Equipped Church Blogs

  Catharsis: The Hidden Dangers of Venting “The man who is master of his passions is reason’s slave.”  attributed to Cyril Connolly “Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry—why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills” William Shakespeare “If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.”  Earl Wilson “Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten.”  Unknown “The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use.”  Washington Irving “Speech is silver, silence is golden.” Arabic Proverb “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”  Seneca “We are masters of the unsaid words,...

  Trusting God vs. Making Risky Decisions “God is God. Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.” Elisabeth Elliot “Presumption is expecting God to join our plans rather than seeking His plans.” Oswald Chambers “Faith is not jumping to conclusions; it is stepping out on the promises of God. Presumption is acting without the assurance of His leading” Warren Wiersbe “Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” Oswald Chambers “Presumption whispers false assurances where faith should seek God’s will.” Charles Stanley      Sometimes, in life, we find ourselves at a crossroads. On one side lies the path of trusting God completely. On the other, the temptation to take matters into our own hands. It is a choice echoing that fateful decision in Eden to either grasp for knowledge or trust G...

  The Sabbath: Significance and Application in Modern Christianity “A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content, and strength for the toils of tomorrow; but a Sabbath profaned, whatso’er may be gained, is a certain forerunner of sorrow.” Author Unknown “The Sabbath is the day on which we rest not for the sake of the body, but for the sake of the soul. Resting for the sake of the soul is a strange thing, for we are always in danger of worshiping our own tiredness.” G. K. Chesterton “Sabbath rest is an imitation of God and the most blessed of human ways of living. Setting apart Sabbath is an act of freedom from slavery, work, anxiety, and the feverish pursuits of gain and his own ambition.” Abraham Joshua Heschel “O day of rest! How beautiful, how fair, how welcome to the weary and the old! Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly care! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Sabbath ...

  The Quiet Burden of "Should" “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” C. S. Lewis “Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” George Orwell “Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” T. S. Eliot “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” Fyodor Dostoevsky “The greatest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed.” Søren Kierkegaard      In our previous blog, The Hidden Strings: Unintended Manipulation, we explored how easy it is to slip from encouragement into something else, where our outward actions mask the disconnect inside. We wondered ...

The Elusive Balance: Correctly Defining Love in the Church “Everyone wants to define love, but no one wishes to practice it.” Mwanandeke Kindembo “‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” Matthew 22:36-40, ESV “Amor vincit omnia, et nos cedamus amori.” Love conquers all things, so we too shall yield to love. Virgil [Publius Vergilius Maro] “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, ESV      In a w...