This is a weekly post that highlights resources from other counselors that I have found helpful. The counselors may be from the biblical counseling, Christian psychology, integration, or secular counseling traditions. By linking to a post, I am not giving it my full endorsement, I am merely indicating that I believe it made a unique contribution or raised an important subject for consideration.

Enough is Enough by Gary Thomas

When she told me what was happening, I quickly corrected her. “If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. God loves people more than he loves institutions.”

Why Your Church Needs Counseling Policies by Richard Hammar

Church leaders who ignore accusations of sexual misconduct by a church employee are subjecting their church to possible civil liability on the basis of negligence. They may also be subjecting their church to punitive damages and themselves to personal liability, if their actions constitute gross negligence.

Addictions and Emotions: Paranoia by Dave Dunham

Long-term drug usage has the potential to deteriorate a person’s ability to discern reality. The average person is usually able to discern rational and irrational fears, but drug/alcohol abuse does something to both our conscience and our brain that makes that ability increasingly difficult. George was convinced his entire family was out to get him, in particular they wanted his money (money he didn’t actually have). All they actually wanted was to be helpful, but he was convinced they had ulterior motives. Substance abuse can cultivate paranoia in two particular ways.

What I Want Pastors to Know about Women’s Ministry by Sharon Hodde Miller

The wind is shifting, and women’s ministry is not what it used to be. Change at the local level has been slow, but national women’s ministries have become a force of nature. In the last couple of months, journalists have begun to notice the sizeable influence of female leaders at the national level. Jen Wilkin, a women’s minister at The Village Church, zeroed in on this phenomenon with a single tweet: “If you had to ask, ‘Who’s Jen Hatmaker?’ it’s time to be more directly invested in the spiritual nurture of half your church.”

Holiday Boundaries by Leslie Vernick

Question: When we have family gatherings with our children and grandchildren, my husband gets extremely territorial when they all first arrive. He can be very rude and berating and sarcastic to get his point across and it’s very embarrassing to me. And makes me feel very uncomfortable. Example would be, maybe to my daughter in law, do your kids always drag every toy out of the toy box? He tends to be obsessive compulsive, which adds to the chaos when 25 people are in your house for a week at Christmas!

Tweet of the Week

What I’m Reading

jayber-crowJayber Crow, born in Goforth, Kentucky, orphaned at age ten, began his search as a “pre-ministerial student” at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with “Old Grit,” his profound professor of New Testament Greek. “You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.”
“That could be a long time.”
“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”

Eventually, after the flood of 1937, Jayber becomes the barber of the small community of Port William, Kentucky. From behind that barber chair he lives out the questions that drove him from seminary and begins to accept the gifts of community that enclose his answers. The chair gives him a perfect perch from which to listen, to talk, and to see, as life spends itself all around. In this novel full of remarkable characters, he tells his story that becomes the story of his town and its transcendent membership.

Meaningful Meme

innovators

On the Lighter Side

Because, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22.

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