Tears were streaming down his face as he silently wept: “I can see it so clearly… I just haven’t had the ability to put it into words… which makes people think I don’t know where we are going.” Clarity is powerful. One of my most favorite things to do through my work with Church Simple is to help church leaders clearly communicate what it is that they are called to… and then helping them do [...]

I had an interesting phone call the other day.  Go Daddy wanted to make sure that everything was ok with me.  Five years ago I registered my first domain name, resilientemergence.com (don’t bother, it redirects you here).  I have since shuttered that blog, but have a soft spot for the domain so each year I renew it after thinking about whether I REALLY need it or not. I renewed again this year and for the [...]

The recent announcement of Kodak’s bankruptcy is a sad ending to the story of a once great company.  Kodak, the innovators responsible for all the bad pictures that your parents showed your high school girlfriends, has gotten to the point where they need to sell off patents in order to stay solvent over the next few months. While it is easy for people to shake their heads, point fingers, and snicker at this “old fashioned” company, [...]

Matthew 23 has always been a challenging chunk of scripture for me.  The passage talks a good bit about hypocrisy, and talks about making our actions and our words line up.  Towards the end of the chapter, Jesus dives into the woes, and there are two that always stand out to me: 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they [...]

Over the past two days we have been reflecting on Zig Ziglar’s teaching on a recent podcast titled The Real Reason They Don’t Buy (link will open iTunes).  On Monday we looked at whether we believe in what we calling people to, yesterday we spoke a little bit about our need to wait until things are perfect.    Today I want to share what is probably the most profound line in the whole podcast: People buy what they [...]

Yesterday I began a short series on what Zig Ziglar can teach church leaders.  The series is based off of a podcast that I listened to over my Christmas break, and one which I really believe can impact the way that we approach leadership in our church.  Now, keep in mind that Zig generally speaks to sales professionals, not pastors, and while I am NOT encouraging you to become a salesman for Jesus, I do [...]

I am a fan of Zig Ziglar. A regular in my rotation of podcasts, Zig’s Inspiring Words of Encouragement, is something that I generally look forward to hearing because the man understands people.  While driving back from Baltimore a few weeks ago I was blown away by one of these podcasts… in fact, I have listened to it so much since that drive, I think Theresa has it memorized. The podcast was titled “Why They [...]

This post originally ran in July, 2011. Back in the mid-nineties, while I was between colleges, I spent some time working as a fish cutter in a wholesale seafood market.  It was in that job that I learned the true meaning of boredom at work.  My day would start at 2:00 am by cutting open my first fish and for the next ten to twelve hours I repeated “knife goes in, guts go out” several [...]

Yesterday I began a mini-series™ based on a few of the chapters I heard of President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, by William Lee Miller during the drive back from my Thanksgiving vacation.  Yesterday I wrote about Lincoln’s handling of the Sioux Uprising, and his willingness to say no to the mob. Listening to the audio book (which would make a fantastic Christmas gift for your favorite blogger) Lincoln was portrayed as a merciful, compassionate man. [...]

While driving back from my Thanksgiving vacation I found myself listening to President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, by William Lee Miller.  I was only able to hear a few chapters of the audio book, but the chapters that I did hear have had me thinking pretty hard.  Today and tomorrow I want to walk through Lincoln’s leadership in the Sioux Uprising and in dealing with the Union Army as it transitioned from a professional army [...]