CategoriesMentoring Matters, Preparing Your Heart by

Perfect people need not apply

If a resume is necessary to be involved in the mentoring ministry, the most essential guideline should be that perfect people need not apply. Mentors are not superheroes or champions. They are those who stand alongside one another with unending curiosity, inexplicable faith, and patience. You might be considering a mentoring relationship yourself and wonder if special qualities, such as a highly successful spiritual life, are required. 

 

What kind of person is best for this ministry? The more time we spend on scripture, the more we realize that there aren’t really heroes of faith or perfect people. Read More

CategoriesMentoring Matters, Preparing Your Heart by

A Required Course

Mentoring the next generation of followers of Jesus is not an elective; it is a required course in the curriculum of faith.  Here’s why: 

  • The Christian faith was grounded in the first two generations of Jesus’ followers, especially in the first generation.
  • It is entirely possible for us to see the decline and/or demise in another generation or two.

I sat in the back of remarkable architecture in a cathedral in Scotland.  It was no longer a vibrant congregation of the faithful; instead, it was a museum of the past. Only a very few saw this as a place for the formation of faith, and this narrative is repeated across Europe.

Mentoring is a required course. 

Mentoring, discipleship, and spiritual formation for the next generation is not an elective for us; it is a required course in the curriculum of faith.  Again, here’s why: Read More

CategoriesEncouraging, Mentoring Matters by

Blessing is waiting

When it comes to mentoring or spiritual direction, blessing is waiting. But why bother? What’s the point of it anyway?

Those are fair enough questions, but let’s be honest: We have other questions that might be quietly paused within your spirit. Let’s try two:

  1. What are you looking for? It’s another way of asking about your level of contentment, I suppose. What makes you curious? When do you feel most at rest within your spirit? When was the last time you would say you knew yourself to be heard, deeply listened to, and highly valued?
  2. What are you longing for?  It’s been said, “Stay close to your longing…” This refers to yearnings, craving, hungering, or just plain desiring. It’s another way to look within to assess your level of interior contentment.

Mentoring gives sacred access to one’s life, heart, interior self, and, yes, soul.

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CategoriesEncouraging, Seasonal by

Managing or Receiving?

 My favorite Bible character is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Though she has many admirable qualities, the one I find myself drawn to the most is the way this ordinary, Jewish young woman responded to the angel Gabriel’s news that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah. 

She was initially confused and disturbed and asked some good questions about how this was all going to work out for her, which I appreciate. However, without knowing all the answers, she said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” 

It’s worth noting that within just a few days of receiving the news from the angel Gabriel, Mary left to go find her relative and friend, Elizabeth, who was also pregnant. She did not work out her situation alone. She found support and seemed to gain strength for her call. Rather quickly, Scripture reveals (Luke 1:46–55) that she began to earnestly praise God for what he was doing in and through her.  Read More

CategoriesEncouraging, Seasonal by

A tale of two angels

An angel is a messenger. The wings we ascribe to them are most likely optional accessories, like a sunroof on a car. We can make much of what artists, cartoonists, and novelists have shown about the physical nature of angels, but there are three certainties about them in this tale of two angels:

  • They bring announcements from God. Sometimes, they are words of a personal assignment, such as that to a young Jeremiah to bring truth to his troubled nation or declarations of an impending birth that changes the world for all time.
  • They understand humankind enough to add tender words to the announcement, words of calm, comfort, or tranquility—words like “Fear not.”
  • They bring news, a statement, or notice. Something will happen—be alert, get ready, and prepare to respond.

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CategoriesFamilies, individuals by

My oldest brother Jerry

Yesterday brought the conversation one hopes never to have: My oldest brother Jerry, severely brain-damaged at birth, was given a diagnosis of likely cancer. The treatment for his weakened body would be invasive and painful, with uncertain results. 

A painful choice was made through tears, prayer, and loving conversation. Jerry would be placed in hospice care. Four siblings of a gentle and loving 80-year-old man made the decision, which was painful yet hopeful. 

Gordon Cosby, from Church of the Savior, once said we must realize that we all sit next to someone seated next to their own pool of tears. To love one another and to listen to one another and to help each other grow as apprentices of Jesus, we are invited by life to pay attention to our own tears of grief. Read More

CategoriesTheology and Spirituality by

Learning to Listen

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor killed by the Nazis for his resistance to Hitler, understood Jesus’ primary message: “The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them, to their story, to their words…We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.” [1]

As our biblical grounding image, I want us to start with a text we call the Transfiguration. You know it, I am sure: Jesus standing with two icons of the Jewish faith, Moses and Elijah, and three who would become icons of the Christian faith: Peter, James, and John. As usual, Peter did a lot of unnecessary talking. Luke described it as Peter “not knowing what he said.” The contrast was another voice, a memorable word from the cloud, the voice of Abba, who thundered what may have been a rebuke to Peter but gave a word for all who hunger and thirst to go deep. Do you remember the sentence? “This is my Son, my Chosen…” and then three words to burn into our hearts, “…listen to him.”  (Luke 9:35) Read More

CategoriesEncouraging by

Identity in a post-election world

We used to talk about identity as a spiritual statement of the person we are, the community in which we live, or the nation with whom we stand. Some substitute a marketing term today and ask, “What is your brand? How do you want people to react to your brand, your persona?”

So, I ask: Is follower of Jesus my “brand?” Bono answers: “I’m not a very good advertisement for God. I generally don’t wear that badge on my lapel. But it certainly is written on the inside somewhere.”[1]

He’s on to something, this artist, activist, and follower of Jesus.

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CategoriesEncouraging, Jesus' Way by

Paying Attention to Jesus

We learn not only by paying attention to Jesus’ words but also the way he lived his life. Following Jesus as our rabbi means three things:

  • You spend time with Jesus
  • You seek to become like Jesus
  • You do as he did. [I]

What were Jesus’ most common classrooms as rabbi?

Have you ever noticed how Jesus’ journey took him from seashore to desert, from urban centers (Jerusalem) to rural Nazareth, and to any place people gathered to listen? He taught in vivo—life as it is lived in real-time. And don’t miss this: along the way, Jesus ate meals with his students and with others, including marginalized people, social outcasts, and those unwelcomed by many. The road and the table formed a paradigm for how Jesus practiced his service to others.

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