By: Greg McMullen on March 21, 2023
In my teens my parents divorced, remarried, and relocated. I was still in high school and just recently lost my football scholarship. I was in a world of emotional hurt and destruction and all alone. The next four years was devastating for me as I tried to bury all the hurt and despair I was…
By: Kristy Newport on March 21, 2023
After reading Vincent J. Miller’s book, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, I was ready to sign up for his class at Georgetown University. Miller makes some interesting observations regarding Christian consumer culture. He states he wrote his book out of “a profound concern about the corrosive and destructive consequences of…
By: Tim Clark on March 20, 2023
“I hope this book will show you what a varied and extraordinary place the world really is” [1] Some families are sports families. Some are music families. Others are into animals, or the outdoors, or food. The Clarks are film people. Movies are something we all love, so every year my family settles into our…
By: Jennifer Vernam on March 20, 2023
For me, there was one pressing issue which surfaced in our reading this week. This was the discovery of our resistance to clearly identify (and deal with) our delusions due to our fear of losing community. It was concerning, but also articulated something I have sensed to be true, and this gave it language. In…
By: Chad McSwain on March 19, 2023
Other than playing sports and rolling my eyes at the person trying to make the class behave for the substitute teacher, I am not sure when I understood the necessity of leadership. No doubt I had lots of experiences of leading and being a follower, I do remember the first time that leadership was a…
By: Daron George on March 19, 2023
Introduction: “Leadership: Theory and Practice” by Peter G. Northouse is a seminal work in the field of leadership studies. The book provides a comprehensive overview of various leadership theories and practices, offering readers an in-depth understanding of the complexities involved in effective leadership. My review aims to evaluate the book’s strengths and weaknesses and highlight…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on March 17, 2023
It is interesting how the experiences of our lives shape the people we become. In 1999, my husband and I, our two-year-old daughter, our golden retriever, and our two cats moved to Mexico where we had accepted positions with a nonprofit organization in Tecate. It was an adventure that enriched our lives and influenced who…
By: Caleb Lu on March 17, 2023
I recently was discussing my plans for Easter service with the lead pastor. My hope is to try something different. To give some context, the church I attend meets on a campus with four other churches. One of them requested to use the main sanctuary for baptisms on Easter and inquired to see when we…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on March 17, 2023
Introduction: I must admit being a leadership junkie, whether junkie is a good term or not, the truth is wherever I hear anything about Leadership, especially servant or transformational leadership, my head will turn and move in that direction. The passion for leadership, in my case, didn’t come easy or from desirable circumstances, but I…
By: Scott Dickie on March 16, 2023
As I have said in an earlier blog, my NPO is seeking to explore the necessary training Christians leaders need to flourish in their leadership role for the long-term. An assumption going into my research is that the emotional formation of a leader is tragically neglected in traditional Pastoral education, leading to most of the…
By: Jana Dluehosh on March 16, 2023
John 13:35 says: “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” One another shows up 100 times in the new testament of the Bible, and Love one another 18 times. What a powerful commandment. As I read Simon P. Walker’s “ˆLeading out of who you are: Discovering…
By: Russell Chun on March 16, 2023
In the movie “Shrek,” the ogre Shrek has an interesting dialogue with the donkey. He describes himself as person with layers – essentially an onion. Walker’s book, Leading out of Who You Are[1], is a bit like peeling away at the layers of one’s leadership personality over time. Like an onion. Residing with the “comb…
By: Becca Hald on March 16, 2023
I am a big Disney fan. I love watching Disney movies. Disneyland is my happy place. I know. You are shocked. Mulan ranks in my top ten favorite Disney animated films. It tells the story of a young woman who, in order to save her father’s life, takes his place in a draft, taking on…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on March 16, 2023
Peter Northouse wrote the Book Leadership. This book is an in-depth look at the theory and practice of leadership. It is filled with case studies and research round the various aspects of leadership. There is too much to cover in one blog post, so this blog I will focus on chapter 13, Followership. Leaders Require…
By: Troy Rappold on March 16, 2023
The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz had a brain all along—he just needed to put it into practice. So too every one of us has a second brain at our disposal—we just need to put it into practice so we can experience just how creative and brilliant we really are. In Tiago Forte’s book,…
By: Adam Harris on March 15, 2023
A few weeks ago, I attended a community luncheon that revolved around mental health awareness. The goal was to break stigmas around psychological and emotional health issues and provide more resources for churches in our area. During the event, some pastors and members in the community shared their experiences of rejection and shame for experiencing…
By: Esther Edwards on March 15, 2023
My one-minute gaze into Nelson Mandela’s prison cell had a profound impact on me. That neatly folded prison blanket represented the dailyness of Mandela’s life for 27 years. The consequence of not folding a blanket to perfection in the prisons he was kept in would produce a severe beating. A leader who had already…
By: Roy Gruber on March 15, 2023
I enjoy the show Jeopardy. A series of questions and answers covers a broad spectrum of topics. I tend to do well in answering questions in some categories, such as Sports, Geography, and the Bible. I do poorly in other areas like Opera, Poets, and Art. The answers to questions need to come to mind…
By: Eric Basye on March 15, 2023
Tiago Forte, the author of Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life, is a first-generation Californian born to Brazilian and Filipino parents. Inspired by his personal journey, as a young man he suffered an unknown illness. He was functionally incapacitated, had a terrible memory, and could not engage in everyday…
By: Andy Hale on March 15, 2023
The big day had arrived. It was a big deal. My parents had ordered a multivolume set of Encyclopedia Britannica from a door salesman. They opened box upon box upon box. The large black books were gorgeous, numbering 32, and filled the room with that new book smell. The year was 1987. It’s hard to imagine that…
