Centered

Hey everyone, So in effort to back up what Trea mentioned tonight about accountability I wanted to share some quotes from Dr. Lawless' book  Mentor .  The book focuses more on the one on one mentoring/discipleship relationships that we hope to have in our churches today, but I think the same principles can be applied to our small group.  First, "In mentoring relationships [in our case deep relationships with another in small group] confession is essential - people need to be utterly honest.  Spiritual full disclouser brings our sin out of the Enemy's darkness into God's light where we can deal with it through repentance and forgiveness." "[Leaders and fellow believers] who grant grace to people who have failed aren't ignoring or negating the consequences of sin. Instead, they are modeling God's love to a fallen yet repentant people.  Good [leadership and relationships] create an atmosphere for honest confession because the [person] knows that admittin...

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions   are   at war within you?   You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.   You ask and do not receive, because you ask   wrongly, to spend it on your passions.   You adulterous people!   Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?   Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." - James 4:1-4      This passage, to me, seems to be one of the most black and white passages in all of Scripture.  James is asking this incredibly strong rhetorical question: Why do you fight? What causes competition among you, Christians?  Why does all of mankind seek to overtake one another?  Why is there anger and hatred in the very relationships that should be marked by peace and fellowship?...

So this post might actually be more journal than blog today, which makes me feel like a high school girl.  Sorry for all other bloggers who read that.  That's just usually what I think about when it comes to blogging and the whole "dear diary" shibang. Whatever...light humor. Let's face it today has been crazy, but there has been some sweet graces from God in it. So the title mentions a paradox...well I've adopted this from Deitrich Bonhoeffer's book Life Together  (highly recommended).  The focus of the book is around Gospel-centered relationships.  In the book, Bonhoeffer mentions that an individual is never fully capable of being alone unless he/she understands life in community; and an individual is never full capable of community without understanding life in solitude. Essentially, the idea is that you can't live out life alone, yet you cannot be utterly dependent on community.  The Gospel community speaks truth into your personal life, while at t...

     So I am doing a research paper for one of my seminary classes, and the theme of this paper is an investigation into what "submission" really means with the goal of developing a theology of submission. I can across an article in Christianity Today written by Sarah Sumner, an associate professor of theology and ministry at Haggard School of Theology, entitled Bridging the Ephesians 5 Divide . Within this article Sumner seeks to shed light on what message Ephesians 5:21-22 is portraying.  I want to share a little bit of what her article has to say, but I would like to offer something that I have connected after reading this article as well.     Sumner begins her writting with the basic assumption that Ephesians 5:21 calls all believers/Christian to "be subject to" one another. There is a distinction between two views that can be held in reagards to Ephesians 5:21-22.  Becuase verse 22, in the original Greek language, does not contain a verb, it re...