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Church Hurts – Past and Present – Finding Resolutions

Christians love one another, right? Well, that’s the theory. Perhaps that’s why church hurts sting more than most when they occur. Not only are relationships tearing at their heart, but there’s the ‘God factor’ ripping through the divide.

Typical exasperated voices that traverse minds of hurt hearts:

1. “How could this happen to (or ‘in’) a church?”

2. “Why would they treat me this way?” says the exiting pastor, knowing no other trade (nor calling in life) than ministry, blindsided by a fickle church vote that ousts him/her.

3. “When did my pastor suddenly decide he/she doesn’t like me?”

Pastors and church leaders are particularly susceptible to hurts – due their commitment and situations of congregants lacking appreciation – but they affect everyone who attends a place, and comes to a community, where trust is supposed to be easy; a ‘given’. Those hurt find their trust displaced for resentment that clings fast. Trust can’t be manufactured.

When Church Hurts

The present-tense is handled first. How difficult is it to remain somewhere that’s not welcoming? And the feeling of ‘welcome’ is a felt-thing. We feel welcome (and loved) or we don’t.

Honesty and courage (honesty being a manifestation of courage) is vital. If honesty is not possible, for whatever reason, it makes situations intolerable. But how many tolerate the intolerable? Sometimes there’s no fix other than to start afresh – so long as we’re not continually church-shopping.

Being honest with a godly leadership is a way through, provided what goes with it is a mature approach to problem-solve. Transgressions (both ways) can be apologised for and forgiven. Ways forward can then be discussed.

Still, there are situations that are just plain difficult with no solution in sight.

Resolving Past Hurts – the Past

Churches are not just made up of Christians, but fallible, hurt-worthy human beings. Not only have people perhaps been hurt by churches and experiences with Christians, everyone has their share of brokenness that’s brought to the table. Dealing with hurt adults is not unlike dealing with children. We’re ‘back there’ in a flash.

‘Sandpaper ministry’ might sound like a character-building exercise, but when hurts are retained – and the temptation is always there – our experience of implicit trust goes south, and with it the intimacy of rapport.

Any time vacant thought about these experiences bridges minds it reinforces the damage. The deep though unvoiced emotion unfolds repetitively – thousands of times. A spiral of hurt attends. The trap is laid.

Awareness and Action

Making something of the hurt and doing something about it also requires honesty and courage – humility driving it. The only way out of these situations (when we’re ready) is through a hard-nosed push to break clear. Admitting the hurt is an important first step (and if someone feels hurt, they’re hurt).

Action is involving others. It’s trusting trustworthy people to share with. Not tolerating the wrangling hurt one second longer than necessary; that’s action.

But balanced with the action is gentility. Compassion is always the key; from those supporting, and for those hurt to be able to have the utmost compassion on themselves during the process.

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5 Must-Knows About Making a Strong Presentation

If your position requires you to frequently conduct presentations, there is no argument that you must know how to give a presentation persuasively. There is also no barney that strong business presentation skills and steep career growth are directly proportional. However, public speaking is consistently ranked as the number one fear that people harbor.

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Jerry Seinfeld

From my experience of conducting presentation skills training program for over 1000 people, I have identified 5 tips that will help you to convert your fear to positive energy:

1. Be Organized: A good presentation begins with raw data and well- researched information and is augmented by personal opinion and colourful language. In short, a successful presentation has a distinct personality that’s structured and timed extremely well.

2. Remember The Three C’s: When you’re making a presentation, you must remember to speak with confidence, clarity and conviction. While nervousness is justified, it’s worth remembering that as the presenter, you’re the one who has control over the room, so everything you talk about must exude confidence and conviction. If you don’t believe in what you’re talking about, neither will anyone else. And remember to enunciate!

3. Make it Personal: If you’ve ever watched a TED Talk, you’ll have noticed that very few things work as well as a story does. Oral traditions and story-telling cultures continue to thrive to this day because as human beings, we connect with each other through the stories we share. To keep things interesting, and the audience engaged, support your presentations with your own anecdotal evidence. Share the process, the results and what you’ve learned from them, and for added measure, use humour to drive home the point you’re trying to make.

4. Review the Details: Deliverance is always in the details. If you’re using visual aids and slides, remember to keep things subtle. Pick a background colour that’s not too loud or too bright and use simple, sans-serif fonts. The idea is to make the audience focus on you and the information you’re sharing, not distract them from what really matters. By the way, skip the bells and whistles as well. While it’s tempting to add in graphics and fades between slides, there is such a thing as overkill.

5. Practice, practice, practice: And then go back and practice some more. Regardless of whether you’re an expert in your field or know all the statistics like the back of your hand, stage fright is a very real thing. The more you practice, the more familiarity you’ll develop with your content and be able to time it better. This is the time to decide whether you’ll want to leave room for audience questions or go straight through to the end.

Of course, if you are still stymied, signing up for soft-skills training with a focus on corporate presentation skills training will help you immensely in gaining the confidence you need. There are several organizations out there that offer these training courses, so do not hesitate to ask for help at the right time.

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My Lender Says I Will Have No Expenses: Should I Refinance My Mortgage At The Present?

The topic “Should I Refinance My Mortgage” is often extremely inviting if your loan provider presents it with no charges. You know, remortgage without any fees including appraisal costs, no-refi charges from your loan company and this is the topping on this cake, the new offered monthly interest is 5% and you are at the moment having to pay 6.5%. Hence it seems sensible to move forward and make it happen, correct? Basically, there is in fact even more than you would think in this particular circumstance. Firstly, you’ve paid on the 30 yr set for just around two years currently and with this new mortgage loan that is going to start out all over; where you started. But will the sun drop from the sky if you’re going to be repaying one-hundred per month less with the all new rate? So, the dilemma still remains to be, should I refinance my mortgage?

No Fee Refinance

What exactly is a no cost refinance and could there be really this sort of thing? As the good old motto goes, anything at all way too good to be true likely isn’t really probably true and here I will discuss why. Suppose it requires $2,900 in total to be able to refinance and you slice $100 per month off your current month-to-month payment, you are going to pay back for 25 months well before your costs are recouped. Just over 2 years. If the plans are to remain in the residence for twenty-five months it follows that you have gotten to where you started. Move out just before this particular point and you’ve lost funds. Each and every month subsequently after month twenty-five and you happen to be in front of the curve by $100. So exactly why am I letting you know all this, after all we have been checking out a no fee refinance mortgage loan, correct.

An Actual No Charge Refinance

I got a no charge refinance around two years ago and found out the hard way that generally there really is no such event. Here’s how it checked out:

Title Insurance coverage: $950

Title Searches: $120.00

Title Endorsements: $175.00

Recording Charges $196.00

City/County Levy Stamps $ 500.00

State Duty Stamps: $975.00

Credit history record: $34.00

Escrow Fee: $165.00

Overnight Mail: $55.00

Even free of the home loan company charging a single penny intended for their pockets, the actual refi cost ended up being in excess of three grand. Now I did have that rolled in to the brand new mortgage and therefore experienced no out of pocket financial outlay nonetheless that did raise my payment amount slightly and at the end, three thousand big ones is three-thousand dollars. You can uncover that dependent on wherever you are the sums may possibly adjust a bit but these service fees are generally common aka established through Laws. There is absolutely no negotiating, bargaining, special offers or anything at all like that.

So, should I refinance my mortgage or maybe better yet really should you? Assuming that you’ve got an accurate snapshot of what a genuine no fee refinance will involve it might still be beneficial.

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