One of the critical areas of self-leadership is leading your own personal growth. For some of us, the time between Christmas and New Year’s is a time of reflection as we prepare to start the new year. In October, I challenged you to discern 2021 goals for your church, this month I’m asking you to focus…
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Don’t you love the story of the birth of Jesus? For me it’s like a favorite blanket I get out every Christmas to wrap myself in. It’s familiar, it’s traditional, and it’s one of my favorite stories. If you’re like me, you’ve most likely heard it so often you could recite Luke 2 without even…
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I’ve been talking to many pastors and individual families recently who are dealing with quarantine and new shutdowns and restrictions. It seems especially hard as we look ahead to the Advent season. Perhaps, like me, you’re grieving the sense of normalcy that typically comes with the traditions of the Christmas season. It’s hard to imagine…
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I take a lot of walks around our town. In 2020, due to being at home more, my walks often take me to the same areas. I’m always intrigued by the driveways and sidewalks. The cement where families often have their kid’s handprints, or their dog’s pawprints in the corner with the date written sunk…
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Did you have personal goals for 2020? Perhaps you planned to read certain books, complete certain training, read or memorize certain portion of the Bible. Did you have ministry goals? To create certain ministries, develop certain programs or train specific teams? BUT THEN 2020 BLEW UP! And yet, Jesus still showed up, changed lives and…
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Have you ever noticed that kids have big questions about God and for God? I believe that because we were created by God, for God, we are born searching for Him. Kids show this search for God in the way they ask questions about Him. “Can God see me all the time?” “Why did God…
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The people you lead need four things from you: The assurance that they can TRUST you, your COMPASSION, that you bring STABILITY in tumultuous circumstances, and the fourth–and last in this RMD Newsletter series–is HOPE. Hope is confidence in the future that God has planned. Followers who hope in God for the future are more…
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We moved when I was 11 years old. We moved from one region of the US to a completely different one. While not a country change, it felt in many ways as if we had been flown to an unknown part of the world and left to find our own way. The accents and idioms…
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Reliable and copious research shows that followers need four things from their leaders: Trust, Compassion, Stability and Hope. In this tumultuous season when we might be tempted to hibernate (or if we’re like Jonah, board a ship headed in the opposite direction,) our churches instead need our Stability. Your stability–your strength to stand firm–is vital…
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The first one is Trust, with its counterpart, Suspicion. (Read more about that in last month’s newsletter.) According to Gallup, the second element followers need from their leader is Compassion. This research applies to all organizations–including both ministry and business–and reveals compassion as key to employee engagement, and ultimately a fat bottom line. We Jesus-followers have a different…
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