A chill went up my spine when I got home from church on Sunday and heard about the shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, just miles from where I live. I was stunned because the shooting was taking place at the very time I was preaching at Elmbrook Church on Psalm 46:9: […]
Violence, Scripture, and the Sikh Temple Read More »
When we think of the great leaders of the past, we may remember their accomplishments, but just as likely we remember some great idea–a seminal idea–which dominated their lives and drove them to accomplish the great thing. Seminal, from the Latin word for seed, means something so compelling that it has a profound influence on
Planting the Seminal Idea Read More »
Ask yourself, just for a moment, what you really believe is going to happen as history unfolds in ever-greater extremes. Charles Dickens’ famous opening passage from A Tale of Two Cities begins this way: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
The Future Salvation We Need Read More »
Yesterday the Internet and other media lit up with a story of a man quitting his job. His name is Greg Smith, a mid-level executive with the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs. It is what he put in his letter of resignation–carried as an op-ed piece in the New York Times–that grabbed the attention of
Ripping People’s Eyeballs Out–Really? Read More »
If you are looking for a set of values that will give dignity to your life, that will connect you with the life of God, and that will work at a practical level, you need not look any further than these: reverence and respect. Reverence is what is supposed to happen in our hearts when
On Reverence and Respect Read More »
[This article is part of the “spiritual leadership today” study/discussion going on this year. For all articles in the series, click the Spiritual Influence tab at the top of the page. To have them delivered, subscribe to The Brook Letter] The biblical concept of the mind points to an amazing dignity and power of human experience.
[This post is in a weekly devotional series called Everything New. Sign up here if you’re interested.] To understand how God wants to “make everything new” in the world and in our lives we have to go back to when humanity was new the first time. That is why we are so captivated by the
Do You Look Like God? Read More »
[This post is in a weekly devotional series called Everything New. Sign up here if you’re interested.] In the beginning God created all things, and that tells us about his character. The world is a place of beauty, complexity and order, because that is what God is like. But it is when the Genesis account
Image is Everything Read More »
[This article is part of the “spiritual leadership today” study/discussion going on this year. For all articles in the series, click the Spiritual Leadership tab at the top of the page. To have them delivered, subscribe to The Brook Letter] Whenever you put the adjective “spiritual” in front of anything else, that may signal one of
Spiritual Leadership is About… Read More »
[This article is part of the “spiritual leadership today” study/discussion going on this year. For all articles in the series, click the Spiritual Leadership tab at the top of the page. To have them delivered, subscribe to The Brook Letter] A senior leader handed me a book the day I was selected to be a leader
Spiritual Leadership–So What? Read More »