When you see beautiful things growing amid ugliness, not only surviving but thriving, doesn’t it amaze you? Does the picture above make you think of how that truth has at times been the same for you in your life? Do you sometimes feel like that flower growing in the midst of a broken mess, maybe […]

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In his book, The Land Between, author Jeff Manion uses the story of the Israelites’ forty-year journey through the Sinai Desert as a metaphor for being in a time of testing, a trial. After generations of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites travel through the wilderness (the land between) toward the Promised Land. They crave the […]

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God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3 At the last Living Room meeting in Burnaby, someone […]

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Jesus told the following parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store […]

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SPIRITUAL SUPPORT I’ve focused a lot on the needs of people with mental health conditions for spiritual support via Open Door groups. But today I realize that in the situation the world is experiencing today, there are far more people who could use such support. Open Door could offer opportunities for all of us—to voice […]

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. . . WITH HIS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE Along with the rest of the world I’m deeply distressed about what is happening in the world today. And some of the people who are most being affected are those I care about—people who have suffered rejection. For some of them – the greatest rejection possible. I’m remembering […]

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  HIS LOVE IS FOR ALL His unconditional love is extended to all, and it is this love upon which the Open Door is founded. Everyone is welcome to enjoy it. Followers of Christ should be the first to rejoice in seeing their Lord’s love spread out to all who need it, even to those […]

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At Open Door it is not necessary for participants to accept the divine nature of Jesus as the Son of God. They most need to hear about the man he was 2000 years ago during his ministry on earth. Simply the man who did and said wonderful things—the man who was kind and spent time […]

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WHAT IS IT? Spiritual mental health support had its beginnings in 2006 when I founded the faith-based Living Room peer support ministry. This was at a time when the Christian Church knew very little about mental health and those with symptoms were often made to feel ashamed, told that there was a problem with their […]

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The following piece was written from the perspective of a person needing care. Have you ever needed care in the way this person did? How would you like to have someone like the Samaritan looking after you? Can you imagine how good it would be to have someone like him—someone so much like Jesus—taking care […]

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