Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships by Edward T. Welch

Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships Reviews

• 
  Jami Balmet

  A short, convicting, and thought provoking book to help us realize more how we can care for another in community. I was deeply convicted on several points and have some concrete ideas for how I can come along side others better in loving them! I highly recommend this book and will be re-reading again shortly. It would make a PERFECT small group study or with your spouse!
• 
  Myllena Melo

  Pontual, porém, muito profundo. Que livro maravilhoso!
• 
  Nancy Ruth Cummings

  I've been struck recently with the realization that most of the "friends" I've had over the years really know nothing about me. All of my friendships were extremely surface level. It has only been recently (starting about a year ago) that I've even dared to start opening up to people. This book reinforced many of my ideas on how to go about having meaningful relationships and also gave me some new things to think about. I cannot recommend this book enough. It really is crucial to understand how to cultivate meaningful relationships.
• 
  Luiz

  Grande introdução ao tema do aconselhamento. Em última análise, uma comunidade é composta de pessoas que precisam umas das outras para que cresçam na fé. Assim, este livro é composto de 8 lições que servem para desenvolver o relacionamento entre as pessoas para que conselhos e abordagens sejam feitos de forma saudável e eficiente.
• 
  Gabriela Bevenuto

  Que livro bom!! São 75 páginas de conteúdo prático e bíblico sobre relacionamentos saudáveis. Uma dica é ler com alguém ou com um grupo de amigos próximos. São 8 lições curtinhas. Dá inclusive pra ler em voz alta e já começar uma discussão.
• 
  Benjamin

  Ce n’est pas le livre qui a changé ma vie, mais lecture utile et contenu biblique. Je voulais donner 3 étoiles, mais le chapitre 7 (sur le péché) est vraiment excellent et vaut le détour.
• 
  Madelyn Crawley

  Super practical. Would be a helpful tool for shaping the culture/philosophy of discipleship for a small group.
• 
  Tracey

  While I do strongly dislike books that are too long, it is also possible for books to be too short. Caring for One Another was our small group study book. It was great that each week's chapter was super short and each chapter did help spark good conversation...but overall, I feel that the cursory coverage of each topic is probably not enough to spur anyone into long-lasting change.
  
  This 80-page book is essentially a condensed version of Welch's book, Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love (2015, 176 pages) with the addition of two diagrams taken from his Westminster/CCEF course called Helping Relationships. At 176 pages, it really wasn't necessary to shorten Side by Side by removing much of the practical advice and Scripture--key elements that made the 2015 book helpful in the first place.
• 
  Dalen

  Read this for a small group study. It worked well for that context, with short chapters and discussion questions. A helpful little book, but know that it is not an in depth treatment of the topic, but more an overview to help get the conversation started.
• 
  Brandon A. Blake

  We read this together as a church in our small groups. It cuts the fluff of what could be a 350-page discussion to an exceedingly helpful small book with tons of helpful questions and thoughts. It is a helpful, practical text on how to live together and love another in a community.
• 
  Rafael Salazar

  Really succinct and useful. I would be glad to use it as a small group resource for building healthy biblical community.
• 
  Josh

  Very encouraging/helpful. Third book I’ve read by Welch, with a 4th going now. Really appreciate him.
• 
  Lara Girgis

  Lots of good thoughts on listening well.
• 
  Timothy Goldsmith

  It's not a complicated book (and it's not long either). Welch takes a closer look at 8 different ways that Christians can be caring for each other better. It's not rocket science, but it's good to think about how we approach people, looking to the heart of matters, praying, being honest, and reflecting.
  The end of each chapter has some questions to reflect on & the author suggests this is done best in a small group. Worthy of consideration
• 
  Sarah Middlestead

  Short and practical.
• 
  Josh

  This is a little, but helpful book on developing relationships with people. It encourages us to go past the common/routine conversations we have into deeper more meaningful ones. It requires humility and being personable with others.
  
  I wish the work was more extensive but the author got to his points quickly and succinctly. Each chapter also included some challenging discussion questions as well.
• 
  Rachel

  Solid, yet pretty simplified, introduction to caring well for others in your life.
• 
  Debbie Channell

  Short, helpful, practical
• 
  Jeanie

  Our helpfulness-our care for souls-starts with our need for care. We need God, and we need other people. Maturity through dependence is our goal. As a way to put this humility to the test, we ask for prayer. This will contribute to a church culture that is less self-protective and more united.
  
  Everything is spiritual and since we are broken, our relationships can suffer. How we love, how we receive love. It all amounts to how we care for another. It all starts with our need for God. This brings humility and vulnerability in how we perceive everything. Again everything is spiritual.
  
  Each chapter is lesson on ways to cultivate relationships.
  
  With All Humility
  Moving Toward Others
  Know the Heart
  Know the Critical Influences
  Be Personal and Pray
  Talk about Suffering
  Talk About Sin
  Remember and Reflect
  
  Each chapter builds on the other. Without humility, we cannot move toward others. Moving toward others, reveals our heart. Knowing our heart tendencies, we know the good and bad influences. It is with this we can open up about suffering and sin. What not to say and how to say it where deep conversations can develop.
  
  We all need relationships. Healthy relationships. Reading this text, it was revealing in how we protect our hearts and how we miss the deep relationships we are created for. We forget to care when we are self-protective. All the ways this speaks to me makes me want more. Highly recommend.
  
  A Special Thank you to Crossway Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
• 
  David Steele

  Each Christmas, like most families, we gather around the Christmas tree. After telling the story of the birth of Jesus and celebrating his incarnation, we open presents. When I was a child, I remember gravitating toward the big presents. After all, bigger is better. “The bigger the package, the better the present,” I reasoned in my seven-year-old mind.
  
  Sometimes people approach books with the same mentality. “How could a small book influence anyone’s life?��� So goes the conventional mentality. But consider, one of the greatest speeches in American history was the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. But this short speech only contains 272 words. The Declaration of Independence only has 1,458 words. Clearly, bigger is not always better. Indeed, these two documents help forge the history of America!
  
  Edward T. Welch’s newest book is no exception. Caring for One Another is an exceedingly short book. The book is compromised of a mere 71 pages. But like the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, this book packs a powerful punch.
  
  Dr. Welch describes eight ways to cultivate meaningful relationships. Each lesson begins with a biblical principle. The principle is explored and expanded and practical suggestions are offered that are specifically designed to care for the needs of people. Finally, the author includes helpful questions at the close of each chapter for personal and group discussion.
  
  Caring for One Another is a small book with a big message. The central message is the gospel of Jesus Christ which fuels willing souls and equips them for a lifetime of ministry.
• 
  John

  Edward Welch is one of my favorite writers on counseling, so I was thrilled when I learned he had a short, small group friendly version of Side by Side that was coming out. Caring for One Another certainly delivers as a shorter, simpler version of Side by Side. Any disappointments I have with Caring for One Another has more to do with that format.
  Part of being human is to need relationships, yet because we are sinful, relationships often end in disappointment and hurt.
  Our only chance to transform our relationships is to have them start with humility. Welch notes that “Augustine wrote, ‘The first way [to truth] is humility; the second way is humility, and the third way is humility.’” Welch calls us to put this humility in action: “One way to put humility to work is this: ask someone to pray for you.”
  As we move toward one another, we need God’s grace, which is “God’s moving toward us in Christ.” As God moves toward us, we are called to move toward others.
  And then, as we move toward others, we have to lean back on God because we realize that we do not have the strength, wisdom, or grace in ourselves. As Welch says, “As we grow in this spiritual care for one another, we will indeed hear of human struggles that are more intense and more complicated than we thought possible, and we might feel like an inept child more than a dependent one.”
  I’m grateful to Welch for Caring for Others, although I’ll likely still be recommending Side by Side more frequently. I didn’t walk through the book with a small group, but I think that it is well designed for small groups and could be used effectively in that context.
  
• 
  Stephen Drew

  This is a short book which summarizes the key practices Welsh identifies in “Side by Side” that result in the church caring well for each other. The book is written for a small group format, but it seems it still is a little wordy for such an application. But as always with Welsh any believer wanting to grow to love others more deeply will benefit from this book and hopefully it will gain more popularity because of the short length.
• 
  Ray Clendenen

  I am involved in a Christian recovery ministry and found a great deal of help in the book. It is designed to be read aloud and discussed with a small group, and for that purpose it would be great. My only reason for giving it four rather than five stars is that I read it alone and kept wishing for more. But it offers great principles that could easily be fleshed out by someone involved in ministry.
• 
  Adeline

  '... when we are willing to be a little more vulnerable, and others handle our hearts with care, we discover that knowing and being known are part of our design.'
  
  Thoughts:
  - A concise little book with practical suggestions about initiating and deepening caring conversations in a church context. Welch argues that 'the heavy lifting of pastoral care' is a task for ordinary people, not solely the responsibility of pastors and other church leaders.
  - The tips are fairly straightforward and intuitive, but the discussion questions are both thought-provoking and accessible, making this great for small group discussions.
• 
  Brady

  Probably best read in the context of a small group with discussion. Having been in small groups for a number of years, much of the content seemed like common sense (or maybe we learned some of these lessons the hard way?). If you’ve never been part of a growth group/small group/accountability group/discipleship relationship/house church, this could be a good “level setting” book to work through together so that everyone has expectations for what will make the group succeed.
• 
  Carrie Daws

  Small but powerful. In 70 pages, the author highlights 8 ways to move toward others into healthy, God-honoring friendship, speaking with a good blend of authority and simplicity. It's set up for a small group with discussion and response questions at the end of every chapter, but it is also good for individual study and those desiring to better understand where they can improve. It's full of good nuggets, helpful examples, and encouraging motivation to improve the depth of some of the most important relationships around you.
• 
  Dana Schnitzel

  A helpful little booklet. I think I would have appreciated it more had I had a group to read aloud and discuss with, as the introduction suggests, but it was still good. It's nice and short, but still carries deep insights and great reminders.