With Dr. Bruce Hartung This month’s “Pressure Points” offers several reader responses to previous columns. Concerning the August column on social media (at http://reporter.lcms.org/?20229): [Facebook] really is … a giant place where friends bid for connection to each other. Occasionally,…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung This month’s “Pressure Points” addresses two perspectives on the same theme, from different vantage points. Q: Have you ever heard of anything like this? … Some members of our church that hold elected positions are trying…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: Politics has put some rough edges on family and church relationships. People in our church have some very different political views. They support different candidates. But what makes it really hard is that they attack…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Over the last months I have received a number of communications from column readers concerning vocational change. Successful changes — although not without some struggle and heartache — have been reported by teachers (who have left…

This month’s column is in response to the July “Pressure Points” concerning spiritual warfare. To read the July column online, go to http://reporter.lcms.org/?20138. One reader responded to that column with what follows. I think your answer covered a lot of…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: Again and again I see the young people in our youth group at church on their cell phones. I think they are texting because they are not doing much talking into their phones. Even when…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: I was following some of your previous columns on “spiritual warfare.” They got me wondering if some of what I am going through is that. When I have previously thought of “spiritual war-fare” I have…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: Our congregation has called a new director of Christian education who is beginning with us this summer. A good friend of mine is in another LCMS congregation that is having a couple new Lutheran schoolteachers…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Two questions with similar concerns came to “Pressure Points” over the last two months. Those questions and my answers follow.  Q: There are few polite ways to tell you what is going on in our church. We…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung The last two columns related to spiritual warfare elicited a number of different reflections on ways that readers have fought in this battle, as well as suggestions they offer as encouragement for others. To read February’s…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung This column continues the discussion of the February 2012 “Pressure Points” concerning spiritual warfare, which is available at http://reporter.lcms.org/?19589. Following are two responses to last month’s column (both in italics), and my comments about each of…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: Jeffrey Means in his book Trauma and Evil describes silence as a form of evil. Evil! Our silence in speaking out against evil can be considered a sin of omission when our voices need to…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Several readers responded to last month’s “Pressure Points,” which is online at http:reporter.lcms.org/?19421.  The first response below is from the anonymous writer who asked the question that began the discussion in the December column. R: I…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: I write this question to you anonymously. … I am scared. My church job is in jeopardy and this is why. I am getting more and more anxious about going to work. Every day frightens…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Q: Our pastor is pretty protective about matters concerning the church.  Regardless of who is in the office, the pastor answers the phone.  He sees the mail first and distributes it. Sometimes we do not even hear…

With Dr. Bruce Hartung Following are two separate readers’ comments and two others’ questions. Comment: I know that you have championed whole-person and health promotion for our church workers for a number of years. My story could be summarized as…