Your pastor probably needs a sabbatical. The fact is, your congregation probably needs a sabbatical, too.Community events, performances and games of the church’s children, preparing weekly worship services, heart-to-hearts about difficult subjects – there’s no way on earth that fits...
Anxious about seeing family over the holidays? Arianne Lehn (Ash & Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos & Grace of Daily Life) offers this prayer to help ground you during holiday gatherings. Steadying God, Settle my stressed-out soul, my ruminating mind, my churning...
Grief Guru, expert, and author J. Dana Trent (Dessert First: Preparing for Death While Savoring Life) shares tips for how to cope with grief and depression this holiday season.After my mother died in 2017, loved ones told me that the hardest part...
PUBLISHED: by Brad Lyons “Ugh,” said my minister friend of the apostle Paul, “he is awful. Such a misogynist, such a homophobe, such a racist. I can’t even read his stuff. Paul was a jerk.”[1] It’s hard to argue with...
PUBLISHED: by Deborah Arca "There is no standard route in grief. As the wisest grievers I know have told me, 'There is nowhere you can be but in it.'" -- J. Dana Trent Whether you're in the midst of...
PUBLISHED: by Brad Lyons Social media – well, maybe not your social media, but certainly my social media – has seen a lot of chatter this week about recent statements by a male leader in the Southern Baptist Convention questioning the denomination’s...
As a single dad to three awesome kids running a small nonprofit publishing house who could use a little balance in my life, prayer often slips through the cracks. I try hard to find time to center my mind each...
PUBLISHED: by Brad Lyons You're loading the dishwasher, and you hear a pair of feet shuffling up behind you. “Hey cutiebug,” you say over your shoulder, “what’s up?” “I have a question,” your child responds. Then everything stops as she...
We often read to escape the aspects of life that worry us: discrimination, greed, conflict, and so on. But we all know the maxim about the two things we can’t escape. Dana Trent takes on the darker one – death, not taxes[1]–...
