Church Conflict

What if reconciliation is not a secondary issue in the gospel, but at its very heart? Churches divide, marriages fracture, and new congregations are planted not out of vision, but out of unresolved conflict. This raises a deeper question: have we lacked a robust theology of reconciliation, and...

This book needs to be in the hands of every pastor, church leader, counselor, consultant, mediator, and leader in higher education, organizations, the workplace, and any other place where there are two or more people having two or more opinions. Its goal is to help a congregation or organization build inner resources that could stabilize life together and produce a more adequate and stable organization for the future.

You are invited to witness the enormous power of the early church when it connected to the ultimate power. Then you are invited to request and experience it for yourself. You will again witness the enormous power of the early church as you listen to The Acts of the Apostles, a remarkable commentary on the book of Acts. Then you are invited to request it and experience it for yourself and your church.

Those who want to avoid simplistic partisan rhetoric and use words in a challenging, spirited way need practical strategies. This audiobook offers a range of them. Drawing upon the work of exemplary contemporary writers, Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict shows how to speak and write clearly and generously.

As people face addictions, deal with loss and grief, and seek help in restoring broken relationships, where can they turn for counsel and assistance? The local church has been uniquely blessed with the gift of the gospel and is able to offer hope and counsel that no other institution on earth...

Modern Conflicts: In the Light of the Church Fathers is not a book about political disputes, social polarization, or ideological battles, although all of these inevitably appear in the book. It is a book about the deepest and most painful conflicts of the modern human being — conflicts that unfold not primarily between people, but within the human heart itself.

According to one song, “today is only yesterday’s tomorrow” - which means that tomorrow starts today! But we aren’t going to see our future by looking at the past. Yes, we need to celebrate and honor what has brought us to where we are. However, it will not be enough to get us to what God has in store. We need to let go of the old to receive the new.

Change and conflict are often feared in churchesbut they don't need to be. When we learn to see these difficulties as normal, healthy parts of being a community, it is much easier to navigate them with a minimum of anxiety and bad behavior. We are able to let go of our fears and face change and conflict as catalysts for moving forward in the mission of showing God's love and justice to the world. In fact, there is no way to move forward in mission without change and conflict.

It has been famously pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, but it was also not an empire in the sense people expect when hearing the term. In theory, the emperor was the highest prince in Christendom, and his dominion extended the length and breadth of Western Europe. The empire had been created by the papacy in 801 when Pope Leo III famously crowned the supposedly unwitting Charlemagne in Saint Peter’s Basilica, intending to recreate the Western Roman Empire. In truth, the imperial power did not extend beyond central Europe.