Quarantine Soul Care: The Rhythm of Encouragement

Relationship in the body of Christ is where we grow best. Of course, we must pursue our relationship with God day in and day out as well: having a quiet time in the morning, an intentional time with God, and participating in regular worship. But community is vital for…

Quarantine Soul Care: Loving One Another

Jesus longed for his disciples to know from personal experience the joy of sharing in his Father’s love. It was this love that sustained Jesus in life and death; it would be this very same love that would sustain his friends in life and death as well…

Quarantine Soul Care: Be Kind and Not Resentful

Like wind and rain that erodes rock little by little, daily life exacts a toll. Resources are depleted. Buffers wear thin. Slights, once brushed off, laid aside to press on with the tasks at hand, now sting deeply as life closed in…

Finding Sacred Space in the Upper Room

Sunday night. A group of friends huddle inside their upper room, doors locked, afraid. Can you blame them? Two days ago their friend and teacher was brutally and publicly executed. No wonder they’re hiding. I doubt I’ll ever understand the…

Quarantine Soul Care: Navigating Your Hyperconnected Worlds

Our ever-increasing engagement with technology is deepening neural pathways that make it difficult to maintain practices that are essential for soul care. For example: Our habit of continually switching from one thing to another on our device…

Quarantine Soul Care: Healthy Feelings, Properly Ordered

Feelings are a primary blessing and a primary problem for human life. We cannot live without them and we can hardly live with them. Hence they are also central for spiritual formation in the Christian tradition. Feelings live on the front row of our lives like…

One Church’s 3 Priorities During COVID-19

Lewis, Clark, and the Corps of Discovery explored their way towards the Pacific with an overarching belief: to find a river flowing westward was the ticket to success. Imagine their shock when they saw the Rocky Mountains. Instead of navigating waterways, they’d…

Quarantine Soul Care: Being Saved Still

A perfect new luna, sitting alone in the dark, will make you hold your breath. God made fancier moths but none more ethereal. Lunas are like sea glass or frost on the first two weeks of a garden. They are like Rivendell and powdered sugar. Their wing tails cross at the ends like lace-trimmed sock ankles on…

Quarantine Soul Care: Change Your Thought Patterns

When rain falls on a hill, the water drains off. How does it drain off? In rivulets. Initially, they are just small rivulets, but each time rain falls, the rivulets cut deeper and deeper. They can become deep chasms.
Now let’s compare these rivulets with thought patterns in our minds. The longer we think along any given line…

Quarantine Soul Care: Resist the Edit Button

“Hannah rose” (1 Samuel 1:9, ESV). What does it mean to get up off the couch when you are still hopeless? What does it mean to wait without being passive?
The Hebrew word … quwm … means “to rise up” or “to stand up.” It can also mean…