by Dale and Juanita Ryan Imagine you are transferring the ownership of your life to God in the same way you would transfer ownership of a business. One of the first things you would do in negotiating to sell a business would be to take an inventory to discover the damaged or out-of-date goods that are no longer salable. In Step Four we call it a "moral" inventory because we compile a list of … [Read more...] about Step Four
Search Results for: shame
Beyond Victimization
by Carmen Renee Berry As is so often the case, the flash of insight that changed my life happened almost accidently. Certainly unexpectedly. While packing to attend a specialized training for urban ministry a few years ago, I threw in a copy of a book that a friend had recommended. I don't know why I even brought the book along; my frantic work style as a social worker specializing in child … [Read more...] about Beyond Victimization
Cleaning House: Confession and Sexual Addiction
by William R. Until shortly over six years ago, I was unwilling to concede to my inner most self that I was a sex addict. That recognition did not fully come until I accepted the fact that I belonged in a 12 Step group for people in recovery from sexual addiction. Here I found people who understood the nature of the problem that had plagued me for thirty-two years. Here were people who had … [Read more...] about Cleaning House: Confession and Sexual Addiction
Dealing with Your Dark Side: Part 1
by Patrick Means Albert Einstein once said, "For every problem, there is a solution which is simple, logical, straight-forward, and wrong." Surely that axiom is nowhere truer than in the case of how we Christians deal with our dark side (or rather, how we don't deal with it). By "dark side" I mean that side of us that we would rather no one ever knows about, the side that seems determined … [Read more...] about Dealing with Your Dark Side: Part 1
Four Kinds of Moral Inventory
by James Ryan Moral inventory shapes our understanding of ourselves, which in turn shapes our relationship with God. Some styles of inventory ask us to take a hard look at our character defects, and this can create a powerful sense of our need for God. Other styles of inventory encourage us to look not just at our shortcomings but at our strengths as well, and so the sense of need for God is … [Read more...] about Four Kinds of Moral Inventory
Grace for Dummies
by Jeff VanVonderen It makes me nervous to talk about grace. The good news is so good that I can hardly believe it most of the time, and so big that I can hardly talk about it. The truth is that I feel worse about grace than I do about my sin. Knowing who I am and what I’ve done, I can look at my sin easily, but grace is hard for me to look at. It’s hard to look at, so it’s hard to talk about, … [Read more...] about Grace for Dummies
Holy Hunger
An Interview with Margaret Bullitt-Jonas Margaret Bullitt-Jonas is the author of Holy Hunger: A Memoir of Desire (New York: Knopf, 1999). She is an Episcopal priest who serves as Associate Rector of All Saints Parish, Brookline, Mass., and as a Lecturer at Episcopal Divinity School. … [Read more...] about Holy Hunger
The Jesus Who Didn’t Please Others
by Peter Robbins and Kevin Downing Jesus Christ was a tremendous disappointment to almost everyone who knew and loved him at one time or another. He was a Savior who never freed God's people from the oppressive Roman rule. Jesus was a Chosen One who began to wipe out human hunger with five loaves of bread and two fish, but who quickly gave it up. Jesus was a Christ who could have … [Read more...] about The Jesus Who Didn’t Please Others
Spiritual Brokenness in Recovery
by Dale Ryan I did not expect my relationship with God to be difficult. Quite to the contrary, one of the first things I learned about the Christian faith as a young child was that "every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before." I learned a series of songs about this. I remember singing about being "hap, hap, happy all the live-long-day", "all the burdens of my heart rolled away," and … [Read more...] about Spiritual Brokenness in Recovery
The Recovery Church
an interview with Don Smith Another development in the last decade has been the emergence of Recovery Churches. These are not just churches that have added recovery groups to their other programming but are churches that seek somehow to make recovery a central feature of their identity. The specifics vary from congregation to congregation. We talked to Don Smith, pastor of Christian … [Read more...] about The Recovery Church