personal development on Crowds

I had been in Iraq for about two months when I heard about an officer conducting an impromptu habit modification program in Kufa, a small city ninety miles south of the capital. He was an army major w...

Loving and forgiving God, we confess that we find it easier to follow the crowd than to follow you. We seek the praise of other humans, rather than seeking to give you joy with our faithfulness. When ...

Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth, but have you ever heard of Babe Pinelli? Pinelli was an umpire in Major League Baseball who once called The Great Bambino (Ruth) out on strikes. When the crowd bega...

Serving at the time as provincial governor of Northern Italy, St. Ambrose was called in this capacity in 374 to the cathedral in Milan, where a riot was threatening between two rival factions of Chris...

Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.

Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through...

As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...

As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...

Sometimes our successes can be more devastating than our failures. We fight, strain, and struggle in pursuit of something or someone that looks to be good, and after days or months or years, we obtain...

A story is told of a young violinist who lived in London many years ago. He was a superb musician. He loved his music and enjoyed playing before small groups of people in the homes of friends. But he ...

In a speech given at his father’s (former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau) funeral, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shares this story about an experience he had with his father when he was a young b...

Pentecost . . . The Holy Spirit fills the disciples and they speak in tongues they likely do not understand themselves. It is an uncontrolled public witness – uncontrolled by human agendas – as well a...

Doubts are suppressed by groups... But remember that the internal incentives that shape how the group perceives risks and rewards may be very different from the reality of the risks and rewards in the...

At 8:17 on the evening of March 3, 1943, bomb-raid sirens bansheed through the air above London, England. Workers and shoppers stopped on sidewalks and boulevards and searched the skies. Buses came to...

Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.

Are these hyperscheduled, overactive individuals really creating anything new? Are they guilty of passion in any way? Do they have a new vision for their government? For their community? Or for themse...

Two theaters compete for our gaze: the theater of sin on earth and the theater of glory where Christ is.

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

In His book When Narcissism Comes to Church, Chuck DeGroat shares about a unique phenomenon that occurs in organizations: Collective Narcissism: Churches are particularly susceptible to a phenomenon...

Since the rise of capitalism, it has been known that capturing someone’s attention could cause him to part with some money.

Distracted from distraction by distraction

The couple in the garden was to multiply, so providing the citizens of the city. Their cultivation of earth's resources as they extended their control over their territorial environment through th...

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It’s cheaper.

Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

You decide to buy a certain kind of car, and suddenly you see it everywhere. A friend recommends an obscure movie to you, and by the end of the week, three more people have mentioned it. You find out ...

The sight of any trouble strikes terror into the heart of those who do not have faith, but those who trust Him say, "Here comes my food!"

From drugs and alcohol to TV and workaholism, we are increasingly a society that fulfills T.S. Eliot’s description of a people “distracted by distraction.” There is hardly a public menace we can name ...

Hey, what if those crop circles are just ads for Target?

Smartphones make it possible for the attention economy to target our little attention gaps as we transition between tasks and duties. Our attention may be slightly elastic enough to fill up every empt...

The ego is incredibly busy – in other words, it is always drawing attention to itself. It is incredibly busy trying to fill the emptiness. And it is incredibly busy doing two things in particular – co...