Have you ever felt alone? Maybe you have been by yourself when you wished you were others, or maybe you were with your family, or even at a party with co-workers or friends, but... you still felt alone.
There are wonderful benefits of knitting – intricate scarves, bright-colored beanies, warm gloves, cozy blankets, beautiful sweaters. But for many, the product is not the purpose behind this pastime. For countless knitters, the repetitive and rhythmic motions necessary to form a fabric by looping a continuous string of yarn brings great relaxation...
If you have walked as a Christian and been a student of the Bible for any length of time, you have at some point come to learn that ‘the Body of Christ’ is a metaphor used to represent the Church. In at least four of his letters, the Apostle Paul uses this term to communicate the unity and oneness of all believers. The term also communicates our dependence on Jesus, our Head, and our connectedness and interdependence on one another. This life in Christ is not a solo affair...
The moment my fingers finished typing the sentence, it struck me. I had simply done what I so often do, encourage those with whom I’m communicating to “Shepherd well”. But after that sentence in a text I had sent separately to 70 individuals, out it came, seemingly from nowhere, but knowingly from the Holy Spirit: “Everyone needs a good shepherd.” Shepherd well. Everyone needs a good shepherd...
As I recently worked my way through Psalm 128, I could not help but see the beauty of blessing and this psalm’s simple but deep exhortation to fear the Lord and follow Him. Originally meant as a song for pilgrims to sing on their way to Jerusalem, these six verses spoke into my soul.
We all possess it. The capacity to affect the character, development, thinking, or behavior of another. Our challenge is not whether we influence others, but how. Followers of Christ have a divine responsibility to live in a manner worthy of their calling – to live, lead, and love as He did and as the Father admonished the leaders of Israel through the prophets hundreds of years before...
“Sheep are dumb.” We almost always hear this comment or something similar stated as common knowledge by a participant at some point during a Shepherd Leadership workshop. But are they? Really?
“Ever wonder what heaven on earth looks like?” Those are the first words on the home page of the Camp Levi website, an event for families affected by disability that takes place annually at a beautiful retreat center on the Oregon coast. For one week every summer, these families gather to be encouraged, celebrated, and given a respite from the unique challenges that physical and developmental disabilities require in their daily lives...
“Faith and fear cannot coexist.” If I heard that reminder from my spiritual mentor, Helen Patterson, once I heard it a thousand times over the course of the 20+ years that she gently, consistently, and faithfully shepherded me. One of us with a conservative spiritual background, the other with more Pentecostal leanings. One of us young, the other with a full head of white hair. One of us neat and tidy, the other a bit scattered (but never showing it!)...
We recently paused to reflect on I Corinthians 1:9 – “God is faithful; you were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” There is no question that our primary and most essential calling as Christians is into a full, no barriers relationship with our God. Yet there seems to be more....
It was 6:15 AM, and as I walked the streets near my home, passing purple-blue hydrangeas and lavender buzzing with bumblebees, I was thinking about calling. Calling was on my mind for more than one reason. The Presence Point tag line, Live Into Your Calling, was one of course. A note I jotted into my journal a few weeks before was another. At the time, I was cataloguing some concepts I wanted to understand better. “What is a true, biblical understanding of calling?”
Have you ever felt like the lamb who couldn’t quite lift up your eyes to see the Good Shepherd? Jenna, from Blessed is She did ... and then she looked up. May her post – and looking up – do for you what it did for her. May you be blessed as the sheep of His pasture today...
While working my way through Seedbed’s series on the book of Acts, a number of J.D. Walt’s devotionals had captured my attention. I was hungry to hear the new addition to his series each morning, so I was not surprised when one particular recording left me wanting to share his challenge. That specific day his words had prompted me to think of the Presence Point team encounters who tell us of the good and godly shepherds they had in their lives whose influence led them to life transformation...
"He started something good, and I’m gonna believe it. He started something good, and He’s gonna complete it. So, I’ll celebrate the truth. His work in me ain’t through. I’m just unfinished. I’m just unfinished. So, I’ll celebrate the truth. His work in me ain’t through. I’m just unfinished." These are the lyrics I heard as I reached the crest of a hill on a beautiful spring morning walk. My view at that moment, combined with Mandisa belting out “Unfinished” from the iPhone strapped around my waist, stopped me in my tracks...
It is a remarkable work of the Holy Spirit when you study a passage you have read for years and discover principles found within it in a new and different light. Those moments are both reminders of the depth and richness of God’s Word and a prompt to be fully tuned in to the Father when digging into His Word. I am not sure why I saw the famous “Come to Me” passage differently on this particular morning, but I suspect it was because the Holy Spirit had been speaking loudly to me about the need for and importance of rest...
