Spiritual Leadership Today
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What Makes Some Speeches Memorable?
Last night the President of the United States gave the annual State of the Union address. What do you do when you have to give a speech that is a prime opportunity to unite and motivate? The State of the Union address is always an interesting speech to analyze. What an opportunity–to address the whole
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Preaching and the Packers
It was a lot of fun yesterday watching the Green Bay Packers defeat the Chicago Bears and qualify for a trip to the Super Bowl (especially because I was born in Chicago but grew up in Green Bay, just two miles from Lambeau Field.) On a rare occasion in the past I would break into
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Sage Perspective
Christianity Today to Billy Graham: What are the most important issues facing evangelicals today? “I’m grateful for the evangelical resurgence we’ve seen across the world in the last half-century or so. It truly has been God’s doing. It wasn’t like this when I first started out, and I’m amazed at what has happened—new evangelical seminaries
What Leaders Long For
I’m having very interesting conversations with Christian leaders from all walks of life these days. What I am asking them is: how do you think your life would be different if you had a renewal of spiritual leadership? Naturally, this prompts the question of what “spiritual leadership” means. Good question! When we begin this study
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Exhausted Leader Turns Back to the Vine
I appreciated the comment Angie Weszely made in FullFill magazine’s blog. She speaks of turning back to the Vine, and finding fresh wisdom for leadership there. Ever been there? “When I came into my current leadership position four years ago, I felt unprepared. No, actually clueless, about what I would need to do to lead an
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The Innovator
[It has just been announced that Steve Jobs has died. This post was written earlier this year.] It’s sad to hear that the ugly disease of cancer (or its after-effects) has forced Apple CEO Steve Jobs into a medical leave. He’s only 55 years old (I say “only” because that’s how old I am) and
Riding a Dragon
On this date in 1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell speech to a national television audience and coined a phrase to describe a frightening new reality: “the military-industrial complex.” This was a kind of prophetic word, a warning to the whole world that a new monster of our own making was on the
Is Civility Possible?
.22 caliber bullets ripping into the bodies of nineteen people in Tuscon, Arizona, was just the beginning of the wounds felt in America in the last few days. A disconnected young man, a handgun, and a scrambled mind is all it took for one minute of horror to erupt in the sheer ordinariness of a
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Bankrupt Cathedral, Bankrupt Theology?
Over a period of decades millions of people have tuned into the granddaddy of television-evangelism church services: the Crystal Cathedral of Dr. Robert H. Schuller. But from the start it has not been without controversy. Schuller’s unapologetic philosophy of ministry was to address the emotional brokenness in people and make them feel better about themselves.
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Getting People Moving
On Saturday I was helping a friend move across town, and it brought to my mind a period in my life a long time ago when I was in a small group that seemed to have someone moving about once a month. It’s a big job, with a significant time commitment. So a couple of
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Gabe Lyons
Recently I did a Faith Conversations radio interview with Gabe Lyons, the author of The Next Christians: How a New Generation is Restoring Faith. Lyons discusses his optimism about a new, different generation of believers that is as interested in reconciliation and restoration as religious institutions. This new generation, he believes, will not only radically
Why are we unsatisfied with our communication?
Over the years I’ve talked to many leaders about their experiences in the area of communication. I’ve asked, “What has worked for you?” Or, “What’s your solution to the issue of communication?” More often than not, leaders say that they are unsatisfied with their efforts or their results in communication. They often describe poor communication
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YOU have a God-given gift?!?
You approach an intersection where a disheveled homeless man with a wild mop of hair approaches your open window with a scrubby hand-scrawled sign on cardboard that says “I have a God-given gift…” Yeah, right. The sign says: “I have a God-given gift of a great voice.” So a TV reporter from Columbus, Ohio, rolls
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The Doorway
[New to The Brook Network? You may benefit by having new postings delivered via email, RSS feed, or Twitter.] In many doorways of the Roman Empire there was a depiction of a god with two faces pointing in opposite directions. Janus was the god of transitions. He looked ahead and he looked behind–to the past