I’m praying and working to prepare a new teaching for our denomination’s women’s ministry leadership conference this March: Persevering with Grace When our Leaders Let Us Down: As wonderful as headship is (and it is wonderful!), our leaders are not perfect. No matter how hard they try, their leadership of us will always be flawed. They may misunderstand us, take offense at something we do or say, or simply not like our personality. In their fallenness and sin, they may actually wrong us intentionally. Often, they hurt us most deeply by their neglect—they fail to give us the proactive attention and care we long for. So how do we respond?…

Have you been following the discussions over at IX Marks re: church membership? Pastor Anyabwile posted some great examples today that I encourage you to check out: Membership Based on a True Story I have always been so grateful that when the Lord saved me, He placed me into membership in a local church. I was taught that was “just the way Christians live.” We know that there are spiritual forces at work; that the world tempts us; our own flesh hates the thought of crucifixion … and so we run to the church for accountability, discipline, oversight, protection AND so that we can serve others as members of the…

My morning Bible reading was SPOT ON re: my previous post, so I thought I’d share it with you too: “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have…

In the last few days, I’ve visited with multiple women who are: 1. Generously giving of themselves to serve their churches (through volunteer prayer ministries, mercy ministries, etc.); and 2. Being yelled at (literally!) and treated incredibly disrespectfully by the very people they are sacrificing their personal and family time to bless. It’s just so strange. Understandable, of course, but strange too. I prayed for them and tried to encourage them by reminding them that we are all called to be in difficult relationships–lots of people are either unregenerate or very immature. And their selfishness, harsh and critical attitudes, and lack of love are really to be expected. But that…

This is actually a very common situation–especially for Christian conciliators who regularly work on  church intervention teams for conflicted congregations. How would your church respond? Church “Tramps”  

I’m enjoying Ligon Duncan’s blog and wanted to pass along to you all a great post from last  month: What it Means to Love One Another in the Context of the Local Church  

Many thanks to Between Two Worlds for pointing us to this article: Governor Ryan, the Willis Family, and the Pursuit of Biblical Forgiveness  

Tim Challies has a great post on overlooking that I encourage you to read: Overlooking an Offense His main points are: 1. Examine Yourself 2. Examine Yourself Again: Are You Right? 3. Determine the Importance 4. Look for Patterns   5. Be Sensitive 6. Seek Counsel And I’ll close with his closing words (on seeking counsel) to tempt you to (hopefully) click on through: “It may be valuable to seek the counsel of other mature Christians before pursuing confrontation. You will want to ensure that this is not simply an opportunity to gossip and vent, after which you will feel better and let the matter drop. But discreetly seeking wise…

We had a (sad!) question posted over at PeaceGals and I’m HOPING that a few of you will pop on over and share your thoughts to encourage and help this woman. Here is a portion of my response: “Oh, Barbara!! I am SO sorry that you have experienced this. I bet that MANY of us could relate … – Unaware that someone is upset with us and growing MORE AND MORE upset with us with every passing day – One day, there is an EXPLOSION (in person, via email, in the “old days”–an actual LETTER) and the person UNLOADS on us – We hear about all of our failings, weaknesses,…

I could have avoided SO many conflicts and better communicated my (GENUINE!) love for people if ONLY I had known this in my 20’s: (Wow. That’s a LOT of wisdom, eh?) Oh–and did you know that John Piper is also an INTJ? “INTJs are usually difficult to get to know well, and difficult to get close to.” Yup. That’s me. Difficult. But I would’ve been a little LESS difficult if back THEN I knew 1/100th of what I know now and 1/1,000,000th of what John Piper has forgotten in his lifetime. Hope your Monday is going well–   Yours, Tara B. (HT: TakeYourVitaminZ!)