DLGP

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Abraham Lincoln, Humanitarian

By: on June 11, 2014

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” paints a captivating picture of Lincoln’s life and the lives of his three rivals for the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Edward Bates.  This thorough and detailed book shares the…

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The “Rest of the Story”

By: on June 6, 2014

For a number of years, Paul Harvey was one of the highest rated and most popular radio personalities in America – with over 1,200 stations broadcasting his segments three times a day.  He would share a historical story which would leave the listener assuming a certain ending.  Then after a commercial break, he would come…

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Mixed Economy

By: on June 5, 2014

In my doctoral work for on my dissertation on fresh expressions, I often stumble over the term “mixed economy.” It is a term coined by Archbishop Rowan Williams when he referred to fresh expressions and ‘inherited’ forms of church existing alongside each other, within the same denomination, in relationships of mutual respect and support. In…

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A Grace that Empowers

By: on June 2, 2014

Over Coffee: A Conversation for Gay Partnership and Conservative Faith by Dave Thompson is a concise and practical book tackling one of the critical conversations confronting the church today; same sex unions and the church’s response. The church at large, for the most part, has ‘agreed to disagree’ on this pertinent issue that has been…

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Over Coffee Times Two

By: on June 1, 2014

The raging issue in the conservative church today is how to respond to the Gay movement. Dave Thompson in his book “Over Coffee” is an excellent attempt to bridge the gap and Thompson has a few new insights on how to bridge the gap. Thompson presents his ideas in the form of a non-threatening conversation…

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Making Space

By: on June 1, 2014

Over the past two weeks, I’ve had the privilege of leading a Travelearn study tour throughout Israel and portions of the West Bank.  During our time we were able to see, experience and participate in many life changing events.  Often, the most change came in areas we would not have expected or from people we…

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Coffee Break

By: on May 30, 2014

Over Coffee written in simple conversational style brings to surface the need for a faith based dialogue of a topic that remains quite sensitive to the conservative church.  The author Dave Thompson has done remarkably well in his attempt to reduce the distance between differing perspectives and bring them to dialogue.  First, there is the…

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Okupas, Sex, and Liquid Modernity

By: on May 30, 2014

Wednesday night from my hotel room in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, as I read through Team of Rivals (don’t worry this post is not about Team of Rivals), I watched as a 4 hour street battle unfolded below me.  Fires lit up the main streets as about 1000 leftist okupas (occupiers) battled the mossa…

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“Coffee Talk”

By: on May 29, 2014

“Over Coffee, “ a book by Dave Thompson, is a fictitional conversation between himself and a pastor regarding a gay church member.  The church member desires to be a part of the church and also partnered with his current love interest.  In this book Thompson mentions a study by Dr. Alfred Kinsey. The Kinsey Scale…

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Church Realities and The Kingdom

By: on May 29, 2014

I appreciated Dave Thompson’s book, Over Coffee, for pressing the importance of dialogue when engaging others with different points of view or with those who are in various stages of position development.  However, I was disappointed that it was a fictional story.  I imagine it would not be difficult to find pastors who would be…

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Unity and Homosexuality

By: on May 29, 2014

For Baptists, my church is quite progressive. Among other thing, we’ve ordained women since the 70’s, and we fought for civil rights in the 50’s. We don’t take all of scripture literally, though we do take it seriously (to be honest we’re progressive for Baptists, but conservative for the rest of Christianity).  It’s these kinds…

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Bridging the Gay/ Church divide

By: on May 29, 2014

This will be my second blog on David Thompson. I have met him twice for conversations about gay couples and the church’s response. Since then, I have read his short book called Over Coffee in which he has a conversation on this subject. He converses with a pastoral character composed of many conversations he has…

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What’s Happening at ESPN?

By: on May 27, 2014

Michael Sam, Jason Collins, Brittney Grinner and Robbie Rogers – athletes who “came out” in the most difficult environment, professional sports; football, basketball and soccer respectively.  The conversation has begun in one of the last bastions of heterosexual life – ESPN.  But the church can even become a more hostile environment. America is becoming more…

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Coffee with sugar?

By: on May 26, 2014

Beginning of this year Thomas Hitzlsperger, a famous former football player  from Germany came out as gay and generated intense media interest. In Germany, as in many other countries, soccer players have been very cautious about sharing information about their private life. Hitzlsperger came out in an interview with the newspaper ZEIT. In the conversation…

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Latin America . . . Here I Come!

By: on May 19, 2014

For years, I have desired to learn Spanish, and then I have wanted to improve my guitar playing skills and I have wanted to learn to fly  … and a hundred other things.   I have started on a couple of the above on several occasions, never getting any farther than the first few steps or…

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Kaufman: Rapid Acquisition Learning Excercise

By: on May 19, 2014

For this last week, a goal was to focus on practicing a “new” skill for twenty hours in hopes of acquiring at least rudimentary capability with that skill.  The idea for this endeavor arose from the text, “The First 20 Hours: How To Learn Anything…Fast” by Josh Kaufman. My initial idea had been to add-in…

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Bucket List Accelerator: Check!

By: on May 19, 2014

Most people I talk to have some form of a bucket list. A bucket list are those life time goals most want to complete before they die. The concept was popularized by the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called The Bucket List. The bucket list can be goals like learning a new language,…

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Learning how to play guitar fast!

By: on May 19, 2014

Josh Haufman, The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast, is a very fun read. Haufman shares so many great ideas on how to learn new skills. The author argues, “deliberate practice is the core of skill acquisition” (p.4). He also recommends the idea of “sufficiency” as a key to rapid skill acquisition (p.5), thus…

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What Do You See?

By: on May 18, 2014

I bought a good Canon camera in October after returning from the London Advance.  I wanted one just like Ashley’s since her pictures were so good!  For the most part, for the past several months, my camera has remained in its case.  This assignment, however, prompted me to take it out of the case and…

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