I have the blessing of talking with many ministers (missionaries and pastors primarily). It is often rather amazing how their public selves diverge from their private selves. Their public selves are all “Praise God!” and “God is Good All the Time!” (Is God good all the time?) But privately, they will often open up about …
Category: Christian Leadership
Prophetic Politics?
I was looking at my FB stream a few days ago, and saw a post that was being shared by a friend. It showed two pictures-- one was apparently evangelical pastors in prayer, while the other a catholic priest... pontificating, I suppose. The overlayed captions referred to these two groups' relationships to the new Philippine …
In Service to One’s Countries
It is American Independence Day (as well as "Philippine American Friendship Day"). Americans commonly take patriotism/nationalism pretty seriously. I have never really known how to take that... especially in those who like to mix nationalism and religion. Years ago I was an officer in the United States Navy. I remember the first time that someone …
Reflections on Power and Powerlessness
I have struggled in my own heart and mind regarding the issue of Power and Powerlessness in the Christian Life and in Ministry. I have heard so many preachers who love to talk about receiving the POWER of God (and Yes, they will emphasize the term completely out of proportion to its value, in my …
The Right Inspiration for the Unblazed Trails
I was looking through an old workbook. It was for a small group study "On Mission With God," by Blackaby and Willis. It looks at Christian mission from the context of the lives of several Bible characters. It is a nice group study to gain a perspective of how one would serve God in a …
Continue reading The Right Inspiration for the Unblazed Trails
Sub-Biblical Churches and Small Groups
Randy Frazee, in "The Connecting Church," quotes an Ant ("Z') from the movie Antz: All my life I have lived and worked in the big city, which, now that I think of it, is a problem. Since I always feel uncomfortable around crowds-- i mean I have this fear of enclosed space. Everything makes me …
Grudgingly Faithful
My son was in college recently and a fellow student walked up to him and introduced himself. His name was Benjamin. My son did not recognize him at first. He mentioned that he lived near the church we used to be involved in. He attended the Friday night youth activities He was wondering if we …
The Engineer’s Baby. Part #2
<In the first part, I used the analogy of a designer's attitude with regards to his creation. There is a tendency to see it almost as in terms of a parent-child relationship. There are positive sides to that and negative sides to that. Now, bringing this to mission projects, programs.> Missions involves creative creation. New …
Power Without Accountability, Part 3.
My suggestion in the previous two posts is that the church has brought in the Power structures of history and surrounding social structures. Yet the church is meant to be unique in many ways. Among those, we are supposed to turn power upside down. We have trouble with this. I have a(n) FB friend who …
Power Without Accountability, Part 2
We see all of the problems with power in an ecclesiastical (church) setting so a good question would not only be "Why do we have problems with power in the church?" but also "Why do we actively perpetuate power that leads to problems in the church?" Acknowledging lack of extensive expertise in this? I think …