TweetThere are certain things I deeply believe to be true about the world. One is that God created human beings with a perfect knowledge of what He was making. Nothing about us surprises Him; He knows what makes us elated, devastated, irate and terrified ["joy", "sadness", "anger" and "fear" are often dubbed "the four core [...]
TweetFor those of you who find yourself quite drawn to the practicals of life, I apologize for the rather abstract nature of the last three posts (kind of). I wanted to set a biblical foundation for a system of accountability among friends that is based on encouraging daily walking by the Spirit over trying really [...]
TweetThere is a storm brewing on the college campuses in America. With the emergence of the merit-based economy of YouTube, Wikipedia, and the blogosphere, anyone with a worthwhile insight, novel thought or creative idea can be an influencer. For the first time in history, each one of us has a real shot at ”going viral” and become a household name overnight. This decentralization [...]
Tweet There seems to be a developing conversation around church relevance. I don’t say that because people are just starting to become interested in church relevance (that’s been happening since Luther and the printing press), but because some people are really starting to challenge its modern conception. At the Cultivate Conference, I repeatedly heard the same question: “How can [...]
TweetThis is might sound really stuffy, old-fashioned, and totally backward-thinking, but I’m going to say it anyway: Sometimes when I listen to church leaders discuss their leadership methods, I just shut down and stop listening because I can’t shake the nagging lack of biblical basis or justification for their methods. Parts of the Cultivate Conference on Tuesday was the same way for [...]
TweetIn my last post, I mentioned that my StrengthsFinder evaluation was scary accurate. And since some of you seem to enjoy knowing me, I thought I’d give you their evaluation. Let me know if you agree. My top 5: Strategic, Activator, Futuristic, Analytical, Maximizer In every area, the StrengthsFinder evaluation tells you a sort of [...]
TweetA while back, I was listening to Craig Whitney speak at the Exponential Conference about how his organization, Emerging Leadership Initiative, evaluates potential church planters. He said that, among other things, they evaluate personality based on a Myers-Briggs, DiSC, and StrengthsFinder evaluation. I tend to really enjoy personality tests because they help me distinguish between what all [...]
TweetIn my last post about this, I shared some troubling trends and statistics regarding the gender ratio imbalance in the Church in America today. There are reasons to be alarmed, but I don’t think this is a losing battle. I see tremendous opportunity in our current predicament, and want to share an idea or two on [...]
TweetI spent today mostly huddled in front of my computer watching church leaders from around the nation give nine-minute exhortations to church leaders as a part of a conference called THE NINES. To build on a theme, it started at 9:09 a.m. on 9/9/09, and each leader was prompted with, ”If you had 9 minutes to say [...]
TweetAn end result of everything I discussed in Part 1 is that every fall I’m handed a group of new university men with a culturally pathological fear of other men. And somehow I’m supposed to help move them toward a biblical standard of male relationship that includes weeping, intense longing, confession, and unfettered boldness. It’s one of [...]