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Category Archives: overfunctioning

Your Integrity and Your Leadership: Part 2 – EH Leader Podcast

Living with integrity, whether you are in your twenties or seventies, is no small task. In this podcast, I lay the foundation for a leader’s integrity by discussing four critical areas: 1. Integrity with God. Throughout church history, one of the seven deadly sins was described as sloth. This referred not just to laziness, but to busyness with the wrong things. We are overly active because we cannot bear the effort demanded by a life of solitude with God. The Desert Fathers had no patience for activism, even godly activity, unless it was nourished by a rich interior life with God. They repeatedly warned about being engaged in activity for God before the time is ripe. 2. Integrity with Yourself. Leadership in the church can do violence to your soul. When we give to others out of our emptiness, we are of little value to those we serve. One of our greatest challenges is. Read more.

Limits: God’s Grace in Disguise, Part 2 — EH Leader Podcast

Limits are often the last place we look for God. We want to conquer them, plan around them, deny them, and fight them. We attend leadership conferences so we can step out in faith and break through the limits before us. The problem is that when we fail to look for God in our limits, we often bypass him. And we get ourselves, our families, and those we lead in a lot of trouble. Why? Because in God’s economy, the obstacles before us are often the path itself. When God sets limits before us, he rarely provides a reason or explanation. Limits do, however, confront us with his authority. They force us to make a decision – to trust his goodness or to rebel against him. For this reason, limits take us to the heart of the spiritual warfare that rages around our leadership and relationship with Jesus. In this podcast, we will consider. Read more.

Limits: God’s Grace in Disguise, Part 1 – EH Leader Podcast

One of the greatest spiritual challenges for every leader revolves around how we frame and respond to the limits God places around us. Yet receiving limits as a grace disguised touches the core of our relationship with God and thus the core of our leadership. I began exploring a theology of limits in 1996 in the midst of my own spiritual, leadership, and marital crisis. This theology has continued to deepen and broaden for me over time. My interaction with young, middle-aged, and older leaders also confirms this is one of the most critical issues we face as pastors and leaders – personally, biblically, and practically. We are not alone. Paul wrestled with it. So did John the Baptist, David, and Jesus. In this podcast, I begin offering a biblical framework to understand limits as disguised gifts of grace coming from the hand of God to us and our leadership. At the same time,. Read more.

Finding God’s Rhythms for Your Life: Part 2 – EH Leader Podcast

I am fragile. When I get out of my rhythms of being with God, I am dangerous. I make unwise decisions; I over-function; I cross boundaries; I fail to be present to those I love; I become anxious; I rush. In fact, the finding of God’s rhythms for my life, and living them, is a matter of life and death – for me and for those I serve. And I am not alone. We are all fragile. This podcast is an invitation to get deeply anchored by deliberately structuring your life in ancient spiritual practices that have stood the test of time. In particular, I focus on the revolutionary practice of Sabbath-keeping and God’s invitation for us to stop and rest for a 24-hour period each week. This inevitably leads to many new insights about God and ourselves. As one person wrote: “Tell me one thing that is productive or efficient about it? The. Read more.

Finding God’s Rhythm’s for Your Life: Part 1 – EH Leader Podcast

Most leaders are starved for time. We cram as much as possible into our to-do lists, trying to maximize every spare minute we have. We’re often scattered, distracted, overloaded, and tired. So, instead of being who we are and where we are, we are frequently on the way to someone or something else. Amidst the busyness and hurry of life, few of us have a sustainable, long-term plan that answers the question: How can I live and lead in a way that is calm, relaxed, and filled with contentment in Jesus? The answer is found in deliberately structuring our lives around God’s rhythms, in ancient treasures of spirituality that I have been integrating for over two decades: Daily rhythms Weekly rhythms Annual rhythms Larger rhythms every 7-8 years Let me invite you to Part One of this very important theme, a topic that comes up in almost every conversation I have with leaders. And. Read more.

Redefining Success Jesus’ Way: Part 2 – EH Leader Podcast

To allow Jesus’ and Scripture’s view of success to shape the way we lead is very, very challenging. Teaching about it is one thing. Living it is another. In this podcast, I offer three examples of how to redefine success in ways that look beyond numbers in different arenas: at New Life Fellowship, for an upcoming family wedding event, and in the ministry of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. The remainder of the podcast then looks closely at the three factors necessary to internalize the kind of radical change necessary to make the doing of God’s will, regardless of where it leads, the measure of our success: A deep integration of silence and solitude A deep integration of Ignatius’ concept of indifference, remembering that a true surrender of our will to God’s will is a learned, struggled-for, and prayed-for obedience; and A deep theology of God coming in our limits. Here is Part 2 of this. Read more.