Earlier this month NPR’s Planet Money did a story on J.C. Penny, and the fairly significant change in their strategy over the past year. While many business analysts will say that they are doing the right things, the company has been releasing bad news about its financial projections every two months for the entire year. The problem is that in changing the way that they do business, they have chased away much of their core [...]

Controversial Christian speaker Rob Bell, formerly of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is probably best known for asking questions… without answering them. Whether it be his position on hell, or other theological positions, Bell rarely makes a definitive statement, preferring to answer questions with a question, which tends to anger people… until now. At a recent event in San Francisco, Bell was asked about his position on marriage, to which he responded: “I [...]

Do you ask for feedback? Seriously, think about this one. Do you ask people for honest feedback on your leadership… on your preaching? Many times in the church world, we tend to look at a lack of feedback, whether positive or negative, as a good thing… the truth is that a total lack of feedback is the most alarming response you can get. Seth Godin writes: We armor ourselves against the cutting remark, the ad [...]

As some of you may know, I have been spending many of my weekends in the Eastern Long Island Town of Mastic Beach. The town is somewhat forgotten, few news crews have visited, and many residents are struggling to get their lives back on track after the storm ravaged their homes. One of the more devastating effects of Sandy was that it destroyed the barrier islands that protected this community. The lost of the islands has caused [...]

Help us out here. On a recent episode of the 700 Club Pat Robertson received a word of knowledge about a viewer that would be receiving a check for $1 million. A few days later, Robertson shared that a business man told him that BP had written him a check for $1 million. The check was related to the Gulf oil spill, and he had not been expecting it. When you hear about things like this, [...]

A new app for your smartphone promises big things! Couch Cachet promises the ability to “finally be who I want you to think I am.” According to the website: Wouldn’t it be great if there was an app that showed you all of the cool parties, bars and restaurants that you could be hitting tonight? Of course it would. But you know what would be even better? A social application that will lie and say you [...]

That loud shout you heard this morning was me upon learning that Google Reader will be killed off this summer. After spending the morning in repentance for the not nice things that I may have thought about the Google, I have now come to the realization that it is time for me to move forward and develop a new way of approaching life in a post Reader world. So let’s talk about this a little bit. For [...]

Serving in ministry, we work with all different kinds of people. Some are positive, some aren’t… While we would all love to work with people who give us warm fuzzies, and are always positive, sometimes that just doesn’t happen. Fortunately, we found an article on Life Hacker about how to deal with negative people, this afternoon we talk about dealing with negative people, while maintaining our sanity. How do YOU handle negative people?  

Do you know how long the average commute time is for someone in your church? A recent CNN story claims that over 600,000 people have a commute of 90 minutes or more, 61% of those making that monster commute do it alone. This got us to thinking about what this means for the church world, and what we can learn. In this morning’s edition of Ministry Briefing, we discuss how to redeem the commute, how [...]

Earlier today, Pope Francis, formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, of Argentina was named the 266th Pope, and the first South American to be elected to the office. From what we can tell, Pope Francis is fairly conservative, with a heart for those with HIV/AIDS. He has strong positions on abortion, birth control, and gay marriage, which will likely disappoint many American Catholics. In this edition of Ministry Briefing we discuss the new pontiff, and why this [...]