Don’t miss this message from our editor, Patricia Taylor, as she shares information from the New Room Conference last week!
The Soul Care Collective unveils a new Book-of-the-Month Review. On the first Wednesday of each month, one of our authors will review a book that has impacted them or equipped them to better care for themselves and others. Our very first review comes from Patricia Taylor, our managing editor, who reviews a book about how the Word of God can literally change the physiological landscape of your mind.
You’ve had a conflict with someone in the church. Now what? There are specific things we can (and should!) do to resolve conflict with our brothers and sisters in the faith. Patricia Taylor shares three biblical steps to a healthy model of reconciliation in the church.
Going to college can be one of the toughest transitions people will ever go through in life. College ministries are on the front lines, being the hands and feet of Christ for students and caring for their souls. Patricia Taylor shares her experience serving on a weekend mission at the Wesley Foundation on the University of Kentucky campus.
Even when we pray for God to help us love someone, are we not really praying for God to change that person and make him or her easier to love? But what if I am the one in need of a change? Patricia Taylor shares insight on loving others in the midst of disagreement.
There is only a subtle difference in the definition of the words imparted and imputed, but the difference is a game changer for the Christian. Read more from Patricia Taylor as she describes how the work of Christ enables deep and real transformation in the life and identity of the Christian believer.
We are always told that we need to be forgiving. What in the world is forgiveness anyway? Patricia Taylor shares what she has learned about what forgiveness is, what it isn’t, and how it works.
Sometimes, as Christians, we can get really good at navel-gazing. We can get so caught up in the busyness of everyday ministry, that we fail to see the people. One thing that I have often noticed is how easy it is to be so surrounded by church people that we never even encounter the outside world in a meaningful way. For me, the most important question has become, “What am I going to do about it?”
Will I ever be healed completely on this side of glory? I don’t know. That is why it is essential for me to take daily self-inventory and ask myself what is in the closet of my heart. That is why it is so essential for me to give Christ lordship over the whole of me, including the closet space where it is sometimes uncomfortable to let Him in.
As I reflect on my experience of being in seminary and how I have grown, I have come to realize that there existed a heart of divisiveness and spiritual superiority in me. I look back and feel the peace within me and thank God for showing me how to be humble and consider the differences I see in others as a good and beautiful gift from God.
My mind began to wander, and by some divine hand, it began to journey to the cross. I began to see her life and mine in the light of the suffering—the whip-marks that tore his flesh—the stripes that He says will heal me. I saw my tormented heart reflected in his agony. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow.”
I was standing there watching people come forward who have become cherished family members to me, and I was dipping my thumb in this glass bowl of pitch black ashes—a symbol not only of penitence, but of mortality. I was making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Some of them were weeping, but with all of them, the sense of heaviness was as palpable as the deep, familial love we shared.
