As 2015 begins, many of us make resolutions for the new year. Some even do so with a “theme.” I’ve never been one for new year’s resolutions—themed or theme-less. However, in 2015, I’m making an exception. For me, by Christ’s grace, I want 2015 to be: The Year of Gospel-Centered Living 8 Gospel-Centered Life Questions […]
As Christian counselors, pastors and people helpers we often have a hard time discerning between an evil heart and an ordinary sinner who messes up, who isn’t perfect, and full of weakness and sin.I think one of the reasons we don’t “see” evil is because we find it so difficult to believe that evil individuals actually exist...
Almost daily we encounter evidences of the current moral revolution occurring in this country; and it is happening at a blistering pace. At the forefront of this discussion is the topic of homosexuality. Depending on which side of the fence you fall, you might consider this an evolution of morality or you might see morality […]
When I was in college I thought it might be nice to do some mission work, but since I hated bugs and loved my blow dryer I didn’t think I was a good candidate. My church has always been mission minded and before it was popular, began offering short-term trips. In the mid 1990’s, during one of our church’s commissioning services I remember thinking, I wish I could do something like that!
In this Association of Biblical Counselors author interview Q & A, we connected with Bob Kellemen to learn more about his newest book, Gospel-Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives.
We all do it, probably every day. It has a huge impact on the way we view ourselves and the way we respond to others. It’s one of the main reasons we experience so much conflict in our relationships. The scary thing is: we barely recognize that we’re doing it.
Every one of us wrestles through the realities of a very broken world. Government is sometimes dysfunctional, seemingly beyond repair. Laws can be unjust, penalizing the innocent. Communities discriminate against people because of the color of their skin or their zip code. Chronic pain may be your unwelcome friend, visiting you each day.
Upon our first inhalation of air in a fallen world, we exhaled with a cry. When we breathe our last, crying will surround us. And rivers of tears in between – from the scraped knees and scary nights of childhood to the deeper soul wounds of adolescence and darker nights still as we grow old, facing the loss of loved ones as well as our own vitality and strength. The Puritans called our time on this earth a “vale of tears” ...
When I was engaged, my fiancé and I went for pre-marital counseling as most engaged couples do. I remember my pastor specifically emphasizing the idea of submitting to my husband as the leader of our home. My pastor looked me in the eye and said, “Howard has the final say over things.”
If you are going to read just one out of print book with a terrible cover this year read C. John Sommerville’s devastating little book How the News Makes Us Dumb (IVP 1999). I read the book soon after it came out. It was wonderfully iconoclastic then–and that was before the ascendancy of the internet and social media. The news examples are hopelessly out of date (they were already in 1999), but the media criticism is as relevant as ever.