1. Be gentle. It’s an act of trust. 2. Trust yourself. Intuition is your brain working behind your back. 3. Get help. Sometimes things are too much. 4. Create space for yourself–use environment, time and boundaries. 5. Cocoon yourself for transformation. Survival is not enough. 6. Embrace your antagonists. Struggle, anger, and disagreements lead to […]
Tag Archives: conflict
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To Tell Someone They’re Wrong, First Tell Them They’re Right A philosopher’s 350-year-old trick to get people to change their minds is now backed up by psychologists. Quartz Olivia Goldhill Read when you’ve got time to spare. The 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for Pascal’s Wager which, in the first formal use […]
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“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” – Mark Twain Variation: Don’t fight unethical people with unethical practices. You’re out of your league. They’ll beat you every time. Ex. Marco Rubio in 2016 Pres. election trying to match Trump’s insults with the size of […]
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The question comes in various forms. More often: “Aren’t all religions the same?” Don’t all roads lead eventually to the same place?” This is not just an academic question. When a loved one is dying, you want to know. When you are facing your own death, you want to know. What is required to assure […]
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Good article by Thom Rainer on bullies in the church. It brought back some bad memories and some guilt, wondering what I could have done differently about the bullies in my previous church. Excerpts… Church bullies are common in many churches. They wreak havoc and create dissension. They typically must have an “enemy” in the […]
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From Mary Naegli’s Blog, following up on the Presbytery of the Redwoods’ defiance of the PJC decision on Jane Spahr wordtolife.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/two-degrees-of-separation If we do not own our true situation and collaborate toward a solution in which our ministries can flourish in new pasture, here is what is going to happen: The members of our congregations […]
Marriage, under the best circumstances, is a crisis—one of the major crises of life—and it is a dangerous thing not to be aware of this. Whether it turns out to be a healthy, challenging, and constructive crisis or a disastrous nightmare depends largely upon how willing the partners are to be changed, how malleable they […]
Martin Luther and John Calvin were more than theologians. They were organizers of new churches. The reformation was a time of great conflict in which theological loyalties became intermixed with political loyalties. New churches arose which attracted political and religious refugees who were not strangers to conflict. Thus, the early protestant churches were themselves filled […]