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All congregations experience crises, transitions, and conflicts. Worship will be affected by these difficult times, and can be the place where healing begins and continues.

A service of lessons and carols that invites people to approach Advent and Christmas with songs that sing about both forgiveness and justice, healing and correction, personal serenity and cultural reconciliation, human flourishing and the flourishing of all creation.

Christian leaders, especially pastors, sometimes feel bad about the gap between their ideal of Christlike ministry and the reality. Pastor Mandy Smith explains that honestly accepting vulnerabilities and human limitations makes room for God’s strength to be revealed in people and congregations.

Duane Kelderman preached and presented at the Soul Repair Center’s first congregational consultation on helping veterans heal from moral injury. In this edited conversation from April 2013, he gives the basics for understanding moral injury.

Miroslav Volf knows how difficult reconciliation can be. His books speak of Religious commitment that promotes peace, not violence. A feature story exploring new ways to think about worship and living as Christians in a violent world.

Ethnic diversity is all around us in North America, and congregations can deepen their faith and grow their numbers by getting to know refugees and immigrants.

Laotian refugees and the Christians who befriended them are surprised at how God has joined together people and churches from different languages, religious assumptions, and life experiences. A feature story exploring the stories of Laotian refugees who have started and joined churches.

Providing charitable support and development assistance to people in need can and does work, but, like any important activity, we must learn how to do it well.

A worship service plan flowing from the statement that Christian faith "can be found in the deepest despair and at the greatest joy." Habakkuk reminds us that true faith does not ignore life's problems, but meets them head on.

A list of thoughts, suggestions and resources compiled in response to the tsunami tragedy of 2004--these are posted in the hope they will guide you in crafting some manner in which your group or congregation can appropriately respond to such events in worship.