I’ve been hired as a young preacher twice, at ages 23 and 29. I made tons of young preacher mistakes and the churches I worked with had to put up with a lot from me. I’ve given advice to young preachers in the past and I’ll do it again in a future post. In this […]
Working with Young Preachers
This past weekend I had the privilege of spending some time with a young preacher working with a church in Southern California. I was impressed by his sincerity, humility, and total lack of cynicism. He has a tremendous future as a minister of the gospel. I hope the church he’s serving recognizes this and takes […]
March 9, 2011 by 8 Comments
Stop Reading the Bible!
Yesterday, Caleb and I went to Houston where I preached for the New Beginnings Church. It was my third time to preach there, but my first to bring one of my boys along. Before the gathering started, we were sitting up front and Caleb was thumbing through the Gospel of Mark in my Bible. He […]
February 21, 2011 by 8 Comments
Why Churches Make Foolish Decisions
Here’s what I mean by “Organizational Wisdom.” Wisdom is applied knowledge. It’s knowing how to do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reason. God designed the world to work a certain way, according to certain principles that can be observed in nature, systems, organizations, and families. In […]
February 14, 2011 by 8 Comments
Church Isn’t Supposed to be Fun
Church isn’t supposed to be fun. Yep. That’s what I said to my youngest when he dug in his heels about going to our new church because he wasn’t having very much fun there. Just saying it made me want to pull my pants up over my belly button and comb the hair growing out […]
February 9, 2011 by 16 Comments
One Reason Your Jokes Bomb
The speaker steps to the podium and begins. “Good Evening. It’s great to be here tonight. By here, I mean up here on this stage. I have sat where you all are sitting many times and wondered what it would like to stand up here and look out at such a crowd. Now that I’m […]
January 20, 2011 by 4 Comments
The Secret to Being Miserable in all Circumstances
I’ve been working on developing a framework of “organizational wisdom” for churches that can help them do a better job of discerning and then deciding their next best steps to accomplish their mission. One of the ideas I’m exploring is that many of the wisdom principles taught in the book of Proverbs apply to groups […]
January 19, 2011 by 4 Comments
A Mean Prayer
Dear God: You know I’m not very good at prayer. I try, but my small words always get stuck on big ideas. I’m trusting you know what I need–and what my prayers mean–even when I don’t. I’ve read my Bible a few times and there are lots of things in there that bother me. Some […]
January 12, 2011 by 2 Comments
Beware of Restaurants with Large Menus
I love finding wisdom in unexpected places. Last night I was listening to The B. S. Report with Bill Simmons podcast and Bill and Mike Lombardi were talking about how the Baltimore Ravens lack an identity on offense. Lombardi compared them to a restaurant with too many items on the menu. The best restaurants usually […]
January 5, 2011 by 4 Comments
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons