Rest is Not a Reward for Productivity

It’s a new year and now is the time we hear a lot about “A new year, a new you!” The holiday season in the West is focused on activities, concerts, parties and getting as much done as one can to prepare for guests or to be out of the office. All this preparation is important to us for various reasons. For some, it can be a desire to celebrate the season with others. For others, there can be a desire to impress others or be perceived a certain way by hosting these activities, leading them, or landing that final ...

Author Q&A: The Whole Life: 52 Weeks of Biblical Self-Care

Today's guest post is an author interview with Counselors and Co-Authors, Eliza Huie and Esther Smith about their new book, The Whole Life: 52 Weeks of Biblical Self-Care. Eliza Huie, MA, LCPC, is the Director of Counseling at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA and the Dean of Biblical Counseling at Metro Baltimore Seminary. She is the author of Raising Teens in a Hyper-Sexualized World and Raising Kids in a Screen-Saturated World and is the coauthor of The Whole Life. Esther Smith, MA, is a biblical counselor at Life Counseling Center Ministries and is a licensed clinical professional counselor in the state of Maryland. ...

3 Ways the Pandemic and the Transition Back to “Normal” May Affect Your Teen

Michelle has been on staff with Heart Song Counseling for over 8 years. Prior to moving to the Tampa Bay area, she served as a counselor for Heart Song in Washington, D.C. She received her B.A. in Speech and Communication Studies at Clemson University and her M. Div in Biblical Counseling from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In her spare time, she enjoys running, spending long days at the beach and Clemson football. It’s no secret that the pandemic has impacted our teens in a myriad of ways over the last year. Some teens found themselves back in school full throttle, others ...

Suffering, Part III: Deliverance from Suffering is Not One-Size-Fits-All

Dave Shive lives in Catonsville, MD, and has been married to Kathy for 52 years. They have 3 married children and 11 grandchildren. Dave writes, not as a clinician or therapist, but as a pastor. His thoughts on suffering emerge from his study of the Bible, reading widely, pastoral counseling, and personal experience. This is Part III of a multi-part series on suffering. Have you ever felt like you aren't "getting over" your suffering as fast as someone else? Have you ever felt pressured to move on in your grief by those around you and you just weren't ready yet or ...

Joy Matters

Can you remember a time when something happened that instantly stole your joy? If joy was a scale, what number are you today? 1-10? One being not even on your radar and 10—your cup runneth over with joy.Answer this question. “I’d be full of joy all the time if only ____.” Friends, do you know your joy matters to God? Do you know the Bible has a lot to say about joy? For those of you who are in Christ, do you know that Jesus was inspired and motivated by your future joy?Joy reflects Who you know and what you ...

3 Ways Pastors Can Help Women and Families Experiencing Postpartum Depression

This post originally appeared on Careleader.org March 2018. As a pastor of a congregation with young families you may have small groups, a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) ministry, Awana, and more. Your church may also be blessed to have a meals ministry to help individuals and families after a surgery or birth of a child. Your church is probably well equipped with support ministries for families to help disciple their children and to provide encouragement and teaching for parents. But how equipped are you to minister to families experiencing postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety? Did you know that 1 in 5 women will experience maternal ...

Worship: An Antidote to Anxiety

I don’t know about you, but when I’m struggling with feelings of anxiety or fear, worship is the last thing on my mind. Anxiety is something God’s people have struggled with for a long time with God’s Word on the topics of fear, worry and anxiety going back nearly as far as fear itself. One way that God draws our wandering hearts back to himself is through the gift of musical worship. Sometimes, when I feel too anxious, fearful or worried to read my Bible or find the words to pray, listening to God’s life-giving, truth-speaking, peace-giving Word that stands ...

When Anxiety Takes Over

Today's guest post is written by Pastor, Professor and Missions Mobilizer Dave Shive. He is the author of Night Shift, released in April 2001. Based on Psalm 40:1-3, Night Shift is an easily understood and thoroughly biblical explanation of how God uses affliction to prepare His children for greater usefulness to Him. Since 2009, Dave and Kathy have served as full time mission mobilizers on staff with Frontier Ventures (formerly the US Center for World Mission) in Pasadena, CA. Dave and Kathy have been married for 49 years and live in Catonsville, MD. They have three married children, Dan, Mike, and Becky and are the proud grandparents of 11 grandchildren. You ...

How Discipleship Ministries Enhance Counseling Outcomes

This post originally appeared in Careleader.org Jenna, a twenty-seven-year-old working professional, comes to see you initially for anxiety related to work. She shares with you that she’s been really stressed working sixty-plus hours a week and that it’s starting to take more of a toll on her. Over time, you learn that she has developed an online shopping addiction and accrued thousands of dollars of debt. She is also single and lonely and has become addicted to online porn. Over time, Jenna begins to discover some of the deeper heart issues related to her addictions and anxiety and slowly learns to ...

Alive in Him: How Being Embraced by the Love of Christ Changes Everything [Book Review]

How does God show His extravagant love for His people? What impact and implications does this love demonstrated through His Son’s death and resurrection have on the life of the redeemed soul? What does it look like to go from the walking dead to the walking dead made alive in Him? These are the in-depth questions Gloria Furman dives into as she takes the reader through the book of Ephesians in her book, Alive in Him: How Being Embraced by the Love of Christ Changes Everything. As she states in her intro, “studying Ephesians and its contents is not about making ...