Articles
Leadership Paradigms from Jesus
Jesus's Paradigmatic Leadership Jesus’s words and actions in the upper room before his crucifixion provide paradigmatic guidance from the New Testament on leadership. Jesus gathers a group of leaders—his disciples—who are shaping the movement he began and will shape...
Finding Balance with the Right Pole
Finding Balance: The Importance of Stability in Life Discovering the Right Tools for Finding Balance I’m in elementary school, working on a science project that will demonstrate my freshly acquired knowledge about levers and pulleys: a hoist-up-and-down kitchen bucket...
Finding Courage in Scripture
Seeking Courage in Scripture In his extraordinary book about Gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, Sir Martin Gilbert recounts the story of David Prital, who found refuge among a small Ukrainian Baptist sect. He had sought them out on advice from a friendly...
Warfare and Royalty
PREPARING FOR OUR MISSION, PART 3 Embracing Spiritual Warfare and Royalty Promoted to Royalty Understanding the Spiritual Battlefield Your world is at war. You were born into a world of chaos and destruction, pain, and division that so often typifies war. And as with...
Rethinking Church Growth
Two Misguided Assumptions About Church Growth As a church leader, perhaps you’re asking yourself, How do I reach the spiritually sleeping and spiritually dead in my community? How do I disciple people to know Jesus deeply and be known by Him fully? And how do I preach...
Preparing for Mission, Part 2
Getting Childish Isaiah 11:6 (New International Version) “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” See Yourself as Childish: Isaiah 11:6 envisions...
Overcome Toxic Thoughts
He was my favorite teacher. I had hoped and wished to get Mr. Saperstein for the fourth grade, and he was even better than all the kids said! He was funny and kind, and I learned a lot from him. And he gave us a whole hour each day for quiet reading time. During this...
Embracing Forced Pauses
Doesn’t a forced pause always seem to happen at the most inopportune times? Not now, Lord, we tend to whisper loudly. I have noticed though, as I get older, that maybe I would do better to not resist these unchosen times of slowing down (and, often, solitude). Because...
Preparing For Mission, Part 1
You are Royal How do you see yourself? When you attend a social activity, how do you introduce yourself? How do you describe yourself to others? Does the interaction go something like this? “Hi, my name is David”. “So, David, what do you do?” “I‘m a Ministry Systems...
Does God Really Care If I Get a Sex Change?
Being in ministry provides leaders with a front-row seat to the good, the bad, and the ugly of people’s lives. If I’ve learned anything through the years, it’s this: Life is messy. And it doesn’t come with a nicely packaged answer to suit every occasion. Consequently,...
Understanding Victim Blaming
My pastor sat in his chair and steepled his fingers as he listened to my confession. When I finished, he asked me, “Did you enter this relationship with your consent?” I thought about my constant stream of nos, the boundaries pushed and prodded over and over, the...
Resisting the Hero Narrative
We want heroes and want to be heroes. We imagine ourselves as the Billy Grahams, the Elijahs. We like to imagine ourselves in their company. We want to be that effective. To shape a society where our set of values and preferences is the norm. Where we can fit in and...
Stepping into the Impossible
There comes a time to move and to act. God commanded his people to do the impossible and step into the flooding waters: “Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing....
Why Friendships Are So Hard
Paul’s letter to Philemon presents us with a challenge. Imagine taking this letter to various movie studios in the hopes it gets turned into a film. The problem that studio executives will have is there is no clear villain. Sure, Philemon is fraught with problems— he...
Does Our Enthusiasm Matter to God?
Imagine greeting a family member without a hug, handshake, or smile. Your lack of enthusiasm would reveal a great deal about how you felt—or didn’t feel—about that relative. Imagine your favorite team in your favorite sport winning the game. Enthusiasm would be the...
From Depressed to Flourishing
In a sense, a life of flourishing can be described very simply: It is the opposite of depression. Though you may be familiar with what depression feels like and how debilitating it can be, you may be surprised at how exceptionally common it is in our society. In 2020,...
The Five Goals of Discipline
Discipline is about teaching. In fact, the word discipline is derived from the Latin word disciplina, which means instruction or training. It is also derived from the word discere, which means “to learn.” Basically, discipline centers on providing instruction and...
The Spiritual Sub-text of Music
There is a special joy for a Christian in teaching, because for every subject there is a backdrop of God’s reality and presence. For instance, in the teaching of mathematics, the lesson is about truth and distinguishing truth from falsehood: God is the God of all...
Mental Health Awareness in Theological Education
Mental health challenges can affect anyone, including pastors. Raising awareness and providing support within faith-based education is essential for equipping religious leaders with the tools they need to effectively serve their communities. The following are some key...
Quieten the Room: Finding Peace in Hard Decisions
"We've done everything possible to save this leg, all that's left is amputation. When you're ready, we'll have that conversation." Those words came from my wife's surgeon, following numerous operations to save her right leg - crushed and disfigured in her 1983 car...
