Category: Spiritual Formation
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The false promise of Prosperity Parenting
When Christian Boomers and Gen-Xers became parents, the influential voices of people like Dr. James Dobson and Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo offered us iron-clad principles that seemed to promise parenting success. The rise of the home schooling movement in the 1980’s and 1990’s brought another crop of parenting “experts” to the fore in those…
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Making Change: Navigating Life’s Challenging Transitions
When unexpected challenges upend the good plans we’ve made for our lives, how can we begin to respond in faith? This five-day devotional offers a thoughtful, compassionate exploration of the subject of how we can take first steps in processing those losses with honesty and courage. Click here to read through this free resource or…
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Plagued by prayerlessness?
We wept. We fasted. We knelt in prayer. We stepped outside of our usual local church schedules and gatherings to join hands with other believers in our city. We gathered in sync with Christians across the nation to intercede for our shattered county. It appears those days are relics from another time, and it’s not…
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Peeling away the veneer
What’s under the surface? We had a home inspection before we purchased our 1970’s-vintage mobile home in April, 2019. The inspector told us he saw evidence of a bit of termite damage, but assured us it was par for the course in a sub-tropical climate like Florida. We planned to get an exterminator after we…
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Spit
I sat on an empty bench on a busy city sidewalk while I waited to meet up with some friends, soaking up the midday sunshine and enjoying that delicious sense of invisibility that comes with people-watching. Everyone was on their phones, leaving a trail of bits of conversation in their wake, their purses and backpacks…
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Praying the Lord’s Prayer in the first person singular
My Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day my daily bread, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me, and lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil for…