“If our ultimate motivation for service to God is simply because we love people, we will never be able to sustain the call to service that God has given to us because the very people we are called to serve will break our hearts. It is only the grace of Christ that enables us to persevere.’ Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt, Women’s Ministry in the Local Church (Still no … no current conflicts for me that I know of. Just continuing to pray and prep for my “This is Ministry. It hurts.” workshop at this weekend’s PCA Women in the Church Leadership Training Conference.)   PS I’m blogging this from…

I’m really enjoying Paul Tripp’s, Broken Down House – Living Productively in a World Gone Bad. In honor of soon-to-be-here-Valentine’s Day, consider this list from chapter 13 of what it means to be an instrument of cross-shaped love: – “Not keeping yourself so busy with you and yours that you have no practical time to love others – Being committed to knowing people, because you can minister only in a very limited way to those you do not know – Being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others – Being willing to share your physical resources with others – Being perseverant and patient even…

I don’t know if you’ll actually be able to click to view these (for some strange reason, Vimeo won’t let me embed them), but if so, I encourage you to take 3 minutes and watch them both. They are from the new Resolving Everyday Conflict resource from Peacemakers and I think they are beautiful. Poignant.  Convicting. Uplifting. Well done! Where is Your Conflict Leading You? Where is Your Conflict Leading You (Part 2)  

Just finished a call with a friend. And can I just say … this is a great woman. She is careful in her speech; quick to overlook; funny, interesting, steadfast, full of faith, and full of laughter. PLUS, although I assume she would never describe herself as a “Christian conciliator” or “mediator”, she completely fulfills what many of us “in the biz” say all the time: Most of the profoundly gifted peacemakers are already in the churches. They’ve never had any formal training. They don’t know the difference between the Slippery Slope or the Seven A’s … but they breathe in Christ and breathe out Christ and help others to…

I hate conflict. I really do. I just hate it when I am defensive or when I attack someone. I hate being around defensive people who attack me. It’s all so frustrating and adrenaline-filled and unpleasant. But yet again, only days after my exchange with Fred (see Part 1 if you’re interested), I was in yet another conflict. Grrrrr. The cause of this one was really easy to spot because it was SO completely, 100% ME. My words. My thoughtless, careless, wish-I-hadn’t-said-’em, Oh!-a-tiny-spark-really-CAN-start-a-whole-forest-on-fire, words. It was unintentional. I really didn’t mean to cause what I caused! But that really doesn’t matter because I am responsible for my words and in…

I just filled in my compliance docs for another year serving as a Certified Christian Conciliator (with the Institute for Christian Conciliation, a division of Peacemaker Ministries). To complete the continuing education portion of the report,  I had to look up some lengths of keynotes that I listened to last fall and I want to encourage you all to check them out too. They are excellent: Peacemaker Conference Audio Recordings  

So, hey! There’s nothing like REAL LIFE to help us to practice our biblical peacemaking skills, right? Who needs a mediation to keep her conciliator skills sharp? Not I said the little red hen. Instead, I’ll just face my inadequacies (related to my, ahem, so-called teaching of a geography class) and prepare to make a thorough confession to a bunch of teenagers tomorrow. Time to review the Seven A’s of Confession: 1. Address everyone involved (all those whom you affected): I’ll be apologizing first, in private, to a young man and his mother because my error is really most deeply wronging them. I will explain the situation and ask for…

‘Churches usually don’t do well solving their conflicts because they don’t have a high view of Scripture. When you don’t view Scripture as a fixed standard that is both paradigmatic and normative, then you don’t trust  the Word of God. One of the biggest mistakes people make in church conflict is failing to trust Scripture.’ Dave Edling (as quoted in our two-hour call today working on our book, ‘Redeeming Church Conflicts’)  

I’m doing some quick online research for a new teaching I’ll be giving in 2011 and (of course!) one of my first stops was at Carolyn McCulley’s blog. I just LOVE Carolyn McCulley! Her heart, her gifts, her mind, her reflection of the Holy Spirit … who else could write on the topic of Radical Womanhood (“feminine faith in a feminist world”) with such insight, clarity, AND humility? I often describe her book as one of the few Christian books on this topic that I would not be ashamed to share with a non-Christian because it is so thoughtful, well-researched, AND winsome/fair. (Sadly, so many books on this topic feel…

I taught 2 Timothy 2:24-25 to my students this past Tuesday (and encouraged them to memorize it and live it out): “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth …” And then in our (3 hour!) call yesterday, Cap’n Dave was en fuego re: redeeming church conflicts, and in particular this idea of not being quarrelsome, but instead being kind, patiently enduring, gently correcting. So imagine my pleasure at seeing this exchange from two bloggers that I read (and enjoy) daily: A…