Reading Ben Stroup’s blog last week I came upon a brilliant video from Tom Peter’s about 18 second listening: As a leader it is easy for us to get so caught up in our dreams, vision, and busyness then steamroll people as they attempt to enter into a conversation with us.  It is incumbent on us who serve in church leadership to discipline ourselves to slow down the gears in our heads enough to listen [...]

Christianity Today had an interesting interview with Billy Graham last week.  Conducted via email due to his failing health the interview deals with aging, dealing with aging parents, and the state of the church.  What I found to be most interesting was the third question: If you could, would you go back and do anything differently? Yes, of course. I’d spend more time at home with my family, and I’d study more and preach less. [...]

On June 14, 2008 my life changed forever.  It was that day that I stood at the front of a church and waited to see Theresa walking towards me in a white dress.  As the sanctuary went quiet and the whole room waited with anticipation we all focused on one thing: the door that my bride to be was waiting behind.  The music started, the door opened and it happened… she took my breath away. [...]

In my current role I get to work with a great deal of church plants across the country.  This is one of the most fun parts of my job since I get to hear what God is up to all over the place.  Having planted a church I enjoy getting to hear the differences in strategy and philosophy of each church and getting to share some of my own experiences along the way. Over the [...]

One of my favorite parts of ministry is the crafting of worship gatherings. This may sound odd to some people, it is not often that the word craft is used in relation to church services, but if you stop and think about it I doubt that there is a better word. The dictionary defines the word craft as to make or manufacture (an object, objects, product, etc.) with skill and careful attention to detail… which [...]

Yesterday I had the great honor to spend some time with a church that I have been able to serve through my work with Dime.  Over Indian food we spent several hours talking about the church’s vision and it’s goals for the coming year and how that should drive the church’s spending plan for the year.  We spoke about what the priorities for the church need to be and put in place the beginnings of [...]

Early in December we bought a new water heater.  This wasn’t something that we were excited about, it was just something that we had to do.  As the plumbers disconnected the old water heater they told us that we were making the change just in time.  The old unit was seventeen years old and was about to flood out our newly remodeled basement.  While we didn’t know the severity of the situation with our water [...]

Few things in life cause the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as bad as a traffic jam.  Living on Long Island, traffic is a way of life… it is something that is planned around and it is something that impacts your life on a daily basis.  I have learned that getting from my home to the George Washington Bridge takes thirty minutes at 5:30 am or two hours if I [...]

Several years ago while working with middle schoolers in Atlanta we had a large event where we encouraged all of our students to bring their friends.  A typical Wednesday night gathering with this group would have 130 to 150 students worshiping and doing the goofy things that only middle schoolers do, but on this night we saw more than 320 students come out for a night of all out craziness.  As you can imagine our [...]

When better to talk about the pendulum effect than when we are seeing the beginning of a new congressional session… especially considering all the changes that have taken place as a result of the recent election.  With the dramatic shift of power in the House of Representatives there has been talk since November about policy reversals and repeals.  The pendulum in the House has begun its return swing.  Regardless of whether you believe this change [...]