Biblical Preaching and Teaching Should Stress High Expectations of Christians
The Bible is clear. Christians should be involved in ministry. Christians should be working together for the good of the kingdom. The body of Christ is the body as it is connecting and functioning together as Paul tells us in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12. In all of my life I cannot think of […]
The 30% shift
I am a firm believer that the mission of the church is both inward and outward. The thing many churches face is that the inward focus has so far outweighed the outward focus that we find ourselves in need of balance and so we have a tendency to over correct. In a new article at […]
Being Sent and Being Present
We live a life of sending…always another place to go and another thing to do. It is important that we are purposeful about the space between our departure and arrival…that we take time to understand that our purpose is not just when we get there but how we get there and what happens along the […]
The Power of Story Only Takes One So Far
Stories are powerful. They tap into the emotions a lot more quickly and effectively than raw data. Because they are both effective and efficient it is easy to rely on them too heavily. I have heard sermons that had many powerful stories in them but in the mix of the story telling I wasn’t really […]
Transition: The Space Between
Transition is an interesting place to be. When you live in the “space between” what is and what will be it creates an interesting tension that has a built in capacity to act as our teacher. Israel went through this in the wilderness. Ministers go through this between ministries. Churches go through this in the […]
The Fallacy in Pareto’s Principle…Proving the 80/20 rule wrong
The Pareto Principle is an organizational principle that goes back a number of years that states in an organization 80% of the work typically gets done by 20% of the people. I have heard this principle applied to congregational life and ministry ad nauseum and I do not believe it is correct from one particular […]
One of the Biggest Ministry Lessons I Have Ever Learned
I am still working on this little by little every day. Maybe you can relate to my latest post at Wineskins about how we as ministers often try to rescue people from things, take on burdens we shouldn’t be carrying and in the process enable people to continue to be spiritually and emotionally immature. See […]
Self-differentiation
This is a term that has meant a great deal to me in 2015. It is a term that helps us define where we end and where everyone and everything else begins. When we let people or circumstances define our emotions we have problems with self-differentiation. It is important to not let others steal your […]
The Ministry of De-escalation
There has been a lot of news lately about law enforcement and their use of force. I am not so sure this is happening more than it used to but with the advent of cell phones the video of these instances heightens our awareness of it. In law enforcement there is a time when an […]
“Hear O Israel” – The Importance of Passing on Faith, Faulty Ministry Models and a Bright Future
The generation that was taught the Shema by Moses in Deutereonomy 6 was the same generation whose parents died in the wilderness. They were the same generation whose great grand kids would fall from faith after the death of Joshua in Judges 2 where the Bible says Joshua died and a whole generation grew up […]