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Tag Archives: questions

Midday Prayer: Solitude, Community, and Ministry

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes) Scripture Reading – Luke 6:12-18 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles…He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon. Devotional This is a beautiful story…Jesus spent the night in solitude with God. In the morning, he gathered his apostles around him and formed community. In the afternoon, with his apostles, he went out and preached the Word and healed the sick. Notice the order – from solitude to community to ministry. So often in ministry, I have wanted to do it myself. If it. Read more.

Patient Leadership

Patience is a form of wisdom. Some things must unfold in their time. A child that rushes a baby chick to hatch ultimately kills it. The straining and process of birthing is God’s way to prepare the chick to survive into adulthood. In the same way, God rewires and forms us into our true selves in Christ, burning out that which does not belong to Him, through our slow sufferings and struggles. God’s process cannot be hurried. As Rilke says: “Have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart, and try to cherish the questions themselves. Perhaps one day… gradually… you will live right into the answer.” Move towards your goals, but with a sacred patience. Prayerfully ponder the questions to which you have no answers. He will lead you into the answers.

Ten Distinctives of Emotionally Healthy Preaching

I spent a good part of this week reflecting on more than twenty-five years of preaching as  I spoke this morning at a Preaching Rocket conference here at New Life in NYC. Others, like Andy Stanley, have done an outstanding job describing the craft around preaching. My task was to consider the unique applications of emotional healthy spirituality to the preaching/teaching task. The following are the ten questions to which I return over in preparation my own sermons and work with our NLF Preaching Team: Am I contemplatively grounded in God Am I centered in myself? Am I allowing the text to intersect deeply with my family of origin? Am I preaching out of my vulnerability and weakness? Am I allowing the text to transform my spiritual journey? Am I surrendering to the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension process? Am I taking sufficient time to think through clear and pointed applications? Am I thinking. Read more.