invitations shape who we know, where we go, what we do and who we become. Invitations can challenge and remake us. They can erode and devastate. And they can also heal and restore us. Being wanted, we...

God of Grace and God of Glory – rich in love and mercy, all powerful and everywhere present: We come to You at Your bidding, trusting in Your faithful compassion and not in our fruitless efforts to do...

Hospitality does not entail helping another so much as immersing oneself in a new reality, entering into a new relationship with one who before was unknown or unappreciated. The nothing of “being with...

Beholding beauty produces fascination, and fascination is the best way to transform a person. Consider a young man in love. Parents, professors, mentors, and friends can plead with a young man to chan...

Children are God’s gifts to immature people to help them grow up. They are also God’s gifts to help parents go deep with God. . . . Parenting is not for anything. It is not a contract with God in whic...

The basis of life is people and how they relate to each other. Our success, fulfillment, and happiness depend upon our ability to relate effectively. The best way to become a person that others are dr...

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

God uses our relationships with other people to teach us how to love him. The more we pursue intimacy in our other relationships, the more we see and understand God’s incredible, audacious love for us...

Our love to God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the love it displays.

The good life is built with good relationships.

When I engaged with twenty-somethings, for example, who were just entering the adult years, I found them preoccupied with clarifying their identity. What kind of a man or woman am I becoming, they w...

Relationships are a large playing field upon which other life contests and struggles get worked out.

God of grace, power and glory – Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – and our Father: When we’re tempted to think it’s all up to us: to change the world, to overcome evil, to establish Your kingdom. to m...

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good l...

[I] try to get into their world a little bit [by listening to hip-hop], because if they’re only adapting to you and you’re not adapting to them in some way, I don’t think you’ve developed a relationsh...

Almost everything we do touches a relationship in some way. Just think about your day. Whether you’re at home or at work, driving your car, playing, exercising, shopping, vacationing, worshipping at c...

Gracious God, thank you for the gift of your presence and opportunities to be fully present with others. In our selfishness and impatience, we seek to connect with those not in the room. God, help us ...

Human sexuality includes more than hormones, organs, and orgasms; it runs through the psychic and spiritual ranges of our lives. We experience our sexuality on the spiritual level as a yearning for an...

Lord, help us to be a people known for the ways in which we live out our faith by loving and serving all people, even those who, in the world’s eyes, have little to offer us. By treating them with dig...

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 ...

The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profoun...