By: Esther Edwards on January 25, 2024
I will never forget the day the world shut down. The closing on our 65-year-old church building was just a week away and we were 80% of the way moved out with just a few more things to donate and sell. The storage units were filled. We had already started meeting at a movie theatre…
By: Todd E Henley on January 25, 2024
Drawing from nearly two decades of conversations with Fortune 500 executives, Susan Scott offers fresh and surprising alternatives to the “best practices” wreaking havoc on today’s businesses. In her book, Fierce Leadership, she states, “Our careers, our companies, our personal relationships, and our very lives succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly-one conversation at a time.”1…
By: Jenny Dooley on January 25, 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic happened to all of us. It is our common lived experience. Though not as globally impactful I experienced regional viral epidemics and the ensuing public health interventions while living in Vietnam. The first in 2003 when SARS was diagnosed in Hanoi, quickly followed in 2004 by H5N1 better known as the Avian…
By: Adam Harris on January 25, 2024
Before moving into my current position as an associate Pastor, I had a bizarre, but incredibly powerful dream. According to Daniel Lieberman, and several stories in Jewish-Christian history, dreams can be an effective vehicle for the subconscious or God to get our attention. [i] This dream may have been the Spirit speaking through my subconscious or…
By: Russell Chun on January 25, 2024
מלחמות ושמועות מלחמות (pronounced: melchamot veshemuot melchamot) – Aramaic for Wars and rumors of wars. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: What lessons I took from Annabel Part 3: Impact on GoodSports Ukraine Selah Introduction: Matthew 24:6-7 (New King James Version): “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not…
By: Dinka Utomo on January 25, 2024
Leaders make a difference. They move people to new places – physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually – that they could not have achieved alone. They provide inspiration, courage, conviction, hope, and comfort. -Annabel Beerel- About a week ago, I saw a news ticker on one of our national television networks. The news ticker contains news…
By: Scott Dickie on January 24, 2024
Like all of you, I had to decide on what part of Beerel’s book, Rethinking Leadership (1), I was going to interact with and blog on. This is the kind of book where I might prefer to take one chapter a week over this next semester and deepen my leadership learning on each inter-connected topic…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on January 24, 2024
Defining Culture I read a book about 20 years ago for one of my Graduate Programs. The book, Culture Matters, is a collection of essays written by social scientists, scholars, journalists, and practitioners. I read it from cover to cover, long before inspectional reading was introduced to me. It is worth mentioning that it was…
By: Cathy Glei on January 24, 2024
“Leaders need to have complex cognitive structures so that they can adapt to, accommodate, and transcend challenging circumstances. On the one hand, they need strong egos to tolerate the tension of standing alone and not being easily overwhelmed. On the other, they need to be sensitive to their inner drives and ego defenses and be…
By: Pam Lau on January 23, 2024
Praxis leaders[1] Dave Blanchard and Andy Crouch presented a webinar in the Summer of 2020 called, “Leading Without a Forecast: What to Do When You Really Don’t Know What’s Coming,”[2] on the heels of their timely article, “Leading Beyond the Blizzard: Why Every Organization is Now a Startup.”[3] In their introduction, Andy tells the story of the…
By: Tim Clark on January 22, 2024
I’ve always felt comfortable leading. From early in my life, I could naturally envision a preferred future, could see obstacles to that future, and then rally others around overcoming challenges to accomplishing that vision. I’ve been professionally serving in some form of leadership for over 35 years, and along the way I picked up a…
By: Jennifer Vernam on January 22, 2024
A Call to Action In my organization, we have historically been led by a Catholic order of Sisters. Just over 10 years ago, that group of They developed a booklet that we refer to as Hopes and Aspirations. Offered as a gift, it was a collection of guidance for future leaders. It is filled with…
By: John Fehlen on January 22, 2024
In the Amplified Version of Ecclesiastes 12:12 Solomon says: “But beyond this my son, [about going further than the words given by one Shepherd], be warned: the writing of many books is endless [so do not believe everything you read], and excessive study and devotion to books is wearying to the body.” To that end,…
By: Kim Sanford on January 22, 2024
Written against the backdrop of the COVID19 pandemic, Rethinking Leadership: A critique of Contemporary Theories by Annabel Beerel succeeds in its stated goal. In her opening pages, Beerel stresses the need for “sharp leaders who are cognitively savvy and emotionally astute” to lead us into the future.[1] She writes to emerging, learning leaders in order…
By: Kally Elliott on January 22, 2024
The world is changing and fast. We’ve been reading about some of these changes, especially when it comes to the world of AI. In her blog post, Eve Poole writes, “Whether or not – and when – the robots will take over is a moot point.”[1] It’s happening. With the pace of my personal and…
By: Travis Vaughn on January 22, 2024
When Pulitzer-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy was asked by leaders at the Santa Fe Institute[1] to help “spruce up” their mission statement, McCarthy took what they handed him and promptly “wadded it up and pitched it in the trash.”[2] He then proceeded to develop a mission statement for SFI in a way that only he could.…
By: Dinka Utomo on January 18, 2024
As humans we are designed for greatness, and we have the capacity to make far greater creatures, ones that are even more human than us, not less. -Eve Poole- My denomination underwent a significant shift in theological framework. Since its founding in 1948, our denomination has consistently positioned humans as the focal point of…
By: Jana Dluehosh on January 18, 2024
“The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo “The concept of the Divine Spark has captivated the human imagination for centuries, transcending cultural and religious boundaries to illuminate the profound essence that resides within each individual. Rooted in various spiritual traditions, philosophical teachings, and mystical experiences, the Divine Spark represents a source of divine energy or consciousness…
By: Mathieu Yuill on January 18, 2024
As a frequent visitor to the Ontario Science Centre in my youth, I was always drawn to the “Computer psychiatrists” exhibit. These early forays into artificial intelligence, albeit rudimentary, sparked a lifelong fascination with the field. Fast forward to today, where AI has evolved to an extent that it almost blurs the lines between human…
By: Todd E Henley on January 18, 2024
Consider the following headlines, which are all based on true policies: Homeless Shelters Perpetuate Homelessness Drug Busts Increase Drug-Related Crime Food Aid Increases Starvation “Get Tough” Prison Sentences Fail to Reduce the Fear of Violent Crime Job Training Programs Increase Unemployment1 What is going on here? Why do seemingly well-intentioned policies produce the opposite of…
