Encourage, inspire, lead! “He shepherded them with a pure heart
and guided them with his skillful hands” (Ps. 78:72).
Two days apart in May, Christians had to digest two announcements pertaining to high-profile Christians. At first glance, these two announcements seem unrelated. But they are not, and the relationship between the two is critically important for pastors. On May 19, Ravi Zacharias, influential Christian apologist and prolific author, passed away from a rare form of cancer. His death was felt widely across the evangelical landscape. We had lost a stalwart defender of the faith.…
When the coronavirus began to spread and churches joined their communities in reluctantly “social distancing,” we all shuddered just a bit with Easter just a few weeks away. Would we be able to enter our sanctuaries again for Easter Sunday? Even President Trump acknowledged this critical benchmark. Tuesday, March 24, during a Fox News virtual townhall, Trump affirmed that he “would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”…
Despite government requests for churches to participate in “social distancing,” Florida Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne declined to suspend services at his church, The River. Howard-Browne encouraged his congregants to greet one another at the March 15 service. “Well I know they don’t want us to do this, but just turn around and greet two, three people,” he said. “Tell them you love them, Jesus loves them.” He asserted that he had no intention of closing his…
In the brisk autumn of 1992, a couple of months before his inauguration, Bill Clinton’s motorcade pulled up to the Century City skyscraper in Los Angeles where Ronald Reagan had his post-presidential office. Clinton was spending a few days in town with friends and had sent word to Reagan, now eighty-one years old, that he wanted to stop by and chat. A meeting was quickly arranged. The two men were thirty-four years apart in age…
Missing an opportunity unintentionally happens all the time. But squandering one intentionally? Well, that’s another thing. As valedictorian of the San Ysidro High School class of 2019, senior Nataly Buhr squandered one such moment. In fact, she steamrolled it. Chosen to represent her class as valedictorian, Buhr began her three-minute speech in the usual fashion, thanking her classmates and then thanking specific teachers and administrators by name. Nothing too unusual. But then, without pausing the…
Leaders make choices, and one of the most significant is how they will lead. Some lead by position, power, or pride. Others by principle. In a 2018 interview with Business Because, Sarah Mangia, the senior director of the Leadership Initiative at The Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business, explained that “We define principled leadership as the alignment of a leader’s behavior, or perceived behavior, with his or her values.” Yet, human nature…
What do you say about a man who fashions himself as a preacher of the Gospel, and actually believes that God wants him to have a $54 million jet? Jesse Duplantis’ life story is a remarkable testimony to what God can truly do in a person’s life. As he tells it, prior to his conversion in 1974 watching a televised Billy Graham crusade, he was a rocker, drug addict, and heavy drinker. But his life…
First Bill Hybels. Then Frank Page. While it is not uncommon these days for new names to be added to the roll-call of leaders who are either accused of moral misconduct or have admitted to it, this week the evangelical Christian community was rattled when two respected leaders were swept into the company of the accused. March 22 Christianity Today published the story that Bill Hybels, founding pastor of the innovative megachurch Willow Creek Community…
I agree. Racism is evil. It is a sin. Period. Whether it happens in Charlottesville or Ferguson or Charlotte or at home. But from the week’s events, plenty of people are declaring that case, so I want to move on to something else, something that we could easily miss in the fray. A lesson leaders can learn in all this. President Trump was blistered for taking too long to declare that what happened in Charlottesville…