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Tag Archives: write

Leadership: Doing What is Required

“Sometimes our best is not enough. We have to do what is required.” Winston Churchill Bob Biehl quoted these words to me after listening to my complaint about the detailed, administrative, technical chores that were before me as a leader. I wanted to write, create, preach and train. Hadn’t I been doing these things for the last 26 years? James March, a former professor on international management at Stanford University, says there are two essential dimensions of leadership: plumbing and poetry. Plumbing refers to the management, i.e. things like fixing the faucet in the bathroom, that are repetitive and often unpleasant. Poetry is the imagination and innovation, the art that most people call ‘leadership.’ “No organizations work if the toilets don’t work,” March argues. Yes, we want to be faithful to our God-given life. At the same time, leadership is servanthood. There are no exemptions from that. “Sometimes our best is not enough. We. Read more.

The Boston Marathon Tragedy

Yesterday’s attack at the Boston Marathon was tragic.  What can we say to others? to ourselves? Where was God? I offer you two fragments that help me in times like this. 1. Be comfortable in being silent. Job’s three friends “wept aloud, tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was (Job 2:11-13). It is when they started talking that they got in trouble! Notice their presence “with him,’ i.e. Job, in his suffering. 2. The ultimate knowledge of God is to know that we do not know. Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant theologian who had written 20 very large volumes about who God is and how He works. On December 6, 1273 something happened to him that brought his teaching and writing to an end.. Read more.

Sabbath and the False Self

Henri Nouwen writes in The Way of the Heart that “solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.” He explores how we can fashion our own desert where we can withdraw (since we are not in a monastery), shake off our compulsions, and cultivate a life in the presence of the Jesus. “Solitude,” he writes, “is not simply a means to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us.” Nouwen notes that since our secular culture does not offer us spiritual disciplines, we have to cultivate our own. “We are responsible for our own solitude,” he argues. I believe the baby step to begin the pathway to this kind of transforming solitude is Sabbath-keeping. I have yet to find a detour around this. Read more.

Midday Prayer and Lectio Divina with the New Life Fellowship Staff

Stopping 3-4 times a day and cultivating rhythms to be with God each day out of which we serve Him is foundational to our staff life at New Life. The following is Geri’s midday prayer handout that she led the staff through this past Wednesday. Savor it before the Lord during one of your Offices (pauses) during the day. There are actually five movements of Lectio Divina: Silentio–Preparing to be read by God. Lectio – Ingesting the Word Meditatio – Wrestling with God Oratio –Letting God know how we feel Contemplatio – Abandoning ourselves to God in love Incarnatio – The Word becoming flesh in us. Lets now, together do each of these overlapping phases togetherSilentio 1 min. Lectio – Ingesting the Word My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed myself and quieted my ambitions.
. Read more.