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    How to Embrace Necessary Change

    Seasons of life change, careers change, organizations change, and relationships and friendships change. Change is—as they say—inevitable. How do you deal with change? Do you embrace it, reluctantly (and stubbornly) submit to it, or run full-speed in the opposite direction of it? I’m a loyal person by default. Perhaps you are as well. I’m loyal to good people, good organizations, and good products. There’s nothing wrong with loyalty per se, except when that loyalty exceeds the season for which that allegiance is needed. Thus I find I struggle with change. Well-known author, leadership coach, and clinical psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud believes that if we do not embrace necessary change (i.e.…

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    Simplify Life and Ministry with Endings

    Have you watched your closets and drawers grow more disorganized and messy despite your best intentions? I have. I purchase something and add it to what is already there; as a result, I multiply my stuff without adding needed storage space and create a mess that makes it difficult to find anything. Let’s call it the multiplication principle. I have found that it applies to life and ministry just as it does my closets. Objectively observing ministry reveals the tendency to move away from simple, clean, and organized toward overloaded and difficult to navigate. We begin with focus, keeping things uncomplicated and easy to direct. Soon someone suggests a new…