legacy on Motivations

Nearly 200 years ago there were two Scottish brothers named John and David Livingstone. John had set his mind on making money and becoming wealthy, and he did. But under his name in an old edition of ...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes one of the keys to understanding the beatitudes: live faithfully now, experience...

In his book, The Joy Model, former management consultant Jeff Spafadora describes the moment that lead him to change careers: One spring break Michelle and I took the kids to Disney World. My mom an...

I preached my first sermon at National Community Church on January 14, 1996. The only thing I remember about that message is my opening illustration. I can’t remember the original source, but I think ...

One of my favorite things to do is to sit on the aft deck of a boat going across the ocean and just watch the wake. It is such a beautiful, ever-changing creation as the ship continues on its path. Yo...

Success is handing the baton to those who come behind us and cheering them on as they run farther and faster than we did.

On a warm summer night, I drove my son to a local cemetery. It was a Moravian cemetery that sits nestled on a hill overlooking a flowing creek. My son, a typical teenager in many ways—Xbox, iPhone, ho...

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on.

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

If you had to summarize your life in six words, what would they be? Several years ago an online magazine asked that question. It was inspired by a possibly legendary challenge posed to Ernest Hemingwa...

Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that...

Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration A Promise to Bless AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? From Noah to Abraham Last week, we looked at the story ...

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or. what's a heaven for? " Robert Browning A part of our desire at The Pastor’s Workshop is to help pastors connect the stories in ...

A few weeks after Rich Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 at age forty-one, his friend and financial manager, Jim Dunning, went to collect Rich’s possessions. Mullins was a wildly successful Chris...

Advent 2020: Tear Down the Heavens God Builds the House Updated & expanded for 2023 AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? The Ark of God The ark of God tra...

Legacy isn’t measured by what we accomplish in our lifetimes. It’s measured by our coaching tree, our mentoring chain. It’s measured by the fruit we grow on other people’s trees. It’s measured by the ...

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...

The ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she makes smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others to be leaders and builds an organization that can sustain ...

Intellect is therefore a vital force in history, but it can also be a dissolvent and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional ...

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

Heavenly Father, you are faithful, even when we are not. We look to the examples of our parents, and they often fall short. We, too, fall short when we consider the legacy we pass on to our children, ...

The best way to leave a legacy is to believe, teach, defend, and promote what is true.

When it comes to influence, let me ask you this: would you rather be like a tumbleweed or an oak tree? It’s a thought-provoking question inspired by a quote I’m about to share. Let’s take a moment to ...

The streets of Cairo were hot and dusty. Our missionary friends Pat and Rakel Thurman took us down an alley. We drove past Arabic signs to an overgrown graveyard for American missionaries. As Nanci an...

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

Do any of you know the name of the inventor of dynamite? It might sound familiar once you hear it, it’s Alfred Nobel. In 1867, Nobel, Alfred Nobel, who was a Swedish chemist invented a new high explos...

In the day that we stand before our Master and Maker, it will not matter how many people on earth knew our name, how many called us great, and how many considered us fools. It will not matter whether ...

If we see more and further than they, it is not because of our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high by their gigantic stature.

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning s...