A major part of any ministry (or work environment) is leadership development. This task can feel quite overwhelming. We wonder where we should start and how we should proceed. But I recently found a simple description of leadership development that helped clear away the clutter in my mind. This definition boils down leadership development to specific terms and stages I can … [Read more...] about Leadership Development in a Nutshell
ministry
For How Long
I once asked a sound engineer how loud the volume can get before it damages your hearing. He gave me an answer I did not expect. He answered with a question: For how long? For how long? I had never considered time to be a factor, but it is. Damaging your hearing is a matter of decibel level and length of exposure. Volume plus time. What does this have to do with … [Read more...] about For How Long
The Key to Good Style
I have so enjoyed Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style. If you are writing books or sermons, blogs or lesson plans, you will greatly benefit from his thoughts on good communication. One particularly poignant section captures the secret to good style in a simple metaphor. Pinker writes: The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see … [Read more...] about The Key to Good Style
The Glory of Every Person
In his essay "The Weight of Glory," C.S. Lewis considers the echoes of eternity found in every person. Occasionally, we encounter the "scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited" (Lewis, 2001, p. 31). Lewis suggests these faint echoes and deep longings reveal our true nature and destiny, that we were … [Read more...] about The Glory of Every Person
The Reading Pastor
"Let me share with you a realistic goal. There are too many pastors who never do any reading. That goal is too low. There are also seminaries that recommend that we must spend every morning in study. That goal is too high. We need a realistic goal, and I say to pastors that every pastor could manage one hour of reading a day. In addition we ought to manage a morning, afternoon … [Read more...] about The Reading Pastor