…of sorts… This past week I finished reading (listening to) Adam Grant’s book Give and Take. It’s not a new book, but it was new to me. The subtitle is Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Grant begins with a very compelling discussion about who is most likely to succeed in life: givers, takers or matchers. There is a great […]
My mother liked straight pictures. When I painted for her through the years, the worst part of the job was rehanging all the pictures. We had to measure. Mark. Compare the mark to the next picture. Re-measure. Hang. Put the level on it. Take it back down. Re-measure again. Try a new nail over 1/8th of an inch. Hang. Move […]
The less time you spend trying to be what you are not, and even more so, the less energy you spend forcing your congregation to be what it is not, the better. Don’t underestimate the significance of this insight. God gives some gifts to all people. He does not give all gifts to all people. He has dealt you some […]
As a pastor somewhere, somehow you have gotten stuck. Maybe you could never quite get the sermon you were working on to come together. Maybe there is a project that hasn’t quite gotten off the ground. Maybe you have not quite hit a stride in a particular area of ministry. Try turning things upside down. For instance, if you have […]
Pastors are notorious for being lone rangers. They are, unfortunately, notorious for being narcissistic. We fall far too easily into the sinfully silly notion that we are the show; we are not. That it is about us; it is not. We must WORK at the recognition that we are in the ministry together with lots of other people. We must […]