Author: Michael Gembola

Pastoral Care for Infidelity Handout Dec 4 2019 (1) Other resources: Brad Hambrick on marks of change, reasons to bring church discipline to an end: http://bradhambrick.com/churchdiscipline4/ Restoration plan dynamics, e.g., with Ted Haggard: The restoration plan http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/10/haggard.restoration/index.html Early efforts to revise plan https://www.denverpost.com/2007/08/29/haggards-plan-unacceptable/ Ending restoration plan https://abcnews.go.com/Business/ted-haggard-rebuilds-family-starts-church-leaving-sex/story?id=12566080 Minimizing sin, criticizing restoration plan https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704249004575385170843908594 The problem…

There’s a church not far from our Roanoke office that, from one vantage point, looks like it’s tucked at the bottom of Bent Mountain, and heading down 221 South it looks like a painting. I can’t get a picture that comes close to capturing it. Sometimes I drive out of my way to see the…

In the previous post in this series, we explored how parents sometimes struggle with the power they possess in relating to their children on the topics of dating, sex, and marriage. Now we’ll look at a third challenge raised in Joshua Harris’ reflections in the two decades since the release of I Kissed Dating Goodbye….

Handout Outline Finding Refuge and Fighting Sexual Sin – Noble Man Conference 2019 PPT Finding Refuge and Fighting Sexual Sin

Dating and Christian Faith(fulness) Part 2 In the previous post, we looked at some of the course corrections in popular Christian dating advice over the last few years. And one is the challenge many parents experience in how to teach their children and teens how to view dating, romance, sex, and marriage. The problems are…

If you Google “parenting books” you get over 166,000,000 hits; likewise, crowded bookshop shelves are brimming with numerous resources all claiming to have the best ways to parent our children. It’s overwhelming: parents really need advice—Christian parents included. Dr. Bob Kellemen writes in the introduction of his latest book, Raising Kids in the Way of…

It’s not often that you read a book that speaks to you and for you, that asks the questions you ask, and that has a little closer reach toward some answers. But I’m feeling that sense of resonance as my wife and I start reading Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land…

[Editor’s note: posts by D. P. Love are from our intern] The Lord led me through many challenging seasons as a single mother. My son is now grown, and yet the memories of my wrestling with the Lord are fresh. If you are reading this and this is your story, I pray that you will…

The whole dating thing is hard. That’s true (in different ways) at age 15, 25, 35… 65. The reasons abound for the complexity, but certainly cultural circumstances play a role: People are in school for a long time. After school they are in debt. There is pressure to be in relationships but not to get…