Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
At last week’s monthly mentoring group (which I mentioned here), I led the afternoon spiritual formation time. I used three props to focus on areas that I think are critical for leaders. One of the areas I talked about was putting the “big rocks” in first. In preparation for last week, I remembered reading a … Read more
In preparing for last week’s spiritual formation time at my monthly Matthew 28 pastors group meeting, which I wrote about recently, I came across (and used) a couple great quotes from Andy Stanley’s Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision. Stanley talks about what it takes to pursue a vision. Any vision worth pursuing … Read more
Last Thursday, I met with a group of pastors who are in the Matthew 28 Initiative. We’ve been meeting monthly since January. Each month, a District Superintendent leads a discussion on an assigned book. After lunch, one of the pastors from the group leads a time of spiritual formation. It was my turn this month … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to see the Sesame Street show at the War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, PA. We attended the morning show (there were two shows later in the day), which was lightly attended (same as the Thomas & Friends and Barney shows we had attended before). It was … Read more
Earlier this year, I listed 15 Books That Have Shaped Me as a Leader. One of those books was the classic by J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (I also talk about spiritual leadership in my last post, What Kind of Leader Are You?) The main reason the book (which I read during my time as … Read more
A few years ago, while thinking about possible topics for a D.Min. dissertation at Asbury Theological Seminary, I thought a lot about “spiritual leadership.” But then in one particular class, I started thinking about other qualifiers for leadership. Recently, in preparation for my interview with the consultation team as part of the Matthew 28 Initiative, … Read more
A few years ago, our conference worked with Paul Borden to develop the Matthew 28 Initiative. This initiative is “a strategy for transforming congregations to greater fruitfulness in making disciples of Jesus Christ.” This is the third year of Matthew 28 in our conference. As I understand it, there are approximately 45 churches in the … Read more
One of the books we read as part of the D.Min. program at Asbury several years ago was Lovett Weems’ Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit. I never blogged about it but I think about it from time to time. Weems discusses the vision and practices of early American Methodists. When people in America began moving … Read more
This morning, I was re-reading some chapters in Isaiah and read about Hezekiah’s impending death (Isaiah 38). Isaiah tells Hezekiah, who was ill at the time, that his time is up and that he won’t recover from his illness. After Isaiah leaves, Hezekiah prays. God sends Isaiah back to Hezekiah with news that God heard … Read more
In 2006, two of the churches I was serving at the time merged to form a new congregation, Hope UMC (Alexandria, PA). It was quite an intense experience. I was appointed to Centre Grove in 2008 so I only led the new congregation for two years beyond the merger, but ever since then, I’ve wondered … Read more