CategoriesCompanioning Others, Mentoring Matters by

Finding Your Table: An Invitation to Grow Together

In most of our At the Table blogs, we write for both women and men. But today, I want to speak directly to men—because too many of us have quietly slipped to the sidelines.

Stepping Back Into the Game

I’ve noticed something over years of ministry and mentoring: many men hesitate to join a group, let alone lead one. We hold back, unsure, often with a strange mix of humility and fear.

Some tell me, “I’m not an expert—I don’t know enough.” Others shrug, “I’m still learning myself; I’m not qualified to teach.” Once, I asked a veteran missionary, theologian, and Bible scholar to mentor me. He looked surprised and said, “I’m not capable of that. I need to be mentored by you.”

That moment taught me something: no one ever feels “qualified enough.” And that’s not the point. Many of us grew up in homes where emotion was hidden, pain was buried, and grief was “handled privately.” So when it comes to telling our story—the real one, with scars and losses—we freeze. Some of us still believe it isn’t “manly” to speak honestly about weakness or sorrow. Others feel disqualified by failure or haunted by the mistakes that make us human.

Busyness is how we live in our culture. Some work two jobs; many feel greatly burdened by the responsibilities of job, home, family, and marriage. Some have just adopted busyness as a way of life that becomes our modus operandi, which can justify withdrawal from our own spiritual formation.

And then there are those of us who simply stepped back, telling ourselves, “It’s time for younger men to lead.” But that’s a polite way of saying, “I’m done.”

Let’s be honest: those are excuses. Understandable ones, but still excuses. Read More

CategoriesJesus' Way, Spiritual Conversation by

Show Me the Way

Henri Nouwen was a man of many worlds—Dutch, Catholic, professor at Yale—yet he walked away from the shining halls of academia into the gentle margins of life. He followed Jesus’ footprints into the quiet, often overlooked sanctuary of L’Arche, where people with disabilities live together in community.

 

That world was not unfamiliar to me. My brother Jerry carries his own story—one shaped by the way others whispered, be careful around that young man, and by the harsh names they hurled like stones. Retard seemed to be the most common. Perhaps that is part of why Nouwen’s choice has stayed with me. He exchanged the polished halls of prestige for the sacred ground of obscurity.

 

And then he wrote a book, Show Me the Way—a title soaked with longing.

Read More

CategoriesSpiritual Conversation by

Death and Dying

Learning the truth of the life we are living and the death that will come to us all.

It seems our family has been surrounded by death in this past couple of years. First, a niece in her 30s, then Wendy’s sister in her 70s, and my brother in his 80s. We have just now gone through 80-plus years of pictures, watches, hats, and stories about my brother most recently. He died on July 7th. It takes me back to the death of our parents, aunts, uncles, and many family members, especially the “older generation.”

In the normal scheme of things, now it is “our” turn to be the older generation. 77 is a great golf score, but it is also a date in time: On June 26th, 1949, at the Little Company of Mary Hospital, a baby boy joined the large extended family of Andersons’, Liljedahls’, and Nelsons’.

 Seventy-seven years later, I am writing this blog to you. Most of those family members have died.

There is a particular kind of quiet that comes when the people who knew your beginning are no longer in the room. Their photographs remain. Their stories surface at the kitchen table. A hat, a watch, a familiar saying can carry more weight than it did before. Their lives have become part of the story by which we know ourselves. And now, without warning, we find that we are no longer merely the ones remembering the older generation; we have become it.  Read More

CategoriesCompanioning Others, The Art of Dialogue, VP3 happenings by

Better Together

Flying into the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is special. Dropping down from 30,000 feet over the mountains, the landscape opening up below is a surprise the first time. There are limited options for an approach. I’ve always landed from the north. It’s a bit like threading a geographical needle between small mountains; Okanagan Lake off to the right. So much beauty. And possibility. And lots of VP3 friends.

 

My first VantagePoint3 work assignment on the road was to Kelowna in February 2013. Randy Reese wanted me to meet friends of our ministry. My task was also to celebrate and honor The Journey process alumni in the area. 

 

The VP3 2026 Gathering at Green Bay Camp, October 5-7 on Okanagan Lake, is an opportunity to again convene our many friends in the area and to express VP3’s deep desire to both learn and encourage a more relational way of life and ministry with God and others. 

 

“It is in close relationships with others where we begin to see how Christ is actually, specifically, beautifully active in the fabric of our everyday lives.”

A Mentoring Guide: Christ. Conversation. Companionship. 

Read More

CategoriesSpiritual Conversation by

Say Yes: When Life Feels Out of Control

I would like you to join me in a conversation with a skeptic. Perhaps The Skeptic’s questions are yours too. If so, I have a proposal for both of you—and for myself.

One word describes how life comes at me some days. It feels relentless.

The phone rings, bringing another crisis. The news pulses with uncertainty: war, the cost of living, political vitriol, and one more reason to be afraid. Life can feel like the title of a U2 song: we are “stuck in a moment we can’t get out of’—or perhaps simply ‘Numb.’” It may not be that life is wildly out of control, frantic, or unstable. It may just be a day, a week, or a season when life feels like too much.

This morning I talked with a mother of five at her workplace. She had opened the store at 5:00 a.m. I asked whether she had to move stealthily through the house to get out the door without waking everyone. She smiled without words, offering only a nod that said, “You understand.” I grew up in a household of five children too, so I understood something of that early-morning routine. She knows what it is to have life begin making demands before dawn.

Now you will see why my proposal may sound counterintuitive. In such times, I say with Psalm 33, “Sing joyfully to the Lord.”1

The Skeptic: Did I read that correctly? Read More

CategoriesEncouraging, individuals by

In Memoriam: Wendell Berry

In Memoriam: Wendell Berry
1934–2026

It was late fall or early winter of 2000, as I recall. Wendy and I, along with a few friends, made our way to a bookstore in downtown St. Paul to hear a man read from his newest book. It was not the first time I had heard of this man, Wendell Berry of Kentucky. But that evening made me a student of this Kentucky farmer, novelist, poet, conservationist, and profoundly deep and witty writer.

The book from which he read that night was Jayber Crow: A Novel: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership, as Written by Himself. I left that bookstore with a copy that is now worn, battered, and deeply loved. I now have thirty-five of his books in a place of prominence on my bookshelf. I have read them all, many of them more than once. I am pretty sure a friend or two has others that once sat on my shelf but never found their way home. On a wall in our house, I have a letter from him, written in Advent 2017, and nearby, a picture of him sitting at his writing desk—just a few feet from my own.

Wendell died on August 31, 2026, at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky. He was ninety-two. I grieve his death. I feel it as a personal loss. My tears fell, and my voice choked when I heard the news because, for more than twenty-six years, he had become an honored teacher, a spiritual influence, and a wise voice in my life. I want to tell you why. Read More

CategoriesCompanioning Others, Encouraging, Spiritual Conversation by

Church for the City

We recently celebrated an event on Whidbey Island called Church for the City.   Perhaps as many as 16 churches gathered on the Oak Harbor waterfront at Windjammer Park. It had something of the feel of an Old Testament sacred assembly: elders and neighbors gathering the people to worship, sing, serve, and remember God’s movement in the life of their community. More than a thousand of us came for worship,  a day of service to our city, and a shared communion service. And, by the way, I got a T-shirt.

Our day called to mind Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon:

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

The word translated welfare is the Hebrew word shalom – peace, wholeness, well-being, thriving, and resilience. The repetition matters: seek the city’s shalom, because in its shalom you will find your shalom. This was not a letter to people who had freely relocated after looking up housing options on Redfin. They had been carried into exile after defeat by a mighty military empire. Jeremiah’s instructions were not merely surprising; they must have been terribly upsetting. Read More

CategoriesDeep Mentoring, Jesus' Way, VP3 happenings by

Pause, Patience, and Jesus’ Way

What opens us more deeply to growth and faithfulness in Christ? What seems to hinder our formation as persons and communities in Christ? 

I have been pondering Jesus’ way in light of these two questions lately, in preparation for our upcoming VP3 Gathering in Kelowna, October 5-7. If these questions are currently important to you, consider making your way to beautiful British Columbia. Join us and our conversation.  

The element of Jesus’ slow and patient way with others has resurfaced in my mind in the past few weeks. Not by any means new thoughts, but perhaps something of my own pace, driven by my current occupations and preoccupations, has prompted a pause. Slow down. 

Big picture, our cultural preoccupation with speed, efficiency, and control—“Do everything faster!”—leads me to notice Jesus’ unhurried way with others. Our constant search for shortcuts and “getting the biggest bang for our buck” does not condition Jesus as he moves through the world. This slow, patient mentoring unfolds most clearly in the way Jesus treats his disciples.  Read More

CategoriesSpiritual Conversation by

The Incognito God

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”1
—C.S. Lewis

 

Let’s think about that: some days or even weeks, I feel I have successfully evaded the presence of God—not by design or intention; instead, it seems I walked different streets or sang different songs, or simply didn’t see or hear or feel his presence.  You have felt that too; I know it. God incognito. What now?

 

I understand: it sounds like I blame you (me) for missing the presence of God. Instead, let’s hear the invitation in some words below—from scripture and from wise writers and friends.  They tell me that God desires relationship with us when we seek him, not just answers to all our questions. They invite us to align our expectations—to accept that, for now, we see only partially. To become detectives of divinity. To move at the pace of being known. And to listen to our own stories for evidence of God’s presence. Read More