By: Darcy Hansen on October 7, 2019
Over the course of his years of study at Portland Seminary, my friend, John Ray, would stay with us during his times of face to face learning. Each time, without fail, he’d ask me two questions: 1) “Have you read_____________?” and he’d fill in the blank with the latest and greatest text or author he…
By: Steve Wingate on October 7, 2019
We’ve not done it that way before! I stopped counting how many times have I heard, “We’ve not done that way before!” However, I unsympathetically resembled that remark while traversing my way from where the Heathrow Express terminated at the Heathrow airport on my way to the United ticketing agent. I had never been…
By: Joe Castillo on October 7, 2019
I wish I could have read Adler, “How to Read a Book” during my time when I started the seminar. The reason I say that is because as I was reading the book, I realized how it could have saved me more time and enjoy my reading better if I would have known about the…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 7, 2019
Tools for the Era of Open Innovation A shift in the knowledge landscape has introduced a new era – the era of open innovation. Long gone are the days of Edison and Tesla battling one another in their private laboratories. A new era dawns: one of purposeful sharing of insights and discoveries internally and externally,…
By: Dylan Branson on October 4, 2019
Reading can be a daunting challenge. As someone who loves to read, there have been many books that I have come across where I can feel my eyes glazing over as I try to decipher the meaning of the text. I vividly remember this occurring for the first time when I was in high school…
By: Nancy Blackman on September 18, 2019
My goodness! This book offered many answers to my professional, academic, ministry, and personal life. PROFESSIONAL: As a co-owner of a business, many light bulbs went on! This helps me understand and have grace, a bit better, for people who communicate, decide, trust, and disagree differently than myself. On the flip side, I…
By: Greg Reich on September 18, 2019
In the animated fictitious movie “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” the tiny Island of Swallow Falls’ entire culture and economy is based on sardines. The son of the local bait shop Flint Lockwood a wanna be inventor wanting to give the community more of a variety of food, so he designs a machine that…
By: Chris Pollock on September 18, 2019
Opening to the world, the beauty and artistry and history in all of its cultural diversity, continues to be a process for me. Unfathomable to recall that there was a time that I believed everyone thinks the same way and sees the world just like me, despite going to an international school growing up and…
By: Darcy Hansen on September 17, 2019
Muzungu. This is one of the first words I heard come out of the mouths of children running down dusty, bumpy roads as I traveled to home visits for my sponsored children when visiting Rwanda the first time. Extracting exactly what it meant depended on whom I spoke with. Some mentioned it meant a person…
By: Steve Wingate on September 16, 2019
I am an advocate for not going alone. Entrepreneurs that I have met, typically, hold their paths to success close to the vest. It’s a shame because the output from two kindred entrepreneurial spirits working together can be incredible. That goes for entrepreneurial-minded congregational leaders. Trust is an experience that creates powerful momentum compounding other…
By: Jer Swigart on September 16, 2019
A woman shaped by intentional decisions for international displacement, Erin Meyer not only allowed herself to become a culturally savvy leader, she narrated the dynamics of leadership that span cultural boundaries and borders in The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures. From the onset of the book, Meyer…
By: Shawn Cramer on September 16, 2019
With my working title defining me as “Team Leader for International Missions Innovation,” Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map provides applicable insight. My R&D team exists “to innovate and expand opportunities to further God’s Kingdom around the world.” Working with people from differing cultures along Meyer’s eight continuums of cultural differences is a large part of…
By: Dylan Branson on September 15, 2019
“I will be dead before I see the Ring in the hands of an Elf!” – Gimli, son of Gloin, The Fellowship of the Ring (movie adaptation) In 2012, I made my first trip to Hong Kong to serve with a Christian organization that sends Christian teachers to closed nations in Asia to…
By: Joe Castillo on September 15, 2019
Meyer, The Culture Map The Culture Map is a very precise book that I have ever read on culture. Even though it’s base on an anthropological approach to the business world, the book has many applicable insides that are very helpful for those working on a multicultural environment. First of all, when I was…
By: Chris Pollock on September 14, 2019
School pride, Oxford has it. Perhaps school pride does not affect every school the way it does just a little for Oxford, the second oldest university in the world. The school can be a way in which students identify themselves. School colors are worn with pride; stories of founding and history are shared with reverence.…
By: Darcy Hansen on September 13, 2019
In 2 weeks, I’ll be embarking on a learning adventure for my Leadership of Global Perspectives Doctorate of Ministry program. This adventure will require full sensory attentiveness to the fast-paced cosmopolitan city of London, as well as the historically nostalgic streets Oxford. While I’m giddy to visit both, Oxford has captivated my imagination ever since…
By: Jer Swigart on September 12, 2019
Henri Nouwen is one in a constellation of Christian mystics who speaks of the sustainable, centered, cohesive way of life that is present to and oriented around the God we can discover in Jesus. With each paragraph saturated in humility and vulnerability, Nouwen offers us permission to be nothing more than human beings who are…
By: Chris Pollock on September 12, 2019
In the house where I grew up I remember there was a book on a shelf in the upper hallway that had a picture on the front cover that often caught my attention. The picture was of open hands covering a woman’s face. ‘With Open Hands’ is the title of the book and, Henri Nouwen…
By: Nancy Blackman on September 12, 2019
As a fan of Henri Nouwen, I already owned “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life.” It was fun to open it back up and re-read my highlights, pondering how they might be prevalent to where I am today. It’s hard for me to separate discernment of my travel to London without including why I…
By: Greg Reich on September 11, 2019
How does one start to unfold the many possibilities that a book like Discernment Reading the Signs of Daily Life by Henri Nouwen conjures up? Especially when it comes to putting it into practice in a place like London and Oxford. A place of which my only experience is based on books that I have…
