Blog
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Where do you go to get inspiration? For so many of us the concerns and demands of job and family squeeze our routines into fairly un-inspired existences. Our horizons shrink and it becomes increasingly difficult to see beyond the many everyday necessities of our lives. What we desperately need in the rhythm and routine of […]
Randy, Brian and I will be hosting a VP3 webinar on Thursday, December 1st, entitled “Crucibles: Times of Disorientation in a Leader’s Life“ We would love for you to join us. Description: What am I to do as a leader when life simply does not make sense? These seasons will come, and they often prove to be […]
There seems to be a good bit of talk these days about “changing the culture.” What I bump into is the application of this concern toward a local church community. It is a good concern from what I hear, and what I notice in my own collection of concerns. In a recent conversation with a […]
Meditating is a very human process. We meditate all the time. We each have a capacity to pay deep attention to things and people. The critical question is not whether or not we meditate, but rather what are we meditating upon?Keri Wyatt puts it this way, If we spend time listening to MTV or reading […]
This weekend my good brother in the Lord, Rob Loane, and I will be leading a spiritual formation retreat many of you have experienced at some point in the past called, “Making Space.” Robert will be leading his retreat at Black Lake Bible Camp in Olympia, WA for folks going through the Emerging Journey process […]
In his book In Praise of Slowness, Canadian journalist Carl Honoré explores what he sees as one of the great, unchallenged assumptions of modern society—“do everything faster.” He recounts an awakening moment in his own hurried life when he was waiting for a flight home from London. While trying to pass the time by flipping […]
I met with two friends this week. Both gifted leaders. Both in a similar season of growth. Both asking some hard questions. Both facing challenging circumstances. But for one, the lesson was to submit…for the other, to push. When do you submit and when do you push?
I came across this short video of Leighton Ford a couple months ago and have found myself pondering his words on servant-leadership ever since. Jesus’ “but not so with you” words recorded in Luke 22 seem to echo from the clip. I would encourage you to pay particular attention to the competing leadership images of the banyan […]
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus. Acts 4:13 This is a portrait of spiritual authority. They recognized them as companions of Jesus. When researching the many different life stories of Christian leaders, J. Robert […]
Sometimes we encounter experts who have fancy credentials, smacky degrees, and weighty job descriptions. They can give us advice because they have noticed how certain things, processes or situations can be different–hopefully better. This past weekend at our Banff Enriching retreat I encountered 18 experts…not because they had the credentials, degrees or job descriptions to […]
I didn’t know what words like “solitude” meant, but it seemed like a good thing to take some time off from the routine of work in order to get away and spend some time alone with God. I was about twenty at the time and a relatively new follower of Jesus. My work at the […]
It was over twelve years ago now that Randy and I attended a conference in Eastbourne, England called the International Consultation on Discipleship. At that conference John Stott offered the keynote address. The thrust of what he said during that talk can be captured by his quote of J.I. Packer that evening: “The church is […]