Red, pink and white rose petals, along with tiny yellow leaves, lie scattered on gray paving stones

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?

Against a snowy background stands a black iron gate, locked with multiple padlocks of different colors and shapes.

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.

Two deer drink from a mountain stream that runs through a wooded valley beside a gray slat fence. A shaft of sunlight shines down from above.

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.

Woman on mountaintop, above the clouds. She stands with her feet toward the camera, but her face turned away into the wind, as she looks out on the clouds behind and below her.

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.

Three gray wolves, standing together on a rock ledge, threatening, howling

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.

Door to hope: An open door welcomes you into a sun room filled with plants and light.

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."