Thursday, September 30, 2021
Populism Poses Dangers to Democracy. It Does the Same to Christian Witness.
After touring the United States in the early 1830s, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville concluded that “the organization and establishment of democracy among Christians is the great political problem of our time.”
Nearly two centuries later, the problem in the United States has evolved from establishing to sustaining democracy, but the underlying challenge for American Christians remains unchanged. As citizens of a democratic republic, we are called to think Christianly about democracy, respond rightly to it, and live faithfully within it. Among other things, this means figuring out what to make of the populist wave currently transforming American politics on the left and the right.
Before we can do so, however, we must first define what we mean by “populism,” and that turns out to be more complicated than you’d think. At first glance, the term seems so malleable as to be useless. Populism can appear among Democrats and Republicans, socialists as well as capitalists. Since 2016, the two best-known populists in the United States have been Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Think about that for a moment. What kind of phenomenon can bridge such a great divide? Read More
Why Don’t We Sing Justice Songs in Worship?
In 2018, an unusual Bible made national news. Published in 1807, the so-called “Slave Bible” offered Caribbean slaves a highly edited edition of the KJV. The editors presumably cut out parts of Scripture that could undermine slavery or incite rebellion.
If you want a pro-slavery Bible, it’s unsurprising you’d get rid of the exodus story or drop Paul’s declaration that in Christ “there is … neither slave nor free” (Gal. 3:28). But why did the creators of the “Slave Bible” cut out the Book of Psalms? After all, the portions that tend to be well known and well-loved draw our minds toward well-tended sheep sitting by quiet waters.
Yet upon closer inspection, Psalms is obsessed with the Lord’s liberating justice for the oppressed. And because the book offers us prayers and songs, it doesn’t just tell us how to think about justice—it offers us scripts to practice shouting and singing about it.
But when I recently took a quick look at the lyrics of the first 25 songs listed in the “CCLI Top 100” worship songs reportedly sung by churches and compared them to the way the Psalms sing about justice, I realized that we don’t necessarily follow that script. Here’s what stood out.... Read More
Men, Are You Submissive?
Submission.
Of all the words in the Bible, this may be one of the least popular. After all, our cultural moment is not one that values a posture of submission to authorities. On the contrary, our world insists we should challenge and critique those over us.
The classic bumper sticker captures it well: “Question Authority.”
And if submission is already an unpopular concept, it only grows more unpopular in verses like Ephesians 5:22: “Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.” Indeed, this passage (and its counterpart in 1 Pet. 3:1) has been ground zero in the submission wars, both in our churches and the broader culture.
But letting these verses take center stage can give the mistaken impression that the Bible teaches that only women submit. In reality, Scripture has a more comprehensive view. Read More
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
What Does It Mean to Pray ‘Your Will Be Done’?
Jesus taught His disciples to pray ‘Your will be done’ (Matthew 6:10).
What is meant by God’s will?
If you are confused about the will of God you are not alone. One reason for the confusion is that we speak of God’s will in three different ways. Distinguishing between them will help to clear the confusion and enable us to pray “Your will be done,” with greater meaning and understanding. Read More
What to Do If Your Small Group Is Too Big
From a perspective of small group dynamics a group that exceeds five people is too large. Small group dynamics operate only in small groups. Once the group exceeds five members small group danamics, one of the reasons that small groups are effective in transforming lives, break down. By the time a group has reached 10-11 members, they have disappeared altogether. A different set of dynamics is operating in the group. This is one of the reasons that it is a mistake to describe Sunday school classes as small groups unless they are genuinely small groups. Most Sunday school classes are not small groups.
5 Biblical Principles for Social Media
The Bible was written far before the invention of the internet, cell-phones and Twitter. However, the Scriptures have plenty to say about how we ought to engage as Christians in the public square. They are, after all, profitable for teaching us how to be equipped for living as Christians (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Much of what Peter, Paul and James wrote to the first-century church is as relevant for Christians on Facebook today as it was for Christians in their social interactions then.
Did you realize that you are responsible for your online behaviour as much as you are responsible for your in-person behaviour? There is no distinction between the character of your online avatar and your in-person character.
If this is the case, then what can we glean from the scriptures on how we are to behave in the online public square? Read More
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
All Hallows Evening Prayer for Wednesday Evening (September 29, 2021) Is Now Online
All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.
In 1848, Joseph Brackett, Jr., a Shaker elder who lived in Maine, composed a tune that he titled “Simple Gifts.” He also wrote the words to go with the tune. It may be the most widely known Shaker song today. The song is only two verses long. It celebrates the Shaker principles of simplicity and humility. The tune was composed and the song written to accompany the dancing that formed a central feature of Shaker religious services. It makes a fitting dismissal song for this Wednesday evening’s service. The Scripture reading for this Wednesday evening is James 3:13-4:7a Real, Spiritual Wisdom Means Humility, Not Rivalry.
The homily is titled “Say “Yes” to God’s Love.”
The link to this Wednesday evening’s service is—
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/09/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for_28.html
Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.
If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.
Previous services are online at
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/
May this service be a blessing to you.
5 Things that Frustrate Gen Z Christians
What should older Christians know about Generation Z in order to best disciple them and reach them with the gospel? To be sure, this is a big topic, and I’m just one member of this generation (born between 1997–2012)—which is not a monolith. But it might be helpful to share a few aspects of contemporary evangelical culture that generally bother my generation.
The goal is not to shame older Christians or suggest we young folks are enlightened. The goal is to offer some fodder for discussion that might lead the generations to better care for, think with, and serve alongside each other in a changing world.
To that end, here are five things that tend to frustrate young evangelicals. Read More
Planning for Pandemic Worship
The Ecumenical Consultation on Protocols for Worship, Fellowship, and Sacraments
As churches gathered more frequently in person for worship, most leaders were disappointed by the gradual and limited participation. Worship planning is now more challenging than before the pandemic. Here are some planning suggestions from the professors who teach liturgy and music practices. Read More
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Guidelines for In-Person Worship
When to Loosen Our Tongues: How Testimonies Spark Revival
Something remarkable happened last Sunday.
In the middle of a quiet, respectful service, someone spoke. Not someone on the stage, someone from the “audience.” She responded aloud to what the preacher had thought was a rhetorical question. It was awkward for a moment, but it brought a change to the whole room, the whole service.
Others began to chime in, sharing what makes them despair, what makes them hope. Stories were told of God’s goodness. The prayer time in the middle of service became a collective expression that gave people goosebumps. During announcements someone called out about a need for prayer so we prayed right then which prompted someone else to ask for prayer, so again, we prayed.
More than a moving, one-time communal experience (or even an opportunity for us as pastors to feel like we can measure a positive outcome), it felt like a victory over forces that keep us quiet. An answer to a prayer we’ve been praying for breakthrough. Normally, we’re quiet and well-behaved. But our quietness keeps us wondering if we’re imagining this faith, if we’re alone. We each long to hear that others are longing, wrestling, hoping with us. But we want others to begin to speak.
We’re so concerned about taming our tongues that we’ve forgotten that sometimes our call is to loosen them. Read More
In the middle of a quiet, respectful service, someone spoke. Not someone on the stage, someone from the “audience.” She responded aloud to what the preacher had thought was a rhetorical question. It was awkward for a moment, but it brought a change to the whole room, the whole service.
Others began to chime in, sharing what makes them despair, what makes them hope. Stories were told of God’s goodness. The prayer time in the middle of service became a collective expression that gave people goosebumps. During announcements someone called out about a need for prayer so we prayed right then which prompted someone else to ask for prayer, so again, we prayed.
More than a moving, one-time communal experience (or even an opportunity for us as pastors to feel like we can measure a positive outcome), it felt like a victory over forces that keep us quiet. An answer to a prayer we’ve been praying for breakthrough. Normally, we’re quiet and well-behaved. But our quietness keeps us wondering if we’re imagining this faith, if we’re alone. We each long to hear that others are longing, wrestling, hoping with us. But we want others to begin to speak.
We’re so concerned about taming our tongues that we’ve forgotten that sometimes our call is to loosen them. Read More
Boy Scouts’ Bankruptcy Leaves Churches Liable for Abuse Suits
Top denominations and thousands of churches are reconsidering whether to keep hosting scout units.
Amid the Boy Scouts of America’s complex bankruptcy case, there is worsening friction between the BSA and the major religious groups that help it run thousands of scout units. At issue: the churches’ fears that an eventual settlement—while protecting the BSA from future sex-abuse lawsuits—could leave many churches unprotected.
The Boy Scouts sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 in an effort to halt individual lawsuits and create a huge compensation fund for thousands of men who say they were molested as youngsters by scoutmasters or other leaders. At the time, the national organization estimated it might face 5,000 cases; it now faces 82,500.
In July, the BSA proposed an $850 million deal that would bar further lawsuits against it and its local councils. The deal did not cover the more than 40,000 organizations that have charters with the BSA to sponsor scout units, including many churches from major religious denominations that are now questioning their future involvement in scouting.
The United Methodist Church—which says up to 5,000 of its US congregations could be affected by future lawsuits—recently advised those churches not to extend their charters with the BSA beyond the end of this year. The UMC said these congregations were “disappointed and very concerned” that they weren’t included in the July deal.
Everett Cygal, a lawyer for Catholic churches monitoring the case, said it is unfair that parishes now face liability “solely as a result of misconduct by Boy Scout troop leaders who frequently had no connection to the parish.”
“Scouting can only be delivered with help of their chartered organizations,” Cygal told The Associated Press. “It’s shortsighted not to be protecting the people they absolutely need to ensure that scouting is viable in the future.” Read More
Monday, September 27, 2021
Roses Have Thorns
I was just now indulging in one of my favorite pastimes of watching Psych2Go videos.
Psych2Go is a group of American educational YouTubers who make videos “covering topics related to psychology, including facts about mental health disorders, relationships and personality traits. Their videos are usually animated, and feature a white humanoid character carrying out actions they are describing along with annotations.”
The advice they sometimes offer their viewers, while it may be sound from the perspective of behavioral and humanistic psychology simply is not workable for a Christian who takes seriously Jesus’ teaching and life and tries to emulate them.
For example, if someone takes a dislike to us and shows no signs of changing their mind, Psych2Go’s advice is— “Life is short. Cherish the moments with people who love you and leave the rest behind.”
Jesus, on the other hand, tells us to love our neighbors, love those who dislike us, and love each other. Jesus also tells us that if something comes between us and someone else, we are to do all we can to make things right between them and us.
Dumping someone who does not like us to hang out with those who accept us is not an option for us. If we are going to follow Jesus, we can’t turn our backs on someone because they have chosen not to like us.
One of the things that I did learn from the videos I watched this evening is that in thrashing around, trying to do what is the best thing to do, I may be giving expression to anger with which I may not be in touch. We are not always aware of our anger but the person with whom we are angry picks up our anger at them from what we may say and do.
It may not be our intention to express anger at them, but nonetheless we are signaling that we are hurting from their rejection of us and are angry with them. We have not quite forgiven them. We keep pick off the scab on the wound and not letting it heal.
I have been using a lot of pictures of red roses in my Facebook posts. Red roses symbolize true love, the love that we have for someone whom we genuinely love.
Roses, whatever the color they may be, do have thorns. Sometimes our love for someone can have thorns even if we do not mean it to have them. Rose thorns, I know from experience, can hurt. So can the thorns in our love too.
True love is not a spur of the moment thing that may evaporate over time. It is something to which we set our hearts, and which grows gradually. It does not fade away.
Yes, it does have thorns, thorns for us and thorns for those whom we love.
Jesus suffered the pain and agony those thorns can cause. He wore a crown of thorns for our sake, was flogged with whip of knotted cords with thorns and other sharp objects intertwined in them and had iron spikes driven through his hands and feet. He suffered that pain and agony that we might know true love, the love of which our love is a pale reflection.
Those who dislike us may not want to hear that we love them, May be our love is like the thorns of the stem of a rose. When we snag ourselves on them, they dig deep into our flesh and hurt us.
I don’t know. I am not able to put myself in their shoes because they have not trusted me enough to open their lives to me.
I can only do what Jesus did. He kept on loving even when loving hurt. He keeps on loving us still.
We Are In This Life Together
Since I was one of the marginalized in middle school and high school. I have always felt empathy with the marginalized. One of my few friends in middle school was a Native American girl. She was on the margin like I was because she was a Native American. During my university years I ran into her again. By that time, she had become a barfly girl, spending her nights in a local bar, drinking, dancing, and hooking up with guys for casual sex. She was on the road to becoming an alcoholic if she had not become one already.
Among my clients when I was a substance abuse counselor was an elderly woman who had been in a same sex relationship with a younger woman. The younger woman had rejected her for a woman closer to her own age. The only way she knew how to meet other women was at bars. Due to her age, she was no longer attractive to the younger women, and they snubbed her. If she went to a bar, she drank. Her drinking problem was serious enough where it was affecting her health. Rejected by the younger women, she would become depressed and then would drink at home alone, worsening her health problems. Her drinking and depression interfered with her work.The kind of problems she experienced were not uncommon to older members of the LBGTQ community, male and female, at that time. There were no support groups for them. There were no ways to meet people who shared their sexual orientation and lifestyle except one of the area’s bars that catered to the LBGTQ community.
Faced with the loneliness of old age some older members of that community drank themselves to death; others committed suicide. They, like my client, were caught in a Catch 22, “a problem in which the only solution is denied by a circumstance in the problem….”
I do not know what happened to my client. The contract of the agency for which I worked was not renewed and I had to look for another job. I suspect that her drinking killed her, or she took an overdose of medication and killed herself.
The problems that older people face today are not much different. Young people turn their backs on them. Their circles of friends shrink. They become a victim of the epidemic of loneliness that besets not only this country but other Western countries, exacerbated by the growing divisions between the generations and, yes, the internet.
Older people are not its only victims. So are young people. It is one of the factors that account for the increase in suicides among young people.
Churches can be a part of the solution to this epidemic. However, both older people and younger people need to overcome their reluctance to be around each other, their tendency to segregate themselves from each other by age. We need to break down the age barrier that divides the generations. The several generations have more in common with each other than they realize. They need to be more open-minded toward each other, more tolerant of each other, and, yes, more accepting of each other.
One place to start is to talk to each other. I mean really talk to each other, to get to know each other as fellow human beings.
A slogan I keep hearing since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is, “We are in this together.” We are indeed “in this together,” not just the pandemic, but life! Let us start acting that way.
I Like Jesus but not the Church – Common Perceptions of Christians
Today’s non-Christian 20- and 30-somethings are big fans of Jesus but are less thrilled with His followers and the churches where they worship. Pastor/author Dan Kimball reveals the most common perceptions of Christians and the Church, what they wish church was like — and why you should be listening to these emerging voices.
Every now and then, we experience an epiphany of some sort that drastically changes our life’s course. For me, it’s an extremely vivid memory of what happened when I took the time to step outside the busyness of ministry and listened to some college students from what was known to be one of the more anti-Christian campuses in California. It was these “pagan” students who gave me such incredible hope for the Church.
I was leading a young adults’ ministry we had recently started at the church I was on staff with at the time, and occasionally during worship gatherings, we showed man-on-the-street video interviews to set up the sermon. For an upcoming message series on evangelism, we decided to go to this college campus to interview students and hear firsthand their thoughts about Christianity. We asked two questions: “What do you think of when you hear the name ‘Jesus’?” and “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Christian’?” Read More
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Why Adding “For Now” Will Keep You Relevant Forever
Have you heard the term “strategic flexibility?”
In my new leadership coaching and organizational consulting role, I’m paying close attention to the leadership landscape. As I’ve surveyed our ever-changing culture, the preferable strategy appears to be the most flexible strategy. My prevailing thought has become:
An organization’s ability to create future flexibility while also orchestrating a present model is an absolute must in increasingly turbulent times. Read More
Related Article:
How to Change an Established Culture
6 Ways You Can Integrate a Special Needs Ministry at Your Church (FREE Download)
Intentionally building a program for individuals with special needs provides your church an opportunity to share the Gospel with individuals of varying abilities and allows them to fully grow in their faith. It also lets the families of those with special needs feel supported, knowing their loved ones feel comfortable and confident in their environment, and are valued members of the church family.
The following projects we worked on for Chapelstreet Church’s Masterpiece Ministry and Parkview Community Church show how design can help support a special needs ministry.... Read More
Image Credit: Parkview Community Church--Aspen Group
6 Major Changes Happening in U.S. Churches
In the past two decades, society and churches have endured significant challenges and gone through some sizeable changes. Obviously, COVID has brought about its own set of issues, but many developments began long before the pandemic.
In addition to differences in the average worship service, the general makeup of churches has undergone substantial shifts since the late 1990s, according to the National Congregational Study (NCS).
These six changes have been felt across the country in communities and congregations. Read More
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Red Roses - Symbols of True Love
Red roses symbolize true love. When I was a boy, my grandfather grew them for my grandmother to show her his love for her. He also grew red carnations which symbolize love, affection, and devotion.
My mother grew red geraniums. They symbolize health and happiness. They also symbolize foolishness, lack of good sense or judgment. My mother grew cacti too.
Wild roses grew in the hedgerows at the edge of the Great Common and near our front gate. The cottage in which we lived was called Rosecott due to the abundance of wild roses growing near the cottage. I do not remember how long we lived at Rosecott but the happiest memories of my childhood come from that time.
My family emigrated to the United States when I was ten years old. My mother’s younger sister, my aunt, lived in the United States with her husband and her son.
Both my mother and my aunt had married GIs stationed in England. My mother’s marriage was not as happy as her younger sister’s. She was the victim of domestic violence and with the help of my aunt returned to England, my older brother in tow and pregnant with me.
My mother never talked about my father. What I did learn was he beat her with a board with a nail in it and he kept her locked in the house. He had planned to send my older brother and I to military school when we were old enough—a plan that my mother did not support. I was born in England where her parents lived.
My grandparents wanted to be reunited with their youngest daughter and my mother with her sister. My mother thought that my older brother and I would have a better chance of entering university in the States.
I have only a few memories from the early childhood—peeking through the curtains at night and seeing a piebald rat outside the window; visiting the Millers’ farm with its wheat fields, kittens, Pekinese dog, and domed clock; living in a council house with a red door; riding in an ambulance with my grandmother who had broken her leg; following my older brother and a friend and becoming lost, drinking milk and eating biscuits (cookies) at the police station, and riding home in a black police car; playing with empty ammunition boxes and climbing a cargo net in the school playground; tripping while running a race at school when someone threw their cap in front of my feet; going to someone’s birthday party; going to movie theater and seeing a part of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
We left before the end of the movie. It terrified me. Except for the Miller’s Pekinese, I was also terrified of dogs when I was a small boy.
I was scared of a lot of things, including BBC children’s programs—the ones in which a rocket ship landed on a planet covered with skulls and bones and the listener could hear the skulls and bones crunching under the rocket crew’s feet; the narrator who traveled back in time and was chased by a T-Rex.
I had a very active imagination. If I found a broadcast too frightening, I would run out of the room. The old woman into whom the wicked stepmother had turned herself to poison Snow White haunted my dreams.
When my grandfather retired, we moved to Suffolk, to the cottage on the edge of the Great Common in the village of Ilketshall St. Andrew. It was three miles from the town of Bungay and three miles from the town of Beccles. We did our shopping in Bungay and we also shopped in Beccles.
The cottage had an apple orchard, plum trees, and two large fields. We had a Jersey cow, chickens, and geese in a pound on the common. We also raised pigs. We grew our own vegetables and made our own butter and cheese. It was not exactly an idyllic life, but I was happier there than where I had lived before.
The years following my family’s move to the United States were some of the loneliest years of my life. The move was traumatic for me. I lost my friends and my dog.
We lived with my aunt for a year and then in a house which belonged to her and her husband across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
At the two schools I attended, I was not accepted by the other children. I had not lived in the area all of my life. I did not speak like they did. I did not know their games. I was a misfit.
I acted out my unhappiness by stealing pocket money from my classmates who had left it in their desk, eating donuts and iced sweet rolls for lunch, and shoplifting cologne bottle caps from a drugstore and small toys from a five and dime store. To make matters worse I broke my front tooth skating in front of a dentist’s office and stuck my ankle through the front wheel of a bicycle while riding it at a hgh speed. .
My grandfather and my mother would buy two acres north of New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain and my grandfather would build a house on the property.
The boys at my new school bullied me and the girls teased me. One boy broke my nose. I stopped riding the school bus because one boy kept picking on me.
I did make some friends in high school. By then, however, I had come to feel like I was the odd man out when it came to friendships. In junior high school I was the last man picked for games. I also felt like I was the third wheel. I was not necessary to the group and was tagging along.
I also made some friends in university. I liked one young woman, but she saw me only as a friend. It was hard when she showed interest in my friends but not in me. It was not exactly rejection. She was simply oblivious to my feelings.
She was surprised when I admitted to having feelings for her. By then I had finished university and had been drafted. She was unable to return my feelings, having become emotionally involved with a mutual friend.
I began basic training, depressed and unhappy with life. I called her a couple of times from basic training, but I learned from a mutual friend that the calls were upsetting her. Her parents asked me to stop calling their house.
After I was discharged from the air force, I went back to university. Her father who was a professor invited me to the house, but I could not bring myself to go.
After two more years of university, I went to work, first as substance abuse counselor, then as a non-public assistance food stamp eligibility worker, a foster care worker, and finally as a family services case worker. During that time, I lost contact with my university friends except for one couple. I socialized with my co-workers.
While I was a food stamp eligibility worker, I dated one of my co-workers. I would discover that she was dating me to make a boyfriend who was not showing her enough attention jealous. By then I had developed feelings for her and her getting back together with the boyfriend was traumatic. I became quite depressed.
She would go to social work school, and I would transfer to child welfare, accepting a position as a foster care worker. I was on a track to become a supervisor in the food stamp program, but I could no longer work in that office due to the unhappy associations that I had with it.
Except for a high school friend with whom I played tennis and a young woman from Florida with whom I worked and sometimes ate lunch most of my social contacts were with members of my family and my church for the next few years.
My high school friend committed suicide. She had attempted suicide in the past. She went to a party where the other partygoers on learning that she had suicidal tendencies encouraged her to kill herself. She went home and took an overdose of pills. When the pills did not kill her, she shot herself in the chest. She died from the gunshot wound.
Having reconciled with her mother with whom she had in the past had a bad relationship, the young woman from Florida went back to Florida.
Several years ago, I jokingly told a woman who I knew at church, that if I was younger, I would marry her in an instant. It was intended as a compliment, but she misunderstood me and took it as a serious marriage proposal. She turned me down.
What hurt most about the rebuff was not the rejection of the proposal, which was not a serious one. Rather it was her telling me that she only thought of me as a casual acquaintance when I had been led to believe that we were friends.
She subsequently moved from the area and none of the friends whom she made here have heard from her since. She had talked about putting her life here behind her and starting a new life. Cutting her ties with friends may have been part of it.
Where do the red roses come in. Those who find true love should count themselves blessed.
I am not talking about temporary “love,” the kind that is driven by hormones and fades as the effects of the hormones fade. I am talking about the kind of love in which we develop strong emotional attachment to someone, and in which having come to know the good and bad of them, we love them still the same.
I believe that is the kind of love my grandparents had for each other. The red roses and the red carnations were my grandfather’s way of telling my grandmother, “I love you.”
My grandfather missed my grandmother so much after she died that he survived her by barely a year. He wanted to be with her.
Saturday, September 25, 2021
All Hallows Evening Prayer for Sunday Evening (September 26, 2021) Is Now Online
All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.
When we choose to follow Jesus, we choose the way of the cross. It is a path that Jesus walked before us. It is a path with which he walks with us now.
The reading appointed for this Sunday evening’ service is Mark 9: 38-50 Entering the Kingdom May Mean Painful Sacrifice.
The homily is titled, “Jesus Walks Beside Us.”
The link to this Sunday evening’s service is—
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/09/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-sunday_25.html
Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.
If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. There may be a short pause before a song begins on a video. If the video begins playing partway, pause, move the track slider back to the beginning, and then play. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.
Previous services are online at:
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/
May this service be a blessing to you.
Churches Face a Digital Dilemma
What's the best way to reach more people?
Does your church have this problem? You place announcements and information in your weekly church bulletin that you know are relevant to your congregants. Say, for example, your church put together backpacks for the kids in your congregation as a back-to-school gift. Your entire team went shopping, filled the bags, and placed them on a table in the church hallway where congregants could swing by all week, including windows before and after work.
But at the end of the week, 31 of 40 bags remained.
You know the problem isn’t the ministry—parents have told your children’s pastor that they’re hurting financially and back-to-school shopping has been a stretch. The problem is that no one is reading your church bulletin. It’s time to modernize your church communications. Read More
Friday, September 24, 2021
All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (September 25, 2021) Is Now Online
All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city.
From this Saturday evening’s homily: “The older I get and the more I grow as a Jesus follower, the more convinced I become that God puts us in people’s lives and them in our lives for our mutual good. They may not always welcome our presence in their lives. Our relationship with them may go awry and take an unforeseen direction. But God has intended that we should be channels of grace to each other—companions in the way, travelers together on the road. We may 'kick against the goad.' Our meeting in life’s way, however, was not accidental. It was God’s doing. If we are open to God’s purpose, I believe that we will discover that we will become more what God would have us be when we walk beside each other than when we walk alone. We need to trust God’s love for us.”
The Scripture reading for this Saturday evening is James 5: 12-21 The Power of Prayer.
The homily is titled “Confessing Our Sins to Each Other.”
The link to this Saturday evening’s service is—
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/2021/09/all-hallows-evening-prayer-for-saturday_24.html
Please feel free to share the link to the service with anyone whom you believe might benefit from the service.
If an ad plays when you open a link to a video in a new tab, click the refresh icon of your browser until the song appears. An ad may follow a song so as soon as the song is finished, close the tab.
Previous services are online at
https://allhallowsmurray.blogspot.com/
May this service be a blessing to you.
The Hidden Harm of Gender Transition
As a young teenager, Grace Lidinsky-Smith experienced deep depression and profound anxiety. She took refuge in incessant internet usage and became immersed in Tumblr. Now in her 20s, Grace looks back and describes how young people are told that they will only be “truly themselves” if they discover their “unique gender identity.”
But Grace suggests this is an info hazard: a false claim that, if it obsesses you, also destroys you. In the area of gender, in particular, many young people are trapped in compulsive self-analysis. They follow and seek to imitate vloggers who post daily video diaries of their gender transition.
Grace looks back on all this as a process that alienated her from reality. By her early 20s, like countless others, she believed the online trans community’s promise that transition would solve her unhappiness. Within four months, Grace started cross-sex hormone injections and had a double mastectomy. She soon realized she made a horrible mistake. She reverted to living as her birth sex but has lasting physical damage.
Grace is one of many who have been fast-tracked down a pathway of “treatments” for gender dysphoria, while underlying mental health issues have remained undiagnosed and unaddressed. They are victims of the false claims of gender ideology. According to this ideology, all people have a gender identity—the gender they feel they are—that may have no relation to their biological sex.
There are a small number of people who suffer deeply because of genuine gender dysphoria (a sense of being in the wrong body). They do not necessarily promote gender ideology.
How Do Outsiders View Your Inside?
It’s pretty easy for us to think about what we think about when we think about the weekend experience at our churches. (Feel free to re-read that sentence. I won’t be offended.)
After all, they’re our experiences. We gather together on a regular basis. We catch up with our long-time friends. We walk through the same old doors, sit in the same old seats, and – for the most part – experience a familiar, somewhat predictable, unsurprising service. Read More
Ten Truths About a Liar
Is Satan capable of inception? Does he whisper temptations in our ear? Is Satan’s authority, power, and relationship to unbelievers the same or different from Christians? These are all valid and, frankly, somewhat haunting questions. I am not left emotionally unmoved by the many destroyed marriages and ministries around me Satan has devoured. I trust your experience is comparable. It is vital that you and I rightly discern and evaluate Satan. He is not to be trifled with nor buffooned, but in Christ, his back was utterly broken on Calvary’s hill. Therefore, it is important we establish a few implications that help us to discern the person and activity of Satan.... Read More
Increasing Generosity in Your Church
Recently, NCS Services surveyed more than 8,000 churches regarding their current stewardship needs. There was an overwhelming response that increasing the generosity of the individuals in their congregation was by far the most important. You will not believe how simple it can be to accomplish!
If you have ever attended workshops for personal or professional improvement, you have probably left with at least one key idea to execute. You have also undoubtedly been able to nod your head during the presentation in affirmation of concepts with which you were already familiar, but had forgotten. This article will be no different. Sometimes, we just need someone with a different perspective to remind us of valuable precepts. Read More
I Can’t Stop Sinning, So What’s the Point of Stopping?
Many young people (and people of all ages, in fact) struggle with the idea of sin. I’ve had countless conversations with junior and senior high students about their habitual sin patterns. Kids tend to think, “If I can’t stop sinning, then what’s the point of stopping?”
These young people have prayed, sang, gone to camp, read their Bible, and frequently attended church and youth group. Yet they still haven’t seen any life transformation. Their desire to stop sinning is dead.
Their logic: I love Jesus, and I love to sin. Somehow kids think it’s okay to live this dual lifestyle. That’s a very confusing logic for any adult youth worker to understand.
The problem? These students don’t know how to live out the text of Romans 6 and 7. Kids think living the Christian lifestyle is nearly impossible. They don’t know how to answer the question: How can I pursue righteousness when I can’t stop sinning? Read More
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Caring for the Emotional and Mental Well-Being of Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ
Jesus in the Gospels and the apostles in their writings emphasize the importance of Jesus followers loving one another. They provide us with a measure of guidance as to what loving our brothers and sisters in Christ means in practice. In this reflection, I am going to take a look at a particular area of loving one another—emotionally supporting one another, caring for each other’s emotional and mental well-being. In writing this reflection, I drew upon my experience and knowledge as a counselor working in a mental health center setting and a social case worker working with teenagers, children, and their families or other caretakers. I also reviewed the latest literature.
A local church, if we emulate Jesus’ character and following his teaching and example, should be a community of love and healing. It should not be a group of people who cause injury to each other or to those outside their group—a group which an undetermined number of local churches have become, based upon the reports of former members and attendees of the church and the reports of people living in the same area as the area from which the church’s members and attendees come.
How then do we give each other emotional support? The following ways of caring for each other’s emotional and mental wellbeing are in no particular order.
1. We pray for each other. I don’t mean telling someone, “I’ll pray for you.” We pray for them then and there. The prayer need not be a long one. We draw them to God’s attention and ask him to help, comfort, strengthen, or heal them. We may place a hand on their should or upper part of their arm as a gesture of good-will toward them. Before we touch them, we ask their permission first, “May I lay a hand on your shoulder or arm while I pray for you?”
2. We offer them genuine encouragement and positive affirmation. We not only do this vocally but also we do it by showing our confidence in them. We give them a task to do, a task which we might do ourselves but which we give them to show that we trust them. We show them we believe they are reliable and trustworthy.
3. We are free in our praise. When they make a genuine effort to do something no matter how well it is done, we commend them on what they have done. We go out of our way to look for things in them we can praise and affirm. We are liberal and sincere in giving what are called positive strokes, warm fuzzies. “What a pretty pink scrunchie! You wear such cute scrunchies!” We stroke them not only for what they do—conditional strokes—but for who they are—unconditional strokes. For strokes to register as fuzzies, they must be sincere. We avoid rubber-band strokes, backhanded compliments, which are cold pricklies in disguise. “Cute dress. I had one like that in the 90s.” Cold pricklies are negative strokes. “Wow! What an ugly dress!” They leave the person who receives them feeling bad about themselves. Fuzzies leave them feeling good about themselves.
There are four different kinds of strokes.
Verbal—a kind or friendly word, a genuine compliment. “Wow! That dress looks great on you!”
Touch—a hug or a pat on the back. A fist bump. Unless they are close family, we should ask someone their permission before we touch them and then we should make sure the type of touch is appropriate to whoever we are touching. For example, we would not give a full body frontal hug to someone with whom we are not in relationship. We would give them a side-hug.
Written—a thankyou note. A “Good job, well done” email or text. A positive comment on social media. Likes, loves, and cares on Facebook. Friends, those who like us, will copy us. They will like or love on Facebook what we like or love. They will comment on what we comment.
Time—Spending time with someone, taking time to listen to them, showing interest in what they are saying or doing are positive strokes. Just quietly sitting together.
We gravitate toward people who give a lot of positive strokes; we shy away from people who give a lot of negative strokes or do not give any strokes at all. Everyone has a stroke bank in which they store up positive strokes and good feelings. If they do not get enough positive strokes, they will settle for negative strokes and bad feelings.
People need strokes. They cannot survive without them. This is one of the reasons that they need other people in their lives. People who appear to be independent may be counterfeiting strokes. “Counterfeit strokes are created when people distort what is happening in their transactions with others. they are used to reinforce one's life position and to fill a stroke deficit.” A life position is how we see the world, ourselves, and other people. Someone may say something that is completely harmless. They hear it as a putdown, a sexual innuendo, or something else other than what it was. They use it to feel insulted, threatened, or prickly in some way. They turn it into a negative stroke, a cold prickly.
People collect negative feelings like people once collected S&H Green Stamps. At one time stores gave customers S&H Green Stamps as bonus when they made a purchase. Customers stuck the stamps in a book the store provided. When they had enough books filled with stamps, they took them to S&H Green Stamp redemption store and redeemed them for premiums in the S&H Green Stamp catalog. In Transactional Analysis (TA) the negative feelings people collect are called stamps. When people accumulate enough negative feelings, they cash them in. They may use the stamps to justify doing something hurtful to someone or themselves. Someone who collects anger stamps may use them to justify murdering a spouse or partner, dumping a friend or ending some other relationship, binging on alcohol, drugs, or sex, watching porn videos, and so on. They may use their anger stamps to rebel against someone whom they perceive as a parental authority figure. Someone who collects sad stamps may use them to justify killing themselves.
The condition of not having enough strokes is known as stroke deprivation. Babies have died from stroke deprivation, having received insufficient physical contact and nurturing from those caring for them. They become listless and unresponsive and exhibit other symptoms of failure to thrive and then die. Due to severe depression, psychosis, intellectual impairment, physical disability, or immaturity a mother may not be able to meet a baby’s needs.
Even if the baby survives, stroke deprivation in infancy or early childhood can affect the child for the remainder of their lives. For example, a woman who received very little positive strokes from her mother in infancy or early childhood may go through life seeking positive strokes from women. She may become passive, having learned in infancy or early childhood that she received more maternal attention when she was passive than she did when she fussed or cried. Passivity in adulthood may result in her exploitation in adulthood by others. She will do anything to please them. She may have difficulty in expressing anger because when she was an infant or a small child, she was ignored or punished when she expressed anger. Her mother may have ignored her as a punishment. When she is angry with someone, she may snub them, ignoring them as her mother ignored her. She may give expression to her angry feelings in other ways. She may be catty with other people, being deliberately hurtful in her remarks. How we were treated when we were young will often show in the way that we treat others when we are adults.
Some women, when they give birth to a child, suffer from post-partum depression. Other women may be overwhelmed by their circumstances. They may have fled a situation in which they were the victims of domestic violence. They may have other small children to care for. They may have not been prepared for an additional child. They may have a spouse who has a catastrophic illness or who is terminally ill. They are faced with caring for a family on their own.
One way we as Jesus followers can show our love for others is to support expectant and new mothers, identify their needs, and help them to meet them.
Some people give plastic, or marshmallow, strokes. They are big and fluffy, but they are fake. Whoever gives them is not sincere. They do not really mean what they are saying. “That’s a cute dress you are wearing.” (“She has such awful taste in clothes! I wonder where she found that rag!!”)
A good rule of thumb in giving compliments is “If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.” I will compliment a friend on her dress because I believe she looks great in it. Otherwise, I will look for something else to compliment her on. If I like someone, it is not too difficult to find something else. I am basically saying, “I like you and everything about you!!”
A simplistic explanation of why Christians are not attracting people to their churches and why they are loosing their young people when they grow old enough to leave is that they do not emulate Jesus’ character or follow his teaching and example and they hand lots of cold pricklies to other people. In fact, they have come to associate being a Christian with giving negative strokes.
4. We show compassion to each other. Compassion is “a feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.” Researchers have found that “when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people.”
Compassion and empathy enable us to show kindness and love toward others. They can not only improve our academic performance and raise our self-esteem, but they can also enable us to live longer. Compassion fosters connections among adults and children. It strengthens bonds, reduces aggression and anxiety, and makes us happier.
5. We offer each other care, sympathy, and comfort when they are needed. We show them physical gestures of affection such as a hug with their consent. Physical touch can be reassuring but it also can be a violation of someone’s boundaries if we do not have their permission to touch them. It may cause them emotional distress. They may also misinterpret our motives for touching them.
To identify how we might be emotionally supportive to a brother or sister in Christ, we ask them opened-ended questions like “what’s been happening in your life lately?
6. We work at empathizing with each other. We do our best to put ourselves in each other’s shoes. We do our best to feel what each other is feeling. We do our best to see things from each other’s perspective.
7. We actively listen to what each other is saying. We give them our full attention. We do not look at our cell phone, act disinterested, or fidget. We do not turn our body away from them, cross our arms, or cross our legs but use non-verbal cues to convey that we are listening and interested in what they are saying.
We may take the Adult listening position, feet resting flat on the floor or ground, legs uncrossed and apart, hands at our side if standing, palms down on our knees if sitting. We maintain eye contact. We do not look down or away. I have used the Adult listening position when talking with agitated, angry, or anxious clients. It can have a calming effect on them.
When we allow someone’s agitation, anger, or anxiety to affect us, we may exacerbate their agitation, anger, or anxiety. On the other hand, our own calmness may help them to reduce the intensity of their feelings and may defuse a potentially violent situation.
When someone speaks to us, we reflect back what they said, “I heard you say….” We make sure that we understand what they are saying. If we do not understand what they said, we ask for clarification. We try not read into what they are saying something other than what they are saying. We summarize what they said to show that we grasp what they are saying.
We offer them validation. “It sounds like you are going through a difficult time.” We do not make judgments.
We keep our opinions on what they should have done or where they went wrong to ourselves. We avoid asking questions which they might interpret as blaming them or judging them. “How did you make her mad at you?”
We watch our tone of voice. We do not allow disapproval or disgust to creep into our voice. We focus on feelings like compassion and sympathy when we speak.
8. We can emotionally support each other with our presence. The presence of someone whom we know loves and cares for us can be very reassuring. Their presence can help us in times of doubt or fear.
I do not believe I would be wrong in saying this is one of the reasons Jesus and the apostles stress the importance of reconciliation. If we are estranged from each other, our presence will not provide the emotional support that it should. If something comes between us and a brother or sister in Christ, we should do all that we can to put things right with each other. We should let go of any anger or resentment that we may feel toward them.
9. We are emotionally available to each other. I grew up in a church tradition in which members of its churches were frequently described as cold, distant, and reserved, not only to outsiders but to each other. To be emotionally supportive to each other, we need to be emotionally available to each other. This more difficult for some people than it is for others.
We may not be comfortable with meeting other people’s emotional needs. It may be a new or unfamiliar experience for us.
We may have come to question our ability to meet the emotional needs of others. Early in life we have been around a parent who was emotionally demanding. Their unreasonable expectations and our inability to meet these expectations may have led us to doubt our ability to meet anyone’s emotional needs.
We may be emotionally needy ourselves, having emotional needs that went unmet in the past—a need for love, caring, acceptance, and affection.
We may be afraid of our own feelings or other people’s feelings. We may fear where our emotions may lead us. We may fear that someone else’s feelings may overwhelm us, drowning our self-identity, and swallowing up our independence.
We may be accustomed to keeping an emotional distance between ourselves and other people. We may have difficulty in forming emotional attachments due to our past experiences.
We may have less flexible emotional boundaries than do other people.
These are just a few of the reasons we may shy away from being more open with our own feelings and more receptive toward other people’s feelings.
Being emotionally available to each other can enhance the quality of our relationships with each other and our level of emotional support for each other.
Human beings are not entirely unemotional. We may learn to hide or repress unwanted or unwelcome feelings which other people in our environment discourage us from showing for a variety of reasons. They may not actively show disapproval of these feelings. They may simply not respond to them. A depressed parent may not react to a child’s displays of affection toward them or show much affection themselves toward the child. Children will often exhibit affection toward a parent in hopes that they will return the affection. The child, in turn, may learn not to show affection or may have difficulty in exhibiting affection. On the other hand, they may become indiscriminate in showing affection.
Some families, while their members may feel affection for each other, are not physically demonstrative in showing their affection. I grew up in such a family. They show their affection in other ways. My grandfather showed his affection for my grandmother by growing her favorite roses. I am apt to show my affection for someone by surprising them with gifts of things that I believe they might like or which they can use to obtain things that they like.
Different families have different ways of showing affection. A friend of mine in college was very physically demonstrative in showing affection for friends. She came from a family where being physical demonstrative was the normal way of showing affection. On the other hand, my grandmother and my mother would show their affection by fixing foods whole family liked to eat. I showed my affection for my mother and my nieces by taking them to their favorite restaurants and on outings to places they wanted to go—the zoo, the aquarium, the botanical gardens, the mall, and the like. Every family has its own ways of showing love. When we take a friend to their favorite pizza restaurant and buy them their favorite pizza and beverage and then take them to a movie they want to see, we are not only doing fun activities with them, but we are also heaping them with warm fuzzies. We are showing our fondness or liking for them too.
10. We need to recognize and avoid saying or doing things that others will perceive or experience as rejection of them. If our aim to give each other emotional support, to care for each other’s emotional mental wellbeing, we will not want to say or do things which do not do that, things that do the opposite.
We all are sensitive to rejection, or lack of acceptance. We sense how others are reacting to us before we consciously become aware of what they are doing. Rejection actives the same part of the brain where we feel physical pain. All rejection hurts—literally. The pain from being rejected is not much different from the pain of being physically injured.
We can misread a situation and believe that someone is deliberately rejecting us or showing unfriendliness toward us when they may not be. This can cause feelings of deep anxiety and dread. In the different ways we react to what we perceive as rejection, we can actually trigger the rejection that we fear. Believing we are being rejected can lead to rejection.
This can occur easily when we are communicating by text and email. We do not have the cues such as facial expression, body language and tone of voice which help us in interpreting what is going on when we talk to someone in person or even by video chat or on the phone. Consequently, we may use our imaginations to interpret what is happening, which may lead us to believe the worst. Anxiety arising from the thought that we may confirm what we fear may prevent us from using these other means of communication or circumstance may not permit their use.
Rejection can affect us emotionally, cognitively, and even physically. We have a fundamental need to belong, to have relationships that are positive and which are lasting. Rejection increases our feelings of anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy and sadness. It can decrease our ability to perform difficult intellectual tasks. It can result in aggressive and impulsive behavior. Rejection can affect our sleeping pattern and weaken our immune systems.
One study found that the participants’ brains were more active in areas associated with motivation, reward, craving, addiction, physical pain, and distress when they looked at the photo of a romantic partner who had rejected them than when they looked at the photo of a neutral person. All the participants reported that they were still in love with this partner. The researchers concluded that the participants had become addicted to the romantic partner who rejected them.
A second conclusion can be drawn from this study. The romantic partner who rejected them was a source of motivation and reward for the participants. In non-romantic but significant relationships this suggests that those with whom we involved in some kind of relationship such as friendship can also be a source of motivation and reward for us. We can become addicted to something or someone because they affect us positively. We ourselves can stimulate the production of chemicals in the brains of others, which affect them positively.
I have noticed a shift in my mood and an increase in my productivity when a friend gives me attention. This has further convinced me that God does put specific people in our lives not only for our good but for their good too.
When someone rejects us, our self-esteem is damaged. We may react by damaging it even further. We become intensely critical of ourselves. We engage in all kinds of negative self-talk, which elicits feelings of disgust with ourselves. We beat ourselves up!
Imagine the hell through which someone who perceives themselves as being rejected put themselves and the emotional, cognitive, and physical toll it takes on them. They may experience anxiety, depression, bouts of sadness, mental anguish, and worse.
Researchers have found that being rejected by someone who chooses someone else over us hurts worse than someone who rejects us hands-down. We feel far more hurt when we are rejected in favor of someone else. We may go to a party with someone only to have them ignore us throughout the evening and leave the party with someone else. We may discover our friend who has recently dumped us has a new friend. They dumped us for the new friend. Such rejections damage our sense of belonging as well as leave us feeling unaccepted and unwanted.
When we are rejected, we often do not have any idea of why were rejected. When this happens, we experience the rejection far worser than we would if we knew the exact reason for our rejection. Researchers found that not knowing why we were rejected can be just as bad as knowing someone else was chosen over us. It may inspire the same feelings as knowing we were rejected for someone else. This can cause us to look for reasons why we were rejected, further making us to feel bad about ourselves.
11. We support the ministries in which each other is involved. We offer our help if they needed it. If they are raising funds for a ministry or community service project, we make generous contributions. If we are involved in a joint ministry project, we give them full recognition for their contribution to the project. We do not take all the credit for ourselves. If they made the larger contribution, we draw attention to that and downplay our own role.
This list of ways that we can emotionally support our brothers and sisters in Christ, how we can care for each other’s emotional and mental well-being is not exhaustive. You may think of other ways.
5. We offer each other care, sympathy, and comfort when they are needed. We show them physical gestures of affection such as a hug with their consent. Physical touch can be reassuring but it also can be a violation of someone’s boundaries if we do not have their permission to touch them. It may cause them emotional distress. They may also misinterpret our motives for touching them.
To identify how we might be emotionally supportive to a brother or sister in Christ, we ask them opened-ended questions like “what’s been happening in your life lately?
6. We work at empathizing with each other. We do our best to put ourselves in each other’s shoes. We do our best to feel what each other is feeling. We do our best to see things from each other’s perspective.
7. We actively listen to what each other is saying. We give them our full attention. We do not look at our cell phone, act disinterested, or fidget. We do not turn our body away from them, cross our arms, or cross our legs but use non-verbal cues to convey that we are listening and interested in what they are saying.
We may take the Adult listening position, feet resting flat on the floor or ground, legs uncrossed and apart, hands at our side if standing, palms down on our knees if sitting. We maintain eye contact. We do not look down or away. I have used the Adult listening position when talking with agitated, angry, or anxious clients. It can have a calming effect on them.
When we allow someone’s agitation, anger, or anxiety to affect us, we may exacerbate their agitation, anger, or anxiety. On the other hand, our own calmness may help them to reduce the intensity of their feelings and may defuse a potentially violent situation.
When someone speaks to us, we reflect back what they said, “I heard you say….” We make sure that we understand what they are saying. If we do not understand what they said, we ask for clarification. We try not read into what they are saying something other than what they are saying. We summarize what they said to show that we grasp what they are saying.
We offer them validation. “It sounds like you are going through a difficult time.” We do not make judgments.
We keep our opinions on what they should have done or where they went wrong to ourselves. We avoid asking questions which they might interpret as blaming them or judging them. “How did you make her mad at you?”
We watch our tone of voice. We do not allow disapproval or disgust to creep into our voice. We focus on feelings like compassion and sympathy when we speak.
8. We can emotionally support each other with our presence. The presence of someone whom we know loves and cares for us can be very reassuring. Their presence can help us in times of doubt or fear.
I do not believe I would be wrong in saying this is one of the reasons Jesus and the apostles stress the importance of reconciliation. If we are estranged from each other, our presence will not provide the emotional support that it should. If something comes between us and a brother or sister in Christ, we should do all that we can to put things right with each other. We should let go of any anger or resentment that we may feel toward them.
9. We are emotionally available to each other. I grew up in a church tradition in which members of its churches were frequently described as cold, distant, and reserved, not only to outsiders but to each other. To be emotionally supportive to each other, we need to be emotionally available to each other. This more difficult for some people than it is for others.
We may not be comfortable with meeting other people’s emotional needs. It may be a new or unfamiliar experience for us.
We may have come to question our ability to meet the emotional needs of others. Early in life we have been around a parent who was emotionally demanding. Their unreasonable expectations and our inability to meet these expectations may have led us to doubt our ability to meet anyone’s emotional needs.
We may be emotionally needy ourselves, having emotional needs that went unmet in the past—a need for love, caring, acceptance, and affection.
We may be afraid of our own feelings or other people’s feelings. We may fear where our emotions may lead us. We may fear that someone else’s feelings may overwhelm us, drowning our self-identity, and swallowing up our independence.
We may be accustomed to keeping an emotional distance between ourselves and other people. We may have difficulty in forming emotional attachments due to our past experiences.
We may have less flexible emotional boundaries than do other people.
These are just a few of the reasons we may shy away from being more open with our own feelings and more receptive toward other people’s feelings.
Being emotionally available to each other can enhance the quality of our relationships with each other and our level of emotional support for each other.
Human beings are not entirely unemotional. We may learn to hide or repress unwanted or unwelcome feelings which other people in our environment discourage us from showing for a variety of reasons. They may not actively show disapproval of these feelings. They may simply not respond to them. A depressed parent may not react to a child’s displays of affection toward them or show much affection themselves toward the child. Children will often exhibit affection toward a parent in hopes that they will return the affection. The child, in turn, may learn not to show affection or may have difficulty in exhibiting affection. On the other hand, they may become indiscriminate in showing affection.
Some families, while their members may feel affection for each other, are not physically demonstrative in showing their affection. I grew up in such a family. They show their affection in other ways. My grandfather showed his affection for my grandmother by growing her favorite roses. I am apt to show my affection for someone by surprising them with gifts of things that I believe they might like or which they can use to obtain things that they like.
Different families have different ways of showing affection. A friend of mine in college was very physically demonstrative in showing affection for friends. She came from a family where being physical demonstrative was the normal way of showing affection. On the other hand, my grandmother and my mother would show their affection by fixing foods whole family liked to eat. I showed my affection for my mother and my nieces by taking them to their favorite restaurants and on outings to places they wanted to go—the zoo, the aquarium, the botanical gardens, the mall, and the like. Every family has its own ways of showing love. When we take a friend to their favorite pizza restaurant and buy them their favorite pizza and beverage and then take them to a movie they want to see, we are not only doing fun activities with them, but we are also heaping them with warm fuzzies. We are showing our fondness or liking for them too.
10. We need to recognize and avoid saying or doing things that others will perceive or experience as rejection of them. If our aim to give each other emotional support, to care for each other’s emotional mental wellbeing, we will not want to say or do things which do not do that, things that do the opposite.
We all are sensitive to rejection, or lack of acceptance. We sense how others are reacting to us before we consciously become aware of what they are doing. Rejection actives the same part of the brain where we feel physical pain. All rejection hurts—literally. The pain from being rejected is not much different from the pain of being physically injured.
We can misread a situation and believe that someone is deliberately rejecting us or showing unfriendliness toward us when they may not be. This can cause feelings of deep anxiety and dread. In the different ways we react to what we perceive as rejection, we can actually trigger the rejection that we fear. Believing we are being rejected can lead to rejection.
This can occur easily when we are communicating by text and email. We do not have the cues such as facial expression, body language and tone of voice which help us in interpreting what is going on when we talk to someone in person or even by video chat or on the phone. Consequently, we may use our imaginations to interpret what is happening, which may lead us to believe the worst. Anxiety arising from the thought that we may confirm what we fear may prevent us from using these other means of communication or circumstance may not permit their use.
Rejection can affect us emotionally, cognitively, and even physically. We have a fundamental need to belong, to have relationships that are positive and which are lasting. Rejection increases our feelings of anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy and sadness. It can decrease our ability to perform difficult intellectual tasks. It can result in aggressive and impulsive behavior. Rejection can affect our sleeping pattern and weaken our immune systems.
One study found that the participants’ brains were more active in areas associated with motivation, reward, craving, addiction, physical pain, and distress when they looked at the photo of a romantic partner who had rejected them than when they looked at the photo of a neutral person. All the participants reported that they were still in love with this partner. The researchers concluded that the participants had become addicted to the romantic partner who rejected them.
A second conclusion can be drawn from this study. The romantic partner who rejected them was a source of motivation and reward for the participants. In non-romantic but significant relationships this suggests that those with whom we involved in some kind of relationship such as friendship can also be a source of motivation and reward for us. We can become addicted to something or someone because they affect us positively. We ourselves can stimulate the production of chemicals in the brains of others, which affect them positively.
I have noticed a shift in my mood and an increase in my productivity when a friend gives me attention. This has further convinced me that God does put specific people in our lives not only for our good but for their good too.
When someone rejects us, our self-esteem is damaged. We may react by damaging it even further. We become intensely critical of ourselves. We engage in all kinds of negative self-talk, which elicits feelings of disgust with ourselves. We beat ourselves up!
Imagine the hell through which someone who perceives themselves as being rejected put themselves and the emotional, cognitive, and physical toll it takes on them. They may experience anxiety, depression, bouts of sadness, mental anguish, and worse.
Researchers have found that being rejected by someone who chooses someone else over us hurts worse than someone who rejects us hands-down. We feel far more hurt when we are rejected in favor of someone else. We may go to a party with someone only to have them ignore us throughout the evening and leave the party with someone else. We may discover our friend who has recently dumped us has a new friend. They dumped us for the new friend. Such rejections damage our sense of belonging as well as leave us feeling unaccepted and unwanted.
When we are rejected, we often do not have any idea of why were rejected. When this happens, we experience the rejection far worser than we would if we knew the exact reason for our rejection. Researchers found that not knowing why we were rejected can be just as bad as knowing someone else was chosen over us. It may inspire the same feelings as knowing we were rejected for someone else. This can cause us to look for reasons why we were rejected, further making us to feel bad about ourselves.
11. We support the ministries in which each other is involved. We offer our help if they needed it. If they are raising funds for a ministry or community service project, we make generous contributions. If we are involved in a joint ministry project, we give them full recognition for their contribution to the project. We do not take all the credit for ourselves. If they made the larger contribution, we draw attention to that and downplay our own role.
This list of ways that we can emotionally support our brothers and sisters in Christ, how we can care for each other’s emotional and mental well-being is not exhaustive. You may think of other ways.
We Are All Baptists Now—So Let’s Not Fight Like It
American democracy and democratized Christianity face a similar crisis of disunity.
Several years ago, my eyes stopped on a two-panel cartoon that made me both laugh and grimace. The first had a typical Jordan River scene of a familiar bearded figure in camel’s hair dipping someone under the water, with the caption “John the Baptist.” The second depicted a similar scene, but the penitent was held under the water, thrashing about for life, while bubbles indicated drowning. That one was captioned “John the Southern Baptist.”
Once upon a time, the old cartoon could have prompted smugness in Christians of other denominations, but not anymore. In one respect, we are all Southern Baptists now.
Years ago, historian Martin Marty spoke of the “Baptistification” of American religion—by which he meant that the individualistic creedalism, the entrepreneurial drive, and the voluntary-society model of the church were so consistent with the American ethos that almost every Christian communion—regardless of polity or theology—was starting to reflect it. Read More
Image Credit: Illustration by Andrius Banelis
‘Evil,’ ‘Sad,’ ‘Unbelievable’—Survivors and Leaders React to SBC Executive Committee Decision
Sexual abuse survivors and church leaders inside and outside the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are reacting with grief and shock to a Tuesday (Sept. 21) decision from the SBC Executive Committee (EC). The EC decided—in direct opposition to the will of messengers—to delay waiving attorney-client privilege in the investigation into whether or not the EC mishandled allegations of sexual abuse.
“There were so many things bothersome about these last two days,” said survivor Tiffany Thigpen. “My emotions are switching between anger and sorrow. Waking during the night feeling like I wish I could wash it off, the icky feeling of watching some of these people at work. The lies that drip from tongues.”
Survivor Jennifer Lyell called the meeting a “train wreck” and wrote, “There is much cause for SBCrs to go to bed with aghast hearts tonight. You must. Because you just watched SBC leaders fight against truth. And it’s completely evil. But I also saw some eyes open. I also saw my angst manifest in some who literally couldn’t sit still with it.”
Pastor and EC member Dean Inserra, who spoke out about the importance of waiving attorney-client privilege, tweeted, “Been an emotional two days. I don’t even know how to explain how I feel and what I saw go down. It messed me up.” Read More
Related Articles:
SBC Executive Committee Agrees to Pay for Abuse Review, Stalls on Waiving Privilege
SBC Executive Committee Balks at Directive to Open Up to Abuse Investigation
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