Don’t Overlook Every Offense
A lot of leaders are being abruptly removed from their posts these days. Pastors, seminary presidents, ministry and business CEOs. In many cases, they were fired without warning. One day things seemed to be going along just fine, and then suddenly they were told that “the deacons (or elders, trustees, or directors) met yesterday and […]
Are You Velcro or Teflon?
Kelly can be one of the best friends in the world. She’s thoughtful, caring, and always eager to encourage and serve others. The people in her Bible study and small group always look forward to seeing her, and her coworkers think she is one of the most pleasant people they’d ever known. But there is […]
Three Steps to Building Relational Passports
I have dozens of passports, and I need to renew them constantly. No, I’m not James Bond or Jason Bourne. I don’t fly from country to country using alternative identities to evade the NSA, CIA, or MI6. I just love people. I enjoy meeting, understanding, encouraging and helping them. And for that I need a […]
Daddy, is that you? (A Wedding Day Reconciliation)
Becky looked forward to her wedding with a mixture of excitement and sadness. Mark was the man of her dreams, and she was thrilled about becoming his wife. But there was another man she had thought about many times over the years, and his memory brought mostly pain (all names have been changed). Becky’s father, […]
7 Ways to Free Your Child From Impulsive Lying
Here is a question I am often asked during RW seminars: “My four-year old daughter has a habit of lying to us about her sinful behavior. For example, if we find her standing near a wall covered with crayon marks, and she is still holding crayons in her hand, she will still deny that she […]
Overcoming Rejection
There are three things you and I were never designed to experience: illness, death and rejection. That is why these experiences feel so foreign and hurt so much: they are utterly contrary to what we were made for. When God created the world, everything in it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Illness, physical death and […]
How to Resurrect a Dead Relationship
A young Christian couple came to my office just before Easter one year and asked me to mediate the legal issues of their divorce. The wife had been unfaithful, and their relationship had been shattered. They had argued, excused and blamed for a couple of weeks and finally given up hope that they could ever […]
Reconciling Two Stubborn Scientists
How would you feel if God enabled you to use simple relational skills you learned at church to solve a million dollar problem for your employer? That’s exactly what a woman named Diane did when she stepped in to resolve an employee conflict that had stumped her company’s president and human resources professionals. The joy […]
Asking Parents to Give Up Their Keys
One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to ask my mother and my mother-in-law to give up their car keys. Doing it with each of them on the same day (since they both lived with us) was especially difficult. Our moms loved running their own errands, going out for lunch and driving to […]
A Wave of Confessions Saves a Church
At last he had his chance. Clutching his prepared statement in his hand, Mark sat down in the front pew, ready to get even with the elders (all names have been changed). Six months earlier they had refused to support his promotion to senior pastor. They had stood silently by when Mark was slandered in […]