leadership on Love

"Maundy" What? Maundy Thursday takes its name from the Latin version of John 13:34: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are ...

Preaching Commentary A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in t...

Preaching Commentary If religion is to be true, its leadership must be true. —Frederick Dale Bruner [1] Humble Leadership Whenever Anthony Bloom, a former bishop and archbishop serving in Londo...

Pastor: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.   Pastor: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But with You th...

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwel...

preaching commentary The Servant Leader The servant leader is the hero of this text.  And the example,  par excellence,  is the Apostle Paul. He has never shied away from holding himself up as a pe...

Preaching Commentary Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which...

Preaching Commentary A Tough Way to Start Ministry In this captivating passage Jesus’ new followers discovered early on this was not going to be a ‘pleasure cruise.’  Jesus’ inaugural ‘sermon event...

Preaching Commentary The farther you go…the harder it is to return. The world has many edges and it’s easy to fall off. —Anderson Cooper, Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A letter of friendship Paul’s letter to the Philippians is from Paul and his companions to the saints in Philippi. It is a letter fro...

The Servant Leader The servant leader is the hero of this text.  And the example,  par excellence,  is the Apostle Paul. He has never shied away from holding himself up as a person to be imitated, as...

Preaching Commentary The Dangers of Our Words No matter how much we might wish it weren’t the case, the perception others have of us is directly connected to the words (and actions) we use througho...

If religion is to be true, its leadership must be true. —Frederick Dale Bruner [1] Humble Leadership Whenever Anthony Bloom, a former bishop and archbishop serving in London, would teach, he would...

Preaching commentary The Law The ambiguous place of the law in Christian thought can be seen historically in battles between antinomians and legalists, each side finding New Testament support, and ...

preaching commentary A Tough Way to Start Ministry You don’t have to spend much time on Twitter or Facebook to be reminded that schadenfreude (taking joy from another's misfortune) is alive a...

Several months ago, I visited Akagera National Park in Rwanda. From the safety of our Land Rover, our safari guide pointed to a lone gazelle grazing on the savanna and asked, “Do you know what that is...

Reflection We all are aware of cultures that have a hierarchy—a pecking order. The elite and the hoi polloi. The acceptable and the unacceptable. In such cultures, the hierarchy determines the role. ...

Leader: God of mercy, we come before you with honest hearts. We bring not only our praise, but also our pain. We confess that at times we have lost heart. Hear now our lament, and kindle in us your ho...

Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which he himself founded. Bu...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? OT Foreshadowing While Luke’s account of the procurement of the donkey on which Jesus rides into Jerusalem has no precedent in the Hebr...

A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in the 21st century. But oc...

At this point in the Gospel we move out of the streets into the quiet of a room. “The noise of the cosmos has died away: the stillness of night prevails” (Bultmann). And yet, in [that] quiet room, Jes...

A Rude Awakening Just as I began my seminary education, filled with a love of learning and a hunger to serve God, I attended a lecture. It was given at a nearby think tank, and the presenter was an a...

A Tough Way to Start Ministry In this captivating passage Jesus’ new followers discovered early on this was not going to be a ‘pleasure cruise.’  Jesus’ inaugural ‘sermon event’ back home in Nazareth...

John's Account of the Last Supper This passage is most often preached on on Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday). By our modern measure, “Thursday” would also include Gethsemane and other events of...

Conflict in Ministry Have you ever whispered to yourself, “I didn’t sign up for this?” I confess those words have passed through my mind more than once over the years. When I started out in ministry...

We swim in an ocean of feedback. Each year in the United States alone, every schoolchild will be handed back as many as 300 assignments, papers, and tests. Millions of kids will be assessed as they tr...

"Not Against Flesh and Blood..." There is an unspoken battle that every pastor faces—a battle not against flesh and blood , nor merely against the seen forces of ministry challenges, but...

The farther you go…the harder it is to return. The world has many edges and it’s easy to fall off. Anderson Cooper, Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival Hearing God&...

The second lesson this group of new believers has shown us is that the postmodern path to faith is organic. Lostness, of course, looks different depending upon your perspective and personality. It is ...