Nick Burns wrote this blog. He has just joined our team as a mentor and professional supervisor. He brings a wealth of experience in Christian leadership and his authentic judgement freestyle enables reflection, growth and personal development. Nick joining our team helps us expand our service in professional supervision. His addition to our team is a blessing. Nick writes….. Over

Emotional Abuse-Blog 4 Residual Feelings We have reached the last post in our series on dealing with emotional abuse: handling residual feelings. We have been looking specifically at situations with acquaintances and strangers, not focusing on intimate relationships. These encounters, no matter how brief or random, can be traumatic. We have examined reacting, reflecting and recovering from these uncomfortable encounters,

Emotional Abuse Blog 3 Recovering Here at Verve Lead, we are in the middle of a series examining how to handle emotional abuse from people around us, specifically situations with acquaintances and strangers, rather than intimate relationships. We’ve looked at how to respond in the moment of an angry blow-up, and how to reflect and process that situation. Today, we

Reflecting In our last blog, we began diving into how to handle that moment when you find yourself on the receiving end of an angry blow-up. There are very few moments where it is appropriate to scream at someone, especially at someone you do not know well. Still, almost everyone has experienced some unjustified or irrational rage directed at them. 

Responding  We have all found ourselves in a situation where someone who feels entirely justified goes off at us. They might have yelled, accused us of things we didn’t do, perhaps even called us names or threatened us, making us feel uncomfortable, angry, frightened, or all of these at once. The circumstances may differ; it might be a stranger screaming

As Christians, we know that God loves it when we pray individually. However, He also encourages us to pray together as prayer by yourself can sometimes miss an element of depth. Praying by yourself is still good, but it is even more special when it’s shared with others. I certainly don’t want to discourage individual prayer. However, it benefits not

When We Join Together in Prayer Being able to talk with God through prayer is such an extraordinary gift, which we can share with others. In order to experience and develop a rich prayer life, engage with others, as confirmed in Jesus’ words: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” – Matthew

Build a Strong Foundation Building a relationship with God on the basis of feeling obligated isn’t wrong, but if it is the sole motivator then it’s not sustainable for a healthy lifestyle. It’s like reading the Bible—I do this because I want to spend time with God, not because of duty. Sometimes religious duty can bring a sense of dullness

To Hear God In order to connect with God on a regular basis we need to position ourselves to hear and accept his words. We often assume this means dedicating time for prayer once a day and reading the Bible. Yes, this is the place to begin—quietly praying and reading. But there are other helpful things we can do to