Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
Earlier, I offered a heads-up on a free online leadership event called The Nines. The event (centered around 9-minute videos from 70+ different leaders/communicators), which took place today, ended moments ago, nearly 12 hours after it started. I’m not sure how much of it I caught. I had the live stream going on my computer … Read more
Without a doubt, the number one thing people have said to me (us) in the last two years has been something along the lines of, “Don’t blink!” It seems like everyone warns us that children grow up so fast. The point is always: don’t miss it, make the most of the time you have with … Read more
This Wednesday, there will be a free leadership event that will take place online. The event, called The Nines, will begin at 9:09 am CDT, on 09/09/09, and could last around 9 hours. While the event is free, you need to pre-register. Leadership Network asked about 80 leading communicators, “If you had nine minutes to … Read more
Several years ago, the “Herding Cats” commercial (for EDS) caught my attention as a great description of leadership. The one-minute commercial is jam-packed with language and imagery about leadership and mission (see complete transcript below). Transcript: This man right here is my great grandfather. He’s the first cat herder in our family. Herdin’ cats … … Read more
In July, we began meeting with our covenant groups (that are meeting together), which is a requirement in the ordination process of The United Methodist Church. Meeting every other month, we met for the second time earlier this week. First, we discussed the leadership paper we’re required to write for the Board of Ordained Ministry. … Read more
Months ago, when Ethan’s default answer to every question was “no,” we’d ask him various questions. One time, for fun, we asked him if he wanted a little sister. As expected, he said, “no.” Since then, we’ve tried to keep him in the loop without overwhelming him with news of his new/future sister. When we … Read more
We try to eat as many meals together as we can, of course, but there are times when we aren’t able to. Like one day last week. Ethan usually spends a morning with each of us each week. One day, I came home in the middle of Ethan’s lunch. Ethan said, “There’s Daddy!” then immediately … Read more
As I wrote in mid-July, there was a big HealthMiles challenge open to the members of HealthFlex, the health insurance plan of The United Methodist Church. In all, more than 2,800 participants logged more than 709,581,760 total steps during the 29-day challenge. The challenge sponsors set a 30,000-step daily limit, and a number of us … Read more
In the last few weeks, some of Ethan’s favorite words/phrases, surprisingly enough, have been “Please” (pronounced “peas”), “Thank you,” “Excuse me” (pronounced “scoos me”), and, to a lesser degree (or at least more recent), “Sorry” (pronounced “sar-you”). Ethan has been using “please” the longest. Awhile back, Ethan learned to add “please” to “more” when he … Read more
I have been thinking about “transformational leadership” in terms of three keywords: Character, Culture, and Perseverance. (1) Character Our character is our foundation. It involves our spiritual/devotional life, our connection to God. This is who we are, and who we are is foundational to what we do. Transformational leaders seek to build strong Christ-like character … Read more