Our “Back to the Basics” series this year is “Speaking the Truth in Love.” During our Education Hours, we are focussing on building skill and capacity for having difficult conversations. This first Education Hour delves into the skill of “Leading with Presence.” I heard of some difficulties people were having with the content of this…
By Joanna Lawrence Shenk Excerpts from Ephesians 4 Thank you Diego, for that reading. I wish we would had time to hear the entire chapter of Ephesians 4 because it’s chock full of wisdom for discipleship. Paul was writing to the Ephesians as a prisoner due to his association with Jesus’ revolutionary movement. He was…
This is the first sermon in our Back to the Basics series on “Speaking the Truth in Love.” Ephesian 4 (selections) We’ve all been there. You’re sitting at the dinner table with your mother, son, uncle, partner, friend, co-worker… let’s just settle for partner in this example. (This example is adapted from the book Caring…
This information was presented at our annual retreat on Saturday morning. It is from Oren Jay Safer’s online course “Mindful Communication” and, mostly, David Augsburger’s book, Caring Enough to Confront: How to Transform Conflict with Compassion and Grace. When the going gets tough, we tend to default to habitual conflict styles based on a “fight,…
I Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 Just as there are fundamental physical laws of the universe — like “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” — there are fundamental political laws. Like: when a people feel threatened — whether that’s because they’re struggling economically or there’s lots of social change…
This sermon was part of our church’s response to Mennonite Church USA’s request that congregations interact with the Renewed Commitments document and provide feedback to the denomination. We also met during adult Education Hour to discuss the document. I admit that I wasn’t feeling it when the Mennonite Church USA — the denomination of which…
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