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When Our Church Leaders Let Us down
Awhile back, I received an email from a woman who was seeking my advice about some concerns she and her husband had regarding their new pastor. I won’t go into any more details (in order to guard their confidentiality), but I think even with just that cursory picture in your mind, some of you might want to read my response to her: “Dear Tammy [NOT her real name of course], I am so very sorry to learn of this painful situation in your church! I have prayed for you and I hope that this email provides you with some ideas for consideration–but of course, I don’t know ‘for sure’ what…
- Hope in Suffering, Redeeming Church Conflicts, Redemptive Relationships, Relationships & Peacemaking, Surviving a Childhood of Neglect and Abuse
We can’t talk about forgiveness without acknowledging the reality of pain …
I was trying to find the desk in my office the other day (I assume that if I can unearth the desk, there might even be a FLOOR in there somewhere) … and I came across my notes from a Conference I attended years ago. The speakers were wonderfully challenging and comforting (a good combination): – Tim Laniak drew a frighteningly accurate portrait of what happens when shepherding is corrupted and becomes only heavy/crushing accountability or namby-pamby bedside pastoral care. Having spent years living among and studying the Bedouin shepherds, Dr. Laniak has no ‘precious moments’ ceramic figurine portrait of what it means to be a shepherd. Instead, he explained that…
- Avoiding Inadvertent Retraumatization, Child Protection / Abuse in the Church, Surviving a Childhood of Neglect and Abuse, Trauma Recovery
When Your Friend is Raped or Beaten
[A repost from enCourage] The very week that the #MeToo campaign began to dominate my social media relationships, a woman in my community told me that she was being physically hurt by a family member. Of course I immediately did everything I could to help her. But I also remember thinking at the time: Would most women in the church know how to wisely respond to a friend who is being physically and/or sexually assaulted? Having worked as a Christian mediator for over twenty years, and having taught thousands of women at conferences and retreats during that time, I have many examples of responses that make things worse, and of…
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How NOT to Respond to a Friend Who Tells You She Has Been Assaulted
I am always honored to write for the PCA Women’s Blog, enCourage, and this post was hard–but no exception: When Your Friend Is Raped or Beaten We have a strict word count–so this article doesn’t have all of the biblical citations and encouraging quotes that I wanted to share. We also have a very limited length for a title–and this one was hard to do. What I really wanted to call it was: “Oh My Stars! Have You Ever Had Your Friend Tell You Something SO Hard and SO Painful for Her that You Were Momentarily Frozen??!! You know … you want to wrap your arms around her, but you’re not sure physical touch…
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New ASL (Sign Language)-Interpreted Videos + Some Hard News from Our Family …
Dear friends, Thank you for all of the kind and encouraging words you have shared with me over the years—and for the brave and vulnerable words you shared with me, too. Did you know that I still have every single prayer card that you gave me at your events? Twenty years’ worth! Tens of thousands of cards. Millions of words. So much pain—and so much hope. I cherish each one and I continue to pray for you. Since I met so many of you when I served in the PCA, I feel it is important that I let you know that our family is no longer in the PCA.…
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How to Work Together as Friends to Protect Our Children from Sexual Predators
I do not want to raise my children to live lives of fear. I do not want them to think that most “don’t knows” are out to harm them. (We use the Safe Side Super Chick term “don’t know” rather than “stranger” because most people who do hurt children are not strangers—they are “kinda knows.” Children kinda know their coaches, their distant uncles, the nice new man at their church.) At the same time, I do not want to raise them to be naive. Even in just my brief time leading The Institute for Christian Conciliation, I learned of many cases of children being molested in churches. Most churches and most Christians are just way too trusting of people!…
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If you are ever going to become a credible theologian instead of a know-it-all pundit, you had best restart your life on firmer ground …
As I read this words from Dr. Michael Kruger’s Canon Fodder blog (quickly becoming one of my favorites), it reminded me of a passage in a Kevin DeYoung book that I have reflected on previously. (Rev. DeYoung is pretty much nose-to-nose with Ed Welch as my favorite contemporary author these days.) First. Dr. Kruger: “There are countless stories of evangelicals who head off to Ph.D. programs in hopes of becoming a professor and having a positive influence in the secular university environment. This is particularly the case in the fields of biblical studies or philosophical theology. And such aspirations are certainly commendable. Unfortunately, the outcome of such endeavors is not always as expected. While these evangelicals…
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Let me tell you just a SMIDGEN of the wonderful things about my mom …
(I meant to have this done and posted by last week in honor of her birthday in 2011. But I found that as I remembered more and more happy memories—and as I was laid flat in bed all week feeling terrible—I just never got to the end of the first draft. So, here is a repost of the 2011 THANK YOU that I wrote for my beloved Mother and friend …) Happy (belated) Birthday, Mom! I love you! By God’s grace, and only because of my mom’s permission, I have shared pieces of our story with thousands of women at events (plus thousands more via my video series, books, radio…
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How to Write a Eulogy for a Bad Mother / a Mother Who Didn’t Love You
(This is a re-post from 2013. To read more about this topic, I encourage you to read all of the posts in my “Eulogy for a Bad Mother” category. There aren’t many, but they may be helpful to you.) Tomorrow it will be four months to the day since my mother died. I cry less, but I still cry. My dreams are not as disturbed as they were at first—but I do still have those particularly troubling ones wherein I am leading my mother out of her nursing home and tucking her into the car to get her the heck away from there. And as I am doing so, I’m thinking to myself,…
- Eulogy for a Bad Mother, How to Love a Mentally Ill Addict, Surviving a Childhood of Neglect and Abuse
My (Potential) Eulogy for My Mother
Having just tried to practice my mother’s eulogy out loud in the quietness of my hotel room; and having dissolved into tears. Again. I’m giving myself pretty much a 100% chance of not being able to get through it tomorrow morning at her memorial service. So, of course, I just asked my sister to promise to NOT make fun of the “professional speaker” who falls apart … and I thought it might be a good idea to post the content here so one day I can look back on what I meant to say. Tara Barthel’s Eulogy for her Mother Kathryn Kroncke Ford November 13, 1944 – December 18, 2012 My mother had…
