By: Daron George on October 13, 2023
There is a continuous quest for growth and development in the realm of leadership. Forbes said as of 2019 (four years ago) that, leadership development was a 366 billion dollar industry[1]. Everywhere you turn, leaders are trying to discover how to lead better. It is a journey marked by the pursuit of excellence and the…
By: Jana Dluehosh on October 13, 2023
“We are the medicine”. This was a quote from a physician at the beginning of my study as an Anam Cara apprentice. Anam Cara is a celtic phrase that means “soul friend”, basically a midwife of the soul. This physician spoke to us on the importance of this phrase, “we are the medicine” as a…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 12, 2023
What is the best way for our church to help people live and love like Jesus? That’s the question keeping me up at night ever since I accepted a new leadership role at Messiah titled Director of Discipleship. Not only is role new for me, it’s an entirely new role within our organization. It also…
By: Caleb Lu on October 12, 2023
“Leadership is not about being perfect. It is about being willing to learn and grow”.[1] This quote from the beginning pages of Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder’s Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead stuck with me as I read the rest of the book and…
By: Shonell Dillon on October 12, 2023
Introduction For as long as I can remember as a child every Friday was “Family Matters” night. The Song would start with “It’s a rare condition this day and age”. The words sang by Jesse Fredericks were explaining that family love is rare. The song writer defined the word rare in the same context that…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on October 12, 2023
In 2020, I took a rejuvenating three-month sabbatical. I was expecting profound insights to emerge over the course of this time, but at the end of my sabbatical, all I had were three simple thoughts to carry forward: 1.) Do whatever it takes to get enough sleep. 2.) Do one thing at a time, instead…
By: Becca Hald on October 12, 2023
Have you heard the song Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath? The chorus sticks with me. Give me Your eyes for just one second Give me Your eyes so I can see Everything that I keep missin’ Give me Your love for humanity Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted The ones that are…
By: Russell Chun on October 11, 2023
אין שלום במזרח התיכון – No Peace in the Middle East – Hebrew Introduction – The End of History, Identity Part 1 – We the people, Chapter 12 Part 2 – Russian and Ukrainian Identity Part 3 – The End of the Story, Just War, The Spirit in Ukraine Moves Introduction The End of…
By: David Beavis on October 11, 2023
Not long after the invasion of Ukraine, Philip Bump of The Washington Post wrote about the isolation – both figurative and literal – of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. This article included pictures of Putin physically separated from people by an awkward distance that would make dialogue difficult and relational connection impossible.[1] What these pictures…
By: Pam Lau on October 11, 2023
“It’s not what we see that should upset us, but the large things we cannot see that should concern us.”[1] These words were spoken by Dr. Martyn Percy during his first few minutes with us at Oxford University on Saturday morning. As I wrote these words in my journal, a forgotten memory slowly emerged. Just a…
By: Kristy Newport on October 11, 2023
In Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, they share how fast track thinking impacts leaders and building RARE leadership practices. In chapter 10 the authors propose different practices which will help a leader endure hardship well, one being the…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 10, 2023
According to Dr. Jason Clark, 15,000 new books are published every year with the word leadership in the title. [1] Of these, many will not stand the test of time, yet it is clear that the world is obsessed with the topic of leadership. It’s easy to imagine why, since we daily read articles of…
By: Tim Clark on October 9, 2023
In 1989 the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously announced the soon-coming conclusion of history in his essay titled “The End of History?”, and this idea picked-up steam with his 1992 book “The End of History and the Last Man.” By the ‘end of history’, Fukuyama meant that due to the increasing ubiquity of liberal…
By: Kally Elliott on October 9, 2023
Murray Bowen’s Family System Theory tells us that when a change is made in one part of a system a compensatory change in another part of the system will follow. [1] The Family System Theory can be applied to non-family groups such as businesses, organizations, communities and large societies.[2] This week we read, Francis Fukuyama’s…
By: Becca Hald on October 9, 2023
Sitting through the election coverage in 2016 was difficult for me. My daughter was fourteen at the time and she watched the coverage with a friend of hers. It was heartbreaking to see these two young women follow the election coverage. As we watched the news, they moved from hope at the prospect of a…
By: Esther Edwards on October 9, 2023
Our little German community, nestled in the rural countryside of the Garden State of New Jersey, was a haven of community and faith. The German culture was alive and well as we enjoyed German food (meat and potatoes were a staple!), weekly German church gatherings, conversations of adults regarding “the good old days” in Germany,…
By: Jennifer Vernam on October 9, 2023
I am surprised at how cathartic the topics of the last two weeks have been for me. As we read Bebbington and Clark’s thoughts on Evangelicalism and its impacts on society as well as Fukuyama’s analysis of our move towards a more identity-obsessed culture, I am finding myself better able to articulate what had been…
By: Travis Vaughn on October 9, 2023
Asking “Who am I?” How long have individuals asked the “Who am I, really?”[1] question? According to Frances Fukuyama, this question came about as Europe modernized, moving away from an agrarian way of life, where “one’s entire life (was) lived in the same small village with a limited circle of friends and neighbors; one’s religion…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 8, 2023
Much has been made of the ubiquitous rise of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past year. In fact, it’s difficult to believe that it’s been less than a year since “OpenAI released an early demo of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, and the chatbot quickly went viral on social media as users shared examples of…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on October 7, 2023
Introduction Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder did amazing work in Rare Leadership. “RARE” is an acronym for what they call the four essential qualities of a mature Leader: Remaining relational, Act like Yourself, Return to Joy, and Endure Hardship. I can’t agree more with the statement below in the praise of the work of Marcus…
