By: gfesadmin on April 20, 2013
My dad was 75 years old and was dying. Dad was living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) at the time. He had been a successful Presbyterian Minister his entire career. He was a believer in the CCRC concept where individuals can age in place but would have different levels of health care available…
By: gfesadmin on April 20, 2013
Our plane had just begun to approach the Island known as Hispaniola. This large island located in the Caribbean is home to two very unique and distinct nations. On the eastern side of the island is the nation of the Dominican Republic. On the the western side is the country of Haiti. On this particular…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
The church can do meaningful ministries in and for the world and it can do them well! My first pastorate took place in a rural Iowa town. The population was about 26,000 and there were over 70 churches within 5 miles of the center of the town. The largest church was about 700 in attendance and the smaller ones…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
The Boston Marathon explosions unleashed a flood of breaking news on twitter and other social media websites. We are used to this immediate coverage, but still it is striking, how much our technological and medial possibilities have changed within the last 10 years. When my timeline on twitter was already full with posts on the…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
The world is not right. While philosophers, pundits, politicians and the like fret, worry, and propose solutions, this semester in my Doctor of Ministry program, my cohort and I have been on a journey of sorts. We have been delving into the historical, social, philosophical, theological, and economic underpinnings of the late Western modern world. As such, this…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
Murray Jardine, in his book The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society: How Christianity Can Save Modernity from Itself (The Christian Practice of Everyday Life), argues that the values found within Christianity have not kept up with modern technological advances thereby creating a moral crisis within society. This moral crisis includes consumerism, marital dissolutions, and a variety…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} The ability to shape and remake our society and ourselves is the crux of Murray Jardine’s book, The Making…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
When I moved to Little Rock seven years ago, Liz and I wanted to be incarnational. We decided that it didn’t make any sense for a Mission minister, whose job it was to minister and connect to the downtown area, to live in the suburbs. So, we bought a house less than one mile from…
By: gfesadmin on April 18, 2013
Fragile Life is fragile. So again we are reminded about death and terror this week. As I react to the horror of what happened at the Boston Marathon, it seems my mind is flooded with thoughts: grief at the carnage, anger at the perpetrators and the easily broken sense of security. Mostly I was thinking…
By: gfesadmin on April 15, 2013
Margaret Wheately’s Leadership and the New Science proved to be a challenging read. With her understanding of quantum science, she presents an alternative view, for leadership and organizational life, so to speak, to the currently practiced model patterned after Newtonian laws. I began to wonder, whether her ‘leadership alternative’ is in fact a new understanding…
By: gfesadmin on April 12, 2013
Leaders can face chaos at unfortunate times. Let me explain. I have the opportunity to manage four Continuing Care Retirement Communities in California. Two of these communities are undergoing significant renovation and remodeling of their campuses. The first community (Community 1) has been going through renovation construction for over six years and the residents who…
By: gfesadmin on April 12, 2013
The word ‘chaos’ which the dictionary describes as ‘a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order’ could easily become a synonym for India, a nation splitting at the seams with its 1.2 billion people. This is a country that finds it difficult to identify a single common thread that…
By: gfesadmin on April 12, 2013
Sometimes, like many members in my family, I find it amusing and comical to watch people as they stroll through the mall with purpose, wondering aimlessly, enjoying their companions, or simply treating themselves to a snack as they do life with the people in their circles. What is true for every person that I see…
By: Joy Mindo on April 11, 2013
I live in a world of chaos. When I leave my house in the morning, I stop at the traffic light to buy the day’s newspaper. The newspaper vendor (I still do not know his name) smiles at me and wishes me a good day. At I drive to the next intersection (commonly known…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
Ministry Is Messy! I used to think that ministry that is going well is predictable and orderly. How naive! There was always a frustration that I could do more to prepare and I could work harder and then maybe there would be fewer loose ends. Perhaps that was a Newtonian perspective where there are clear…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
This week’s reading was, Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatly. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think, but after the first few pages I found myself in a leadership page-turner! Not what I expected. She begins by chronicling the rise of Newtonian Science and its ability to remove chaos from the world…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
In the song “Wake Up Dead Man” Bono echoes the lament psalms of David, crying out for a God who can sometimes seem silent in the chaos and violence of our world. At one point Bono questions “is there an order in all of this disorder?” This week I have been reading Leadership and The New…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
Margaret Wheatley is an innovative thinker about change and organizations. Her book Leadership and the New Science draws on three aspects of current discoveries in science and applies them to leadership. She examines: quantum physics, self-organizing systems and chaos theory. What is remarkable is how right on she is. Change is happening at an increasing…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
Chaos and Jurassic Park As I began reading Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley my mind was transported to the scene in Jurassic Park when Dr. Malcolm was demonstrating chaos theory to Dr. Sattler with drops of water. But whereas the scientist in the movie seemed to accept that chaos meant we are…
By: gfesadmin on April 11, 2013
Margaret J. Wheatley, in her book Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe, challenges us to step into a place of “allowing – trusting that the appropriate forms can emerge.” This allowing is a place where one does not try to control the universe but instead surrenders to participate in…
