Party time!

Party time!

  • Posted on November 14, 2016
  • /Under Welcoming
We in the West live with annual rhythms like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, the Super-Bowl, and other national times of celebration, but by and large we have forgotten the ancient art—the practice—of weekly celebration, of deep hospitality, through which God can extend His blessing to the world. The party is his way of helping us to remember Him and keep Him first, but it is also the way God teaches us to live and reach the world. For the Halters, parties were all we had. Or at least all we were left with. Although we felt called to a more traditional...Read more …
Prayer: one of a believer’s most loving actions

Prayer: one of a believer’s most loving actions

  • Posted on November 11, 2016
  • /Under Loving
God has been wooing us to himself since the beginning. Here’s how The Message puts it: Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son…. It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for....Read more …
On the Radio – Walk the Way

On the Radio – Walk the Way

  • Posted on November 9, 2016
  • /Under Loving
This is Walk the Way with Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. At about 8:30 every morning, over the top of my computer and out my front window, I see people from all walks of life heading to their English class at the church a few blocks down. They are refugees– from Eretria and Congo and Burundi. Nepal, Burma and India. Iraq and Iran. Croatia. Thailand. Just to name a few. Walking down the sidewalk in front of my house. Refugees are, by definition, people who’ve been forcibly displaced from their homeland. The literal and figurative road they travel—by foot,...Read more …
3 ways to change this holiday season

3 ways to change this holiday season

  • Posted on November 7, 2016
  • /Under Loving
Please don’t let this alarm you, but Thanksgiving, the big “kick-off” of the holiday season, is right. Around. The corner. No worries, we’ll pause while you scream. Take a breath. Breathe. There you go, that’s it. Done now? Dysfunctional relationships, families, and all the shopping that begins immediately after that last bite of pumpkin pie can just about rob even the merriest person of all their “merry.” So what can change? Well, as the late great poet Maya Angelou once said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” And that’s precisely what we can do—we can proactively...Read more …
Let questions drive your spiritual conversations

Let questions drive your spiritual conversations

Becky Pippert, author of 11 books, including the ground-breaking book on evangelism, Out of the Saltshaker, describes an exchange she had with a fellow passenger in a recent blog: I recently had a lively conversation with a woman next to me on a flight. “Listen,” she said, “if I want to be a man on Monday and a woman on Wednesday—who cares? Gender identity is simply a matter of personal preference.” She said she believes in the essential goodness of human nature, so I asked how she’d describe the state of the world: “The world is clearly falling apart. It’s a mess!”  “But how is...Read more …
On the Radio – Walk the Way

On the Radio – Walk the Way

This is Walk the Way with Jeff Klein. It’s been said that curiosity is what keeps a conversation going. Listen to what the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein once said: “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” That’s an interesting way to put it! When applying the idea of holy...Read more …
The power of showing up

The power of showing up

Influence. It’s something everyone wants, right? But how does someone become a person of influence? According to Reggie Joiner, influence comes when you decide to become “a consistent presence in someone else’s life so you can earn their trust.” He’d contend that it all boils down to showing up. If you’d ask him how he developed his view on this subject, he’d tell you he learned it from Geneva Bray. Influence Begins with Empathy Geneva Bray was born in 1893. She grew up in rural Georgia and lived most of her life without indoor plumbing.  She never drove, and her...Read more …
5 Simple Tools to improve listening

5 Simple Tools to improve listening

  • Posted on October 28, 2016
  • /Under Listening
  Give yourself permission to take just seven and a half minutes to listen to this TED talk given by Julian Treasure, who says right off the top that we’re “losing our listening.” A man who “lives to listen,” because sound is his passion, Treasure wraps up his short education on the art of listening, saying it’s a skill we can all master, leaving us with 5 ways we can all improve our conscious listening. Silence Spend 3 minutes of the day in total silence. Can’t find that anywhere? Settle for quiet. Silence and quiet can “reset” our ears. The Mixer In an environment where lots of...Read more …
On the radio this week–Walk the Way

On the radio this week–Walk the Way

  • Posted on October 26, 2016
  • /Under Listening
This is Walk the Way, brought to you by Q Place, I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. Someone who I consider a really good listener recently told me that asking questions and listening weren’t always intuitive for her. But a college class in journalism unlocked a whole new world where she learned that people actually want to talk, even when they think they don’t. Every person has a story worth listening to, but getting the teller to share it, just requires: asking open-ended questions. asking follow-up questions. and requesting more explanations. Good interviews require that the question-asker gives the...Read more …
What love means

What love means

  • Posted on October 24, 2016
  • /Under Loving
Shannan Martin grew up in a quiet, rural part of Ohio—“God’s country,” the residents called it. Never in her wildest childhood dream would she have imagined that her definition of “God’s country” would be redefined when she and her family sold their own piece of land in the country and moved to the “wrong side of the tracks” in Goshen, IN. While loving used to look a lot more self-absorbed and self-protective, today we welcome Shannan to Q Place to share what that word means to her and her family now in their daily life. ___________________________ Here’s what I know today...Read more …
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