Church Life
Tra La La....Blah
Christmas is coming! The presents wrapped in fun and funky paper. The family. The homemade sugar cookies and sledding in three-feet snow. The break from school and pop quizzes! Sounds nice, doesn't it? But did you know that the holidays are a difficult time for lots of teens? Dr. David Lowenstein, a psychologist, says that as many as one person in four battles the holiday ...
Good News Indeed!
Cultivating the right to share your faith means building respect. Sometimes this seed is sown for years, but many times it's overnight. Pray where God would like you to embark, and then ask questions. "How can I pray for you?" might help console a depressed friend.
Several months ago, a friend and I started praying God would bring Christians into our neighborhood. ...
The Mixed-Gender Team
Humility is essential for mixed gender teams because pride is so destructive. Pride leads us to presume and prejudge one another. This in turn leads to issues of stereotyping, transference, and entitlement.
How many men and women feel offended by one another based on an unfair presumption? A man presumes, for instance, that a woman is against him - when really she is ...
The Woman Who Got It Right
Editor's note: Dr. Sue Edwards is one of the amazing women we met at Gifted for Leadership's Synergy conference last year. Hope to meet you there this March!
I'm one of three full time women on the faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary and during our weekly faculty meeting, I sometimes struggle to find my voice. I want to be like the woman in Mark 7:24-30 who ...
Workaholic Faith
When I became a Christian, I knew I'd found my life purpose. I wanted to serve God with my last ounce of strength. I read Christian biographies voraciously and latched onto any report of modern-day Christians who were giving their all to Christ and his kingdom. I often felt that my life was too easy - that I never suffered for Christ as some people did, which to my ...
How Do I Uncover My Spiritual Gifts?
Notice the things that energize you and seem to come naturally. Remember the quote from the movie Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddell explained to his sister why he was postponing his return to the mission field in order to race in the Olympics? "Because when I run, I feel the pleasure of God."
Every spiritual gift gives off clues. Your spiritual gift will cause ...
What Love’s Got to Do with It
There's a woman across from me on a wooden bench describing her life as a member of a rural agricultural cooperative in northwestern Haiti. It's hot so we're sitting in the shade of an old Brazilian military tarp that has been strung up between two trees. I'm in northwestern Haiti as a photojournalist for Church World Service, to document the stories of ...
Leading Like Life is On the Line
One of my favorite recent reads, Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life starts this way: "I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. ?" What's not to love about a book that starts this way? I have to tell you, my life feels like Amy's. While I may certainly have survived against some odds I never knew of or lived ...
Leading Men at Work
How to lead men in a professional setting: I'll admit I don't have much to say on this topic. It's not because I haven't led men, and it's not because the topic doesn't matter. It's because I don't think a lot needs to be said. When women lead men in their work, gender doesn't have to be an issue.
In general, women with leadership gifts ...
When a Pastor Becomes a Predator
One day more than a decade ago, the senior pastor of my church stopped by my house unannounced. I had just had a baby, so I presumed his visit was pastorally motivated, although I was a little thrown off by his sudden appearance at my door. I invited him in, and we made small talk for a while. My baby began to fuss and it soon became apparent that he needed to nurse. My ...