(Don’t you want to click through just to find out what the  word “otiose” means? 😉 ) Are Your Church Relationships Otiose?  

Dave Edling and I are humbled and grateful for the endorsements that are beginning to trickle in for our book, “Redeeming Church Conflicts.” It takes a lot of time to read a manuscript carefully (I actually have to do that this weekend for someone who has asked for my endorsement) … and it’s rarely an easy decision whether to endorse or not. So thank You, Lord, and thank you, friends, for these endorsements: ‘In Redeeming Church Conflicts Tara Barthel and David Edling draw on their extensive experience helping brothers and sisters resolve serious divisions in ways that bring glory to Jesus, the prince of peace. Perhaps even more important than…

Cap’n Dave and I worked from 7AM – 12noon and finished ALL of the edits for the galleys of our book. Yup. All 256 pages of ol’ Redeeming Church Conflicts have now wrapped. And we’re even available on Amazon.com for pre-order. Yowza! It looks like this project really is going to come to fruition. Thanks be to God! And to the world’s most patient, gracious, brilliant co-author (!). I was blessed to even be along for the ride re: pulling out Dave’s wisdom and experience conciliating in every size, type, denomination, non-denomination, urban, rural, tiny, huge conflicted church you could ever imagine. Man! That guy has some great stories. How…

Baker Books said we could release the cover art to you at the end of September, so here is a sneak-peek at what our new book is going to look like. (It may change a bit between now and final publication in April, 2012): Oh! How we pray that our efforts might be even just a small blessing to the Bride of Christ, for God’s glory alone. We love the Church! Blessings on your Tuesday—   Your friend, Tara B.  

Dave hits another one out of the park with this week’s post on our “Redeeming  Church Conflicts” site: What Should I Do NEXT in this Church Conflict  

Finally! 😉 How  to Find the Perfect Church  

Dave hit it out of the park again with his most recent post over at RedeemingChurchConflicts.com: Destructive Church Conflicts — The Antithesis to Our Faith In it, he lists a number of evidences of this antithesis. Consider just a few: – The temporal is of greater concern than the eternal. – Self-interest supersedes the interests of others. – Angry venting feels more productive than controlling the tongue. – Being a victim is more satisfying than being an overcomer.  – Anxiety over possible outcomes takes priority over trusting God. And then he wraps up the post with a sentence so well crafted I WISH we had included it in our actual…

Earlier this week, I was re-reading an article from 2009 and was struck again at the clear insights the author gives us re: whether our churches are communities of convenience or communities of grace. Please click through and view his (brief) chart: Defective Church – A Community of Convenience And then I pray that we will all remember that “the Church is not a community of conveniences. It does not exist for you to get served. The church is a community of grace that exists to serve one another, to bear with one another, to forgive one another, to love one another! The church is not a perfect product or…

I’ve been holding off on “officially” announcing this to you all because Dave and I are still tweaking and improving and trying to make it “just right” (AND I wanted to really roll it out with some sort of big giveaway) … But Dave’s post today was just so good, that I’m going to give you the sneak-peak into our new blog (RedeemingChurchConflicts.com): How can I even consider reconciliation when there has been no justice? I hope you enjoy it (and “like” it on FaceBook and retweet it, etc. etc.). And please do feel free to send us questions! We’re really hoping to serve and bless through this new blog.…

We just heard the wonderful news from our editor at Baker Books that “Redeeming Church Conflicts” has gone through all of the major editing needed for completion and we are on track for a May 1, 2012 roll-out. Needless to say, Dave Edling (my coauthor) and I are PSYCHED. Well. Dave is a very calm and reserved man, so maybe he is just “pleased”. But I AM PSYCHED! 🙂 One of the things we get to do in the following few months is bring a blog online related to our book’s topic (“redeeming church conflict”). So I was wondering if you guys could help me out a little … Specifically,…