Teaching Your Teenager to Ask Questions

Teaching Your Teenager to Ask Questions

Success in life is greatly impacted by how we relate to people. If teenagers do not learn positive social skills at home, where will they learn them? The reality is that many adults lose jobs, marriages, and mental health because they never learned how to relate to...
Abiding Dependence: The Central Work of Jesus

Abiding Dependence: The Central Work of Jesus

The central work of Jesus as He lived His daily life was to rest in and to stay with the Father. Jesus held to an attitude of reliance, of abiding, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father; He breathed, lived, spoke, and moved as one with His Father.  Jesus had...
Recapturing Your Calling

Recapturing Your Calling

One obstacle that every leader confronts is discouragement. I’ve often heard something like this: “Jim, can I tell you something? I’m feeling defeated. I find myself in front of the church preaching, putting on a happy face, but inside I’m discouraged, worn down,...
Bad Motives for Productivity

Bad Motives for Productivity

I love motivational posters. You know the ones; there’s a photograph of a mountain or an eagle above a single word like “Teamwork” or “Discipline.” I find these posters humorous because they’re usually found in spaces that are completely incongruous with the scenes...
When God’s Plan Doesn’t Make Sense

When God’s Plan Doesn’t Make Sense

It’s almost anniversary time again. I call it the death-i-versary. The date on the calendar prompts me to take notice of the reality of the fatal crash. A reminder of the motorcycle accident that ushered my husband of 28 years into heaven. Saying goodbye to a loved...
Making Room in Advent

Making Room in Advent

Advent, which means “coming, or arrival,” is a gestation process. It is a season of allowing Christ to be formed in us as we also are formed in him. It is also a threshold time, a season of transition between what is and what will be. As participants in Advent then,...
Jesus-Approved Self-Care

Jesus-Approved Self-Care

Fausto comes into my office for his therapy appointment balancing his coffee and backpack in one hand and holding his phone in the other. He acknowledges me with an apologetic smile as he ends his conversation, takes a sip of his too-hot coffee, and sits heavily in...
Would You Like God to Give You a Word for the Year?

Would You Like God to Give You a Word for the Year?

Holly and Glenn Packiam practice life-giving rhythms to experience freedom and abundance as they abide in Christ. In this excerpt from their book, The Intentional Year, Glenn gives guidance on living into a word for the year. I grew up in a church that believed in...
How Busy People Can Read More

How Busy People Can Read More

Warren Buffett reads 4-5 hours per day—he considers it an important part of his work. Bill Gates reads an average of one book per week, which is equivalent to what the average CEO does. Rick Warren starting reading two books per week at age 14, and says that at one...