For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church”. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave We have unrealistic expectations regarding how our church experience should be unfold. The church is where I least (or at least used to) expect to be hurt. Perhaps we expect attack and have our defenses up when we are out in the “world” but are extra vulnerable to attack at church. For example, you likely would not hurt a boxer if you took a swing at him in the ring. He would be wary, fists up and ready to defend and respond. You might hurt that
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For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church”. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave Eugene Peterson argues that the main difference today is not how much people are hurting, but how much they expect to be relieved from their hurting.  Few in the church have taken victimhood to the subterranean level that Romanian Sandu Tudose achieved. When his wife ran off with another man the seventy-four year old man vowed to spend the rest of his life in a hole in the ground. His underground ode to bitterness is located in the town of Mera, Romania and is outfitted with
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For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church”. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave   English writer Charles Kingsley wrote, “If you wish to be miserable, you must think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, and what respect people ought to pay you. Then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch; you will make sin and misery out of everything God sends you.” That is painful to apply to my personal life. I sometimes try to imagine how I would respond if I were a disinterested third party listening to my own
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For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave (Yesterday I mentioned a letter from a reader who was not a big fan of mine and my fellow Christians. Here is that letter) I cannot grant the courtesy of credit since the reviewer identified themselves only as a “reader from Wayland, Ma”. I will reproduce the comments along with a sampling of some typical reactions I have to criticism when I shift into victim mode. “Burchett (as is the case with virtually all his co-religionists) (What the heck is a co-religionist?) misses the point: it
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For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from“Bring’em Back Alive” – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave (Click here to read first installment) All of us can acknowledge intellectually that the offending shepherds and sheep will be held accountable for their actions before a Holy and righteous judge. But that is a difficult concept to embrace when you are hurting. And there is that other factor that we cannot forget. C.S. Lewis wrote that we tend to treat Satan one of two ways…we either take him too seriously or we ignore his influence altogether. In this case I am going to suggest that we
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For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive” – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood. Blessings, Dave  “As scarce as truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.”  Josh Billings In this chapter I am going to take a plunge into truth that I pray will be woven lovingly into a tapestry of humility and grace. I will confess that writing this chapter filled me with more fear and trembling than any topic I have yet tackled (except politics). I pray that my tone will reflect the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath and that I will “Do No Harm.”  If I
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Remember the Gilda Radner character, Rosann Rosannadanna, from the early SNL days? She would always shake her head and proclaim, “It’s always somethin’.”  That is how I feel today as I am fielding e-mails from readers who are getting a weird message instead of the daily dose of Bad Christian ramblings. We recently did a little facelift (website only) and apparently something got changed in the settings. Super Webhero Robin believes he has fixed the issue and you should have a fresh-baked blog in your mailbox tomorrow. Sorry for the hassle. Thanks for caring enough to let me know. Blessings, Dave
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