By: Mary Mims on March 2, 2019
The campus ministry I joined in the 80s was focused on the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. Everyone knew Matthew 28:19-20 by heart and everyone knew they must give up everything for this great cause. Nothing was to get in the way of reaching the world with the gospel; not what you were studying, or…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on March 1, 2019
I love the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is one of my favorites. Of course, it is about the traveler who was stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead along the side of the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by and ignore this injured man along the side of…
By: Trisha Welstad on March 1, 2019
I love working on teams. Actually, that’s not true. I love working on highly effective teams. It is incredible to co-create with a group of people who are highly capable, motivated and collaborative with the same goals. I can remember multiple times when I have been on teams like this: a mission trip with Royal…
By: Jean Ollis on March 1, 2019
Having just returned from an inspiring leadership conference, Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston’s text, Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders, resonates positively with me. Berger and Johnston offer twenty-first century insight into leadership practice. Specifically the authors focus on the importance of active listening (this is a social work term but…
By: Kyle Chalko on March 1, 2019
Recently I’ve read a handful of books about habits. I love the word habits and rituals. And I need more habits… good habits to be precise. I also have 30 or so students I am to be investing in, and many of them are desperate for better habits. Of all the books I’ve read recently…
By: Jason Turbeville on March 1, 2019
I chose simple change as the title to my blog post this week because it seems to me like an impossibility within the church. The problem I am working on for my dissertation is how do you change the culture of a church from being inward focused and me centered to a focus on what…
By: Greg on March 1, 2019
“I love change, as long as I can control it” I have jokingly said this many times talking to people about the uncertainty that we face living in a world of change. I used to spend a day every few months moving the furniture in our apartment around to give me a sense of change…
By: Sean Dean on February 28, 2019
November 9, 2016 is a day that I will remember for a long time. The previous day the United States had elected a new president – Donald Trump. I was in shock and I did not know how to process this information. A man who from all accounts envisions himself to be Tony Soprano had…
By: Dan Kreiss on February 28, 2019
Please don’t read this on an upset stomach. Another book from the business world. What could it possibly have to say to the church or those interested in Christian leadership? There is no denying that the 21st century represents a level of complexity unmatched by previous generations. The church would do well to consider…
By: Mark Petersen on February 28, 2019
Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnson have written a book for the “VUCA” world we live in.[1] Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity are key traits that define these times. We are learning to lead within a high-stress, constantly-changing environment, as we are pulled in many divergent directions. Multiple options and polarizing stakeholders often paralyze leaders who…
By: Jenn Burnett on February 28, 2019
This week’s reading of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World took some important twists before landing on it’s recommendations. He begins by easily identifying a common belief from both the American Christian left and the American Christian Right that Christians are called to…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on February 28, 2019
University of Virginia Professor James Davison Hunter breaks his text down into three distinct sections, a very “Trinitarian” formula, as he shares his thesis on how Christians can help transform the modern world in his award winning text, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. The…
By: Jay Forseth on February 28, 2019
Chapter 4 in Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders is titled “Create A Clear Vision for an Unclear Future.” [1] Let us pretend together that I asked Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston to help me with VISION in my context as Conference Superintendent. The graphic above is the current vision statement for…
By: Digby Wilkinson on February 28, 2019
I was conned, misled and entrapped in the most cunning of ways. Calling a book “To Change the World” when the content of the book argues that such a thing is not possible, is a writer’s sleight-of-hand at its best.[1] Personally, the book scratched an itch that I have had for a number year. The…
By: Andrea Lathrop on February 28, 2019
I think James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World delivers on explaining the irony and tragedy of Christianity in the late modern world. As I read, I kept hoping that it would also deliver the possibility as well. And I believe it does. I agree with Hunter on his broad categories of what the Church’s response…
By: Mario Hood on February 28, 2019
University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter published the seminal work, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, in 2010. As much talk in the Evangelical ethos centers around engaging culture or transforming the world, Hunter’s work was much anticipated then and continues to be influential now.…
By: Colleen Batchelder on February 28, 2019
Jennifer Garvey Berger and Kevin Johnston, cofounders of Cultivating Leadership, and coauthors of Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders, challenge their readers to understand the new complexities of leadership within today’s context and present them with tangible resources to aid their organizational strategy. They dare their readers to ask the question, “How…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on February 28, 2019
These people who have stirred up trouble throughout the world have come here too, and Jason has welcomed them as guests! They are all acting against Caesar’s decrees, saying there is another king named Jesus![1] James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World builds on…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on February 28, 2019
This week’s book, Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders by Berger and Johnston, tells us that we are living in times of “VUCA”, meaning “volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.”[1] I got a kick out of the authors making an acronym out of this and organizing the book around how to actually deal…
By: Harry Edwards on February 28, 2019
In my last blog post I sought to bring to the fore some of what ails our beliefs and behaviors of Christianity in the West but more specifically in the United States today. In this post I would like to continue where I left off; and that is to offer a hopeful way forward for…
