CategoriesEquipping by

The Marks of Faithful Leadership

I love the presidential portrait museum in Washington, DC. One gets to stand, literally face to face, with the all-male cast of characters who once occupied the highest office in the land. Being a history major has its drawbacks. Too many stories of these presidents’ foibles, failures, moral compromises, and sometimes unethical behavior make it difficult to believe the myths we tell about their noble character, wise leadership, and courage. They were, after all, deeply human. On one visit, Wendy took my picture next to the portrait of the president she thinks I most resemble—the 38th president, Gerald Ford.

 

John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage describes eight U.S. senators he considered to be people of bravery and integrity. We hope for such qualities in those who lead us. Yet over time, we learn to distinguish between a leader’s public image and the deeper reality of their life.

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Categoriesindividuals by

Known Inside and Out

“God has crafted our character and given us a role that will reveal something about God that no one else’s story can reveal in quite the same way.”1 So says my colleague, Dr. Dan Allender of The Allender Center.

It turns out that God not only reveals himself to us but also reveals himself through us to others. Does that surprise you?

Like every person, you have been given a song that only you can sing. Read More

CategoriesJesus' Way by

Did Jesus practice work-life balance?

Jesus should have written a book about work-life balance. He didn’t, but he practiced something like it. The Gospels describe his pattern of movement, beginning with his baptism by John.

  • He knew who he was because he listened to God tell him, “You are my Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
  • From that identity, he moved into a busy ministry of teaching, preaching, healing, and confronting evil.
  • And he went off to “lonely places” to pray in solitude.

Spiritually, Jesus seemed to see identity, belonging, learning, worship, and rest as deeply interconnected. Teilhard de Chardin once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.”1 If he is onto something, we have been given a caution: do not overspiritualize spirituality. Eugene Peterson also cautioned us to remember that spirituality is primarily about life, life, and more life. Read More

Categoriesindividuals, Spiritual Conversation by

What Ariat Accidentally Preached

I’m watching an NFL game—Rams versus 49ers—and I find myself rooting hard for San Francisco. I need them to win. They don’t.

As the fourth quarter unfolds and the tension builds, a commercial comes on that nearly knocks me off my seat. The 49ers quarterback is shown walking up a hill, and then these words are heard: Don’t let the world tell you who you are.

It turns out to be an ad for Ariat boots and clothing. I wear Ariat boots. I’m not a cowboy, but I do know great quality when I try it on. And yes—you’re 100% correct—I look good in those boots.

Little did I expect to hear a national company sound like the Apostle Paul in an ad for western wear, but there it was:

Don’t let the world tell you who you are.

Yet Christianity has always offered something more complicated than rugged individualism. Scripture does not deny individuality, but it refuses to make the self the center of identity. Read More

CategoriesPreparing Your Heart, Spiritual Conversation by

Where are you?

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

Genesis 3:8–9

 

Adam and Eve have just eaten of the tree that God has commanded them not to eat of—perhaps the most disruptive moment in the history of humankind. The story goes on to say that their “eyes were opened” and they became “ashamed of their nakedness.” Then Adam and Eve hear God enter the Garden and immediately they hide in the trees. God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?”

Now what is God asking? Has God lost track of Eve and Adam? Read More

CategoriesPrayer, Preparing Your Heart by

The Jesus Prayer: A Sacred Script for Everyday Souls

In a culture shaped by ritual and repetition, Jesus offered something radical and surprisingly intimate. In Jesus’ day, rabbis taught their students (disciples) a signature prayer that summarized their theology in liturgical form. 

 

When Jesus’ students asked for his prayer, he gave them something unexpected, a bold alternative to the structured liturgies of first-century Jewish life.  It was not simply a continuation of the religious status quo but a sacred disruption of their familiar, repeated prayers. In so doing, he reframed the spiritual imagination of all who would learn his prayer: the Jesus Prayer—a prayer not of performance, but of presence, a quiet cadence of intimacy. He taught his followers how to pray as other rabbis did, but more importantly, what it means to be heard by God.  It was a prayer not only for learned, professional religious folks but for all who want to grow in intimacy with Abba. 

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CategoriesPrayer by

In the Presence of Pray-ers

What do you pray in your own “private prayer”? After World War II, John Baillie, a Scottish pastor, published A Diary of Private Prayer, a month of his morning and evening prayers. Private, yes—but not isolated from his world, the public square, or the needs of “the other.” His prayers called him to love others, often expressed through compassion for the suffering and just, generous practices toward the sick, blind, and prisoners—including those oppressed by injustice.

We learn to pray best when we are in the presence of pray-ers and prayers. Baillie’s diary becomes a classroom of instruction on prayer. Listen first to his posture before God—and then to his four petitions.

“Oh, divine love who dost everlastingly stand outside the closed doors of the souls of humankind, knocking ever and again, wilt thou give me grace to throw open all my soul’s doors?”1

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CategoriesPrayer by

“Understanding comes with use.”

“We don’t have to understand a crowbar before we put it to use.
Understanding comes with use.”1

—Eugene Peterson

 

The sentence made me laugh.  At no time in my life—as a seminary student, pastor, or professor—did I ever think about a crowbar as a metaphor for any part of the spiritual life.  A crowbar, as I used it, was for the only construction skill I possess: demolition. I am not a builder, but I can take things apart. My college roommate and I once worked for ManPower on a Saturday morning, disassembling a bakery oven in a local grocery store. We became covered in flour and crumbs from its years of use.  It took us almost all day, but we didn’t use a crowbar.

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