We host a VantagePoint3 Gathering every couple of years and invite our dispersed community of developmentally minded leaders to join us. Last week, 77 of us gathered in Scottsdale, AZ.
A group of men and women, ages 17 to 84, came together, sharing a deep concern for “growing up in every way into Christ” and helping others grow up into Christ. Most of us also wanted to find a little warmth amidst winter’s cold. Read More
We are a culture that values the immediate, the fast, and the rapid. I want my coffee within a minute, my burger in two, and my customer service call to be answered stat. A friend of mine, Ben, used a phrase as he told me the story of his spiritual journey. The earliest stage he called “trust and obey,” which mostly meant trying to stay out of trouble and do as he was told (by his parents, the church, and the pastor). A second stage had to do with “knowing more,” which, for him, meant more informational knowledge—cognitive knowing where “being right” was more important than being righteous. But he used a phrase that captivated my imagination: “faithful repetition,” which, in his experience, meant mostly rote memorization or surface-level intellectual learning. I’d like to reclaim that phrase in a more positive view. Read More
Keith’s “Little Explorer on Board” blog last week caused me to think more about the connection between spiritual mentoring, leaving a legacy, and committing to our growth. This led me to recall one such person in my family whose influence has spread across several generations. My Uncle Tom was my dad’s uncle, one of my grandmother’s four brothers.
Uncle Tom was quite a humorous character. In our family, the stories abound. He was the sort of person who, when told not to touch the chocolate fudge cooling in the kitchen, was known not just to brush aside such cautions by taking a finger full, but he was known to take the whole tray with him to work. As a butcher, he was known to cause a couple of unsuspecting women to all but pass out by his sharp chop of the cleaver, followed by yelling and writhing as if he had just chopped off a finger or two.
My dad tells a story of Uncle Tom taking him and his sister fishing when they were still young at a creek a short walk from their house. Now, this creek was lucky to have a couple of frogs, some worms, and a stray snake or two. It majored mostly on mosquitoes. There were no fish to be found in that creek. But my dad and Aunt Harriet were very young, and they didn’t know better. So off they went with Uncle Tom and two fishing rods. He generated the enthusiasm of a serious fisherman at a raging Montana stream. Once they got to the creek, he set them up, and they started fishing. He didn’t place them right next to each other but spread them out a bit “so that we can find out where the fish are really biting.” As Dad tells it, Uncle Tom moved back and forth between the two of them for a bit. Read More
The silver-gray VW SUV stopped at the light on Highway 20 just in front of me. On the back of the car was a sticker with the words “Little explorer on board ” in cursive letters. As the father-in-law and grandfather of two firefighters, I know the sticker intends to alert first responders that a child is more than likely in the vehicle.
I mused about that idea for the rest of my drive home. What if we had a sticker like that on our Bibles?
Spiritual mentoring is too often understood as only something between one person and an older, wise mentor—end of sentence.
The driver of this SUV wants others to know they have a little explorer on board. Would they consider that their spiritual maturity, discipline, and growth have similar implications for their children or grandchildren? Read More
"Practical. Insightful. In my 50 years as a pastor, I’ve read many of these. This is THE best. I ordered 12 to give as gifts.”
