Bucking the system: Shunning, submission, Jesus
Jesus grew up in a religious system God had instigated, and people had hijacked to use for their own ends. Jesus’ life shows us when and how to buck the system.
To the exiles scattered by toxic church
Maybe the church has become bewildering to you. Leaders you trusted and people you respected are acting in ways that do not reflect who Jesus is, nor what they profess to believe. They have turned on anyone among them who appears to threaten the status quo. What is going on?
Shunning in the church
Any group that shuns is withholding your deepest needs in order to control you. That’s the opposite of loving you. It’s people you trusted, trying to erase you.
My cup overflows: Resting in God’s favor
I praise you, Lord my Shepherd. You have overcome for me all the shame that ever has or ever will attach to me. You are teaching me to overcome it too. By your grace, I drink deeply of your favor, and it restores my rest.
I will change your name
No longer wounded, outcast, lonely, afraid - your new name shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming one, Faithfulness, Friend of God, One who seeks My face.
Cliques in the church
Cliques are by nature, exclusive. Wherever they occur in the church landscape, they fragment the church. They prevent the people of God from becoming one.
Behind the façade in the SBC
All my life, I had been deceived by Good Christian appearances. Then, when pummeled and guilted to choose loyalty to a church system above all else, I saw.
Going with God
Choosing to go with God where my church culture had forbidden, I had no clue how much seeing and grieving lay ahead. And how very much love and life.
A future filled with hope
It's the best-loved verse in Jeremiah, and God says it to exiles. He announces to people who feel they have no future at all: "I know what I have planned for you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."
A promise of real belonging
Long ago and far away, God promised a scattered people, “I will be a sanctuary to you during your time in exile,” and, “I will gather you back.”