Emotionally Healthy Relationships

Use the Community Temperature Reading to discover and express your God-given voice and to build healthy relationships with others. It's about brief sharing in five categories: 1) Express appreciations 2) Use puzzles to avoid negative assumptions 3) Lodge complaints by saying "I notice" and suggest solutions by saying "I prefer" 4) Provide new information and 5) Share your hopes and wishes.

We routinely play God when we make assumptions about another person or interpret a certain behavior without verifying the facts. We need to Stop Mind Reading because making assumptions without checking them out damages friendships, families, and relationship in churches and workplaces. Clarifying Expectations is about eliminating confusion, pain and disappointment over expectations.

Family patterns from the past are played out in our present relationships without us necessarily being aware of it. Track your family patterns with the Genogram to discover the family history that lives inside all of us and is affecting us today. The great news of Christianity is that your family of origin does not determine your future. God does!

Scripture teaches that feelings are a key part of what it means to be made in God's image. Yet, humans are like icebergs: 10 percent is above the surface and visible; 90 percent is below the surface and invisible. When we Explore the Iceberg, we learn 1) unprocessed emotions don't die 2) healthy community requires that people know themselves and 3) feelings help us discern God's voice.

To Listen Incarnationally is to listen at a heart level, with empathy attuned to the words and nonverbal communication of another person, so that person feels felt by you. In unhealthy togetherness, we want another person to think and feel the way we do. In healthy togetherness, we respect each other's separateness, allowing the other to have their own thoughts, feelings, fears and values.

In this video download of session 6, "Climb the Ladder of Integrity," you will learn a skill to help you clarify your values by processing your thoughts and feelings. This video can be used for personal reflection or for group discussion with the coordinating study guide (sold separately).

Unresolved conflicts are one of the greatest tensions in our lives. Instead of risking a broken relationship, we prefer to ignore the difficult issues and settle for a false peace, hoping it will somehow go away. It doesn't. We learn, sooner or later, that you can't build Christ's kingdom on lies and pretense. By Fighting Cleanly you resolve conflict maturely by eliminating dirty fighting tactics.

A Rule of Life is an intentional, conscious plan to keep God at the center of everything we do. It provides guidelines to help us continually remember God as the Source of our lives. It includes our unique combination of spiritual practices that provide structure and direction for us to intentionally pay attention and remember God in everything we do.