Would you like to move beyond superficial conversation during your Thanksgiving gathering this year? Would you like to connect deeply with your family and friends and hear them share stories about the most meaningful people and events of their lives? If so, give each...
If you're like most people, the coming holiday season will be either the best time of the year or the worst time of the year ... and it will probably depend largely on the condition of your relationships. To help you make this the best season ever, we’ve compiled...
One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to ask my mother and my mother-in-law to give up their car keys. Doing it with each of them on the same day (since they both lived with us) was especially difficult. Our moms loved running their own errands, going out for...
The COVID crisis, combined with heightened racial and political tension, has triggered unprecedented conflict throughout our nation, as well as in the local church. Churches are literally dividing over masks, racial policies and political positions. As a result,...
“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude.” So wrote Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, living through the deprivation and horrors of both Auschwitz and Dachau. Consider the background for his writing...
In a little over a week, millions of people will be rejoicing or weeping as the 2020 political season comes to its climactic end. The emotions that are now building to a crescendo will not dissipate quickly or harmlessly. Many family, workplace and church...
Thirty-two years ago a trial attorney read a distressed look in my eyes and responded in a way that changed the course of my life. The ability to read the emotions in others' faces and eyes is incredibly valuable in every part of daily life. If you keep reading,...
Masks are dividing churches all around the country. Some church members are willing to continue following government COVID-19 mandates to wear masks during worship services. But other members view masks as an intolerable interference in their worship of God and a...
Have you ever seen a time like this? A time when relational tensions are threatening to divide so many families, churches and communities? The dangers are real and the darkness is foreboding. Which means this is may be a unique opportunity for Christians to shine so...
I’ve been involved in dozens of church discipline cases, both as an elder in my church and as a conciliator assisting other churches. Some of these cases were handled so badly that they resulted in multi-million dollar lawsuits. But some of them were handled so well...
As I watched the George Floyd memorial service this afternoon, I was grieved more than ever by his tragic death, the loss that his family is feeling, and by the fact that thousands of people continue to feel deep pain and fear because of the ongoing racial, social and...
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. If you’re tired of doing the same “card and gift” routine, allow me to suggest something that will blow your mother (or your wife) away ... something she will remember with glad tears for the rest of her life. Since she devoted much of her...
She was working the early shift at a small Starbucks counter in Dulles Airport. The young barista had probably been up since 4 or 5 a.m., and she already looked worn out. After placing my order with the cashier I stood by the counter while the barista finished the...
We are surely living in unprecedented times! Who would have ever thought that churches, businesses, schools and parks throughout the world would be void of activity, and that people would be quarantined in their homes to slow the spread of a deadly virus? And yet,...
Relational wisdom is an enhanced form of emotional intelligence that helps to deal with the stress created by the COVID-19 pandemic.