Christian Maturity

Squared off to Bunt (part four)

I was in Memphis one snowy morning recently. A CRM teammate we affectionately call “Hound Doggie” and I were designing curriculum for the upcoming reFOCUS:Atlanta conference when his cell phone rang. “Hi Honey… OK… Are you OK? Are the kids OK? Don’t worry about a thing. Stay put and I’ll be there in ten minutes.” […]

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Squared off to Bunt (part two)

This is the 50th blog entry on distinctions I often make in coaching. For close to a decade, it’s been my privilege to coach pastors, primarily. Invariably, our conversations center on leadership. And, because of the inseparable link between the two: on character. Pastors who lead well do so because of who they are. Who

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Squared off to Bunt (part one)

In some sectors of the church today there’s great momentum, clarity of mission, risk-taking experimentation, courageous leadership, and fresh reliance on the Holy Spirit for direction, empowering, and transformation. Churches are breaking out of the attractional paradigm and are moving their ministry focus off their facilities and into the community where those who need Christ

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Which Will? (part six)

In many quarters of the Church, the contemporary understanding is that Christianity is lived in the passive voice. Wikipedia says: “the passive voice denotes the recipient of the action (the patient) rather than the performer (the agent).” The assumption is that the Christ-follower empties herself of all ambition and self-determination and simply waits, patiently, for

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Which Will? (part four)

In I and Thou Martin Buber writes of the freedom each of us has to pursue our destiny. If you’re paying attention, the longer you live the better you understand the unique contribution you are. I say, “if you’re paying attention” because God is communicating. Those endeavors where you’ve had success, failure, frustration, satisfaction, the

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Which Will? (part three)

We’re examining destiny. You have one. Waiting for you. As Buber says, you must pursue it with your whole being, not knowing where it waits. You have a ‘great will’ that wants to live a noble, heroic, God-honoring, and history-impacting life. And, you have a ‘little will’ that above all desires to: Look good.  Feel

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Which Will? (part one)

No book has been so confounding to me and, at the same time, so powerfully influential as Martin Buber’s I and Thou.  Large chunks of the book, clumsily translated from Buber’s original German, for me are indecipherable. Then, like a flash of lightning, a paragraph or a page will suddenly illuminate the sorry condition of

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The Long View (part three)

How does a minister develop tenacity … particularly when the surrounding culture is increasingly committed to relieving tension—in the short run—without regard to the long term consequences? Tenacity is defined as the capacity to stick—like super glue—to one’s commitments.  The word comes from the Latin tenere which means “to hold”. In a culture that, over the

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