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.

Smoke and mirrors: A looking glass - held up in front of a large, wispy plume of smoke in the distance - reveals only thick, impenetrable smoke, very near at hand.

Beth Moore and LifeWay: The ploy

When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.

Closeup of a shiny, multicolored, beaded curtain. Behind it, a haze of green light - and who knows what else.

Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live

This is what happened when I served as onsite leader for a Beth Moore Living Proof Live event. It’s a peek into celebrity culture, the exploitation and manipulation of women and abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention.

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."

Silhouette of a person with arms wide open, standing between the bold sunset colors of a wide sky and a wide ocean

The most freeing thing

The work of exile – the work God wants to do through it – is to free you from bondage that masquerades as relationship, to draw you to himself, to show you what is and is not love. Perhaps the hardest thing you can do in exile – and by far the most freeing – is to stay there until it has done its work.