Intentional Choices: Home for the Holidays
By: Kristen Neighbarger Published on: 13/12/2023When I was a kid, I knew what to expect every Christmas. We had very specific traditions that followed me into adulthood: On Christmas Eve, we went to my grandparents’ house on my mom’s side with my mom’s entire family. We had pizza, read the Christmas story, Santa came with gifts, and my mom passed out pans of cinnamon rolls to each family. On Christmas Day, we woke up, opened presents, and ate cinnamon rolls before going to my grandparents’ house on my dad’s side for lunch and presents. On Christmas evening, we went to my aunt’s house to celebrate with her family (the same family we had just spent Christmas Eve with!) There was little to no deviation in these Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditions throughout my adolescence and into my early adulthood. There was comfort in these traditions–comfort in the fact that my family seemed to genuinely get along, liked spending time together, and was committed to continuing these long-established rituals.
Fruit of the Church: Fruit of the Spirit
By: Kristen Neighbarger Published on: 27/09/2023I have strong feelings about church hurt, spiritual abuse, toxic faith communities, hate masquerading as love, and churches spewing faulty theology. It grinds my gears, to say the least. Whenever I see a new documentary that seeks to expose these things in churches, I find myself drawn to them, and I never have to look far because it seems like every few months there’s a new series, podcast, or book that highlights spiritual abuse. I first got sucked in when Christianity Today highlighted “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” From there, it was like an onslaught of information from other sources. From “The Way Down” to “The Secrets of Hillsong” to “Shiny Happy People,” the litany of spiritual abuse tales never seemed to end. To be completely honest with you, I think there’s a large population of people who don’t know how to process these documentaries or podcasts, and I get that. It’s so much easier to see these stories and to think, “That would never happen here” or that these are isolated incidents in megachurches. It’s easier to attempt to put distance between ourselves and these stories than to realize these same scenarios are playing out in churches down the road from us every week.
Church Boundaries: Healthy Relationships
By: Kristen Neighbarger Published on: 31/05/2023My name is Kristen, and I’m a recovering serve-aholic It’s taken me several years to be able to unravel the threads and get to the roots of my serving addiction, but I finally arrived at these core beliefs I’ve spent the last few years attempting to unlearn: If I didn’t do it, who would do it? If I didn’t do it, someone would be disappointed in me. If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done well. If I didn’t do it, I would be letting people down. If I didn’t do it, my church would suffer. If I didn’t do it, God would be disappointed in me. If I didn’t do it, God would punish me. If I didn’t do it, I wasn’t being like Jesus. If I didn’t do it, people would think I was lazy, not committed, and selfish. Honestly, this list could go on and on. As I think back over the years I spent killing myself through serving, it’s almost laughable to me now because, seriously, what the heck was I even thinking?
