-
Truth: Does it Blind or Break?
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken As long as truth is theory it blinds. As soon as truth becomes real it breaks. This is something I’ve learned across the years of my life. When I first graduated from seminary, I knew much truth. I could answer nearly every question in some way, often with biblical support. What I could not see was what I did not know. I still can’t, but I’m better at seeing some of my blind spots than I used to be… Every once in a while in my teaching preparation, I go back to an old file and review previous work on a particular passage.…
-
Why We Lost…or Did We?
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken We lost. 5-4. A crushing loss after an unbroken string of losses dating back to Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This most recent loss, same sex marriage, happened a long time ago, not on June, 26, 2015. That loss happened when we decided to trade in God’s weakness for our power and chose to trust political process instead of spiritual resources… Don’t get me wrong. As citizens of the United States of America we should use every means our constitution gives us to advance our cause, but we cannot depend on our rights to make our nation right. Surely we know that when…
-
Transforming the Heart
Leadership is Broken Because Leaders are Unbroken Nearly three hundred years ago, Jonathan Edwards wrote on of the greatest Christian classics of all time entitled, Religious Affections. By “Affections” Edwards meant the deepest desires and drives of the heart. For Edwards, this is what our faith is about, and, while he doesn’t need me to confirm him, I believe he is absolutely right. I also believe his perspective is missing in today’s thinking. Edwards said, “. . . no one is ever changed, either by doctrine. . . or by preaching or teaching of another, unless the affections are moved by these things. . . . there is…
-
Live the Jesus Lifestyle – Make Disciples
Leadership is Broken Because Leaders Are Unbroken The most disobeyed directive Jesus ever gave is the last directive Jesus ever gave: make disciples. Nothing could be plainer than Jesus’ final marching orders: make disciples! That’s what He said, that’s what He meant. Yet all over the world we find pastors, churches, deacons, elders and church members who are radically disobedient. Some are ignorant, others are willful, but many are disobedient nonetheless. Pastors give in to tradition and the demands of their people and choose to disobey Jesus’ final command. Many seem to think that ministry is about making them successful or keeping their job secure, which they confuse—often unconsciously and…
-
WWJD? Why Ask? Just Do It!
Leadership is Broken Because Leaders Are Unbroken WWJD has been around so long it’s become passé. Even people who don’t know or care what Jesus would do know what it stands for. The wristband days are over, but I never understood why the question ever came up in the first place. Why ask a question with such an obvious answer? What would Jesus do? What He did: out of a heart of love teach truth and disciple others. He would do the same thing today that He did when He walked the earth. In fact, that’s exactly what He is doing right now through those who want to do what…
-
Not Your Grandmother’s Lumbago
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken With friends like us the cross hardly needs enemies, although it has many. Think of how we distort the cross. Many of us probably heard our grandmothers say, “My lumbago is killing me. It’s my cross. I must bear it.” Right then, before we knew what the cross was, we knew we didn’t want one if it made us feel the way Grandma felt. Or it’s presented to us as some horrible struggle we must endure because we follow Jesus. Now it’s true that the cross can mean rejection and persecution for the cause of Christ, but there’s more to it than that……
-
Wall Breakers Anonymous
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Sooner or later all of us hit the wall of inadequacy. There are no exceptions, no escape. There’s only denial, cover up, and futile efforts to break through, get over, get around, or dig under this utterly unexpected roadblock in life. The problem is everything we’ve done before doesn’t work. The barrier may be a career killer or a family struggle or a relationship block, but whatever it is, it matters to us, and we want it to end NOW!But nothing we do makes any difference because this unexpected and unwanted hindrance remains. We try all our tried and true methods, but they…
-
2015: A Worth it Year – From Now to Forever
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken They say time stands still, and it certainly feels that way at times. The weeks become months, the months become years, the seasons become memories, and we are deceived into thinking time has been standing still. That is until we take a long look into the mirror or run into an old friend who doesn’t recognize us. That’s when we realize time doesn’t stand still. Then we ask, “Where has the time gone?” When I think about my life, that’s the question I ask. Lynna and I announced our engagement on New Year’s Eve 1964, fifty years ago! Kent and Joel are…
-
The Families of Christmas
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Christmas. With scheming fathers and scandalous mothers what kind of families can Christmas have? What else but DYS-FUNC-TION-AL? Not all of these men and women were married to each other, it’s true, but, no matter who their mates were, what other kind of family could they have? How could Abraham and Sarah have anything but a dysfunctional family, invaded as it was at Sarah’s invitation to Hagar, her handmaid, and Ishmael, Sarah’s surrogate son? What must it have been like for Abraham to send Ishmael away because of her irrational jealousy over Hagar and Ishmael and the threat she felt for her…
-
The (Scandalous) Mothers of Christmas
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the unmentionable wife of Uriah the Hittite, Mary–the mothers of Christmas. Who were these women in the genealogy of Jesus and why this rare mention of women in a list of ancestors? Were they righteous women, holy before God, uncommon in their character? They were uncommon in their character, but not all were holy. There was a roadside prostitute, a scarlet woman on the wall, an alien reaper, the unmentionable wife of another man, and the handmaid of the Lord. What an amazing lot! It’s stunning that any woman would be listed in a genealogy, since lineage was usually traced…