Articles
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new |
listening |
spiritual practices |
sabbath |
fasting |
spiritual growth |
resilience for ministry |
congregational communication |
more |
new
We often hear the word "contemplative," but what does it mean?
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Making Space for a Continuing Conversation with the Living God
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Interceding in community is vital to the Christian life.
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listening
Jesus models the kind of compassion and empathy that can be learned.
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To ‘neighbour’ the people God has put in our lives who come from very different backgrounds than we do, or who believe very different things than we do, requires using a variety of listening skills.
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How to deal with some of the "inner noise" that impedes listening
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How our own agendas impede listening to God and to the people we love, and how to let them go
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Have you ever wondered how to improve as a conversationalist? Here are some suggestions.
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spiritual practices
Spiritual practices help us pray and engage with the Bible in many diverse ways. They help us walk through our daily lives with an awareness of Jesus at our side, and they help us become more like Jesus. Spiritual practices shape our desires so we grow in embracing God’s priorities.
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The Bible has a lot to say about hospitality, some of it unexpected
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What helps you experience the wholeness God wants to give you? Here's an invitation to experiment with finding paths that work for you.
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Ideas for experimenting with simplicity in seven areas of everyday life
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How Bible study, Sabbath keeping and fasting lay a foundation for caring for creation
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Everyday practices help us draw near to God in the routine places of daily life…
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Why can reducing food waste be viewed as a Christian spiritual practice? Why does it matter?
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An article that dates from right after my first knee surgery when I began a long journey that I'm still on - learning to be thankful in the midst of pain, sorrow and sadness
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In this postmodern, post-Christendom world, we’re seeing a flowering of interest in Christian spiritual disciplines, particularly among younger followers of Christ…
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Why it’s so important to nurture spiritual disciplines that are unconnected to “church work”…
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Using the example of fasting, the internet can be seen as a strategic place to provide information, encouragement and stories as congregations engage in spiritual disciplines
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sabbath
Understand and embrace your need to rest.
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Busy, exhausted, empty... Our frantic activity and continual acquisition of possessions do not fill the hollow spaces in our inner beings. We need the sabbath now more than ever...
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“I’d like to observe the sabbath in our family,” the young woman said. “I’ve been reading books about it, talking with my husband and kids, and we’re going to start soon”...
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The young woman smiled. “You mean we can start small? We don’t have to do it perfectly from the beginning?” We were talking about the sabbath...
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Sabbath keeping is God’s gift. But, as with any gift, it must be received, opened and used...
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More and more people of all ages are finding joy and fruitfulness in observing a sabbath...
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Some pastors observe sabbath well. Their day away from work is markedly different from the other six, and there is something special and holy about what they do—and don’t do—on that day. For others, the sabbath feels like another work day...
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Almost every year for ten years I stayed for a few days at a Benedictine monastery for women. During an early visit, one of the sisters told me how special Sundays are at the monastery...
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fasting
Fasting makes space for prayer and reflection. It helps us listen to God’s voice.
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People who fast talk about the sense of freedom fasting gives them.
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A short article about how fasting can give us freedom followed by "How do design a fast"
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Anyone can fast. In the past two years I’ve interviewed dozens of people who fast, and I’ve heard an amazing diversity of stories. In our time, followers of Jesus fast from food in a variety of ways, just as people of faith have done for centuries..
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spiritual growth
In a culture becoming increasingly secular, three ministry components must be woven together in new ways: local mission, pastoral care and spiritual practices
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We don’t follow Jesus so he can help us live the life we want to live. No, we follow him so we can live the life he wants us to live.
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I believe only some Christians have gifts in evangelism, but all Christians are called to be witnesses.
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In midlife we start to look back as well as ahead, wondering if we have lived the first half of our life wisely and pondering what we want to do in the second half.
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a story from 1996 about the death of one of my closest friends
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resilience for ministry
A good sabbatical will involve stopping long enough to look around and see God in a way that the busy life of ministry does not permit.
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Research indicates that introverts burn out more than extraverts because they do not have and use as many coping strategies.
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About two years ago I interviewed several dozen people...Every single Christian I interviewed had at least one burnout story for me [but] I was quite surprised to hear about the absence of burnout among volunteers in synagogues, and that observation sent me down a long path of thought and analysis.
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For Beth and Steve, teaching Sunday School became a place where they could serve God together and grow in friendship with another couple and the singles who were on the team...Burnout was the furthest thing from their experience.
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congregational communication
In order to understand the power of the internet and its role in our daily lives, I look at theologies of place, relationship and sin
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New communication technologies create challenges and opportunities for the Christian community.
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Think about the significance of art as a way to raise questions, stimulate reflection, and elicit emotions.
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The only sermon I remember from my childhood involved a dramatic action. The minister ... took off the watch he was wearing and ... threw it into the congregation.
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How congregational Web sites communicate church values…
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Movies, television, machines that print color pictures, and computers—all powered by electricity—have shaped the way we communicate...
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How websites "speak" beyond the words they use...
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Most of the biggest technological changes of the past two decades involved communication...
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Communication has always mattered to Christians. But what are the implications for the church of all the new technologies?
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Churches need websites if they want to be welcoming to potential visitors...
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In this world of so many diverse ways of communicating, a congregation that wants to get news out has to rely on a variety of means to do that.
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Email, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs are now used by congregations to supplement the website and to point people toward it.
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more
What does the word "missional" mean? What does it look like in practice? How can we learn to be like Jesus in the world?
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