What would be non-negotiable in your version of a "lazy day"? There are different levels of comfortable and different levels of "unguarded." It can be one level when you're in a meeting, another when ...  Read More

Creating safety for others isn't simple, and we can't always control how people respond when invited to lower their guard. We can, however, control what we do when that moment arrives. Vulnerability i...  Read More

Every guarded person has a reason: a wound, a rejection, a moment (or series of them) when being known turned out to be dangerous. This leads to managing what people could see - and for a while, it fe...  Read More

If meeting some kind of worthiness standard is no longer the method by which a person finds their way in, how is order kept and safety for all parties maintained? The darkness that is gatekeeping and ...  Read More

We spend enormous energy trying to earn approval, whether growing for it, shrinking for it, or reshaping ourselves to get it - and communities spend enormous energy dispensing it, withholding it, or u...  Read More

Sometimes you hear people say things like, "Anytime somebody says...you know..." or "I can't handle the kind of person who..." This Spotlight is here to put an end to that. By the time you finish this...  Read More

The journey of reconciliation will always include change, including, very often, a change in perception. This is especially true when there is, at least as far as you can tell, no real hope for coming...  Read More

The journey of reconciliation will always include change, including, very often, a change in perception. That perception change is especially noticeable when what we need to reconcile is simply differ...  Read More

The journey of reconciliation will always include change, including, very often, a change in perception. Let's consider how reconciliation turns the unavoidable reality of harm into a cycle of repairi...  Read More

Finding the kind of freedom that the Bible talks about means finding a place in the household of God. This belonging is yours, undeniably, and nobody can take it from you. At the same time, this freed...  Read More

If you're going to talk about freedom, you're going to talk about choices. At the core of constraint is the idea that choice has been removed; when the constraints are gone, you are "now free to move ...  Read More

The freedom for which Christ has set us free is not theoretical, private, or fragile. It is real freedom that shows up in the way we speak, serve, and stand among others. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul insi...  Read More