Forgiveness seems like it should be an easy concept to explain, but we have a lot of phrases to try to help us understand it: an eye for an eye, turn the other cheek, heap burning coals, forgive and forget. Why do we even need to care about forgiveness in our relationships? Does forgiveness just mean that my pain wasn’t real? That I just need to pretend it didn’t happen?

Actually the Bible says that our hurt, wounds, pain, and trauma are very real, and the reason we experience them is because of a little thing called sin. We live in a broken world where things can quickly spiral out of control. Thankfully, all throughout history, God has given us this tool of forgiveness to stop the spiral.

This week, we’ll look at what the Bible says sin really is, how we can stop things from spiraling out of control, and how forgiveness can help our relationships be a force of good in the world.

It's easy to get exhausted with people, but when we do all our relationships suffer. What if there was a solution to that problem? What if there was a way to minimize the effect others have on us so the relationships that matter can thrive? What if there was a way to prevent the exhaustion and burnout that can so easily happen because of the expectations others put on us?

You may or may not believe it, but the Bible talks quite a lot about setting healthy boundaries in our relationships. In fact, Jesus himself set boundaries in his relationships because He understood an important principle about relationships that we sometimes forget. It's that principle that holds the key to us keeping all our relationships healthy and preventing any relationships from taking more time and energy than they should.

This week we'll explore the case the Bible makes for setting healthy boundaries and look at the boundaries Jesus set to get a good perspective on why healthy boundaries are so important. Then, we'll establish a target to evaluate our boundaries so we can begin learning to set the kind of boundaries that will help all our relationships thrive.

Conflict. It's a word most of us really hate, and would do anything to avoid. It's the cause of all our broken relationships, and, on a first glance, seems like a very, very bad thing.

But what if we have conflict all wrong? What if our avoidance of conflict doesn't make things better, but can actually create the problems we're trying to avoid? What if conflict could be a good thing?

This week we'll look to the Bible and learn why healthy conflict isn't just a good thing, but why it's actually a necessary thing for our relationships to grow and thrive.

Communication is one of the most critical foundational elements of any relationship, but for so many of us it's a real challenge. Whether we never saw it modeled well growing up, or we have so much baggage from the past, or any number of other issues, communication is a real challenge.

This week we'll look to the Bible and learn why healthy communication matters so much and what each of us can do to establish more healthy communication habits and strengthen our relationships today.