Transition from Traditional Bible Class to Missional 20 and 30 Somethings

We continue to work to make our 20s and 30s group at Northwest something better. I for one tend to be someone who types a bunch of thoughts in a blog post about this or that but I don’t always include a lot of nuts and bolts of how to get something done. This is [...]

Moving From Contemplating the Biblical Navel to Real Application

I am guilty of writing a bunch of thoughts, opinions, and various and sundry other ways of contemplating the biblical navel and end the discussion gaining little more than having thought about something a little more or with a slight nuance. How many of you feel your life has never been the same since reading [...]

Five Characteristics of a Good Small Group Leader

In line with the last post about five characteristics of a good teacher, here are five characteristics of a good small group leader.
They know the purposes of the group and continually model and teach the group to carry out those purposes. Small group leaders are volunteers and they, like the rest of us, often have [...]

Identifying the Ripening Issues in the Church of Christ

One of Ronald Heiftetz’s principles of leadership in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers is to direct attention to ripening issues over distractions. These are issues that can make our break an organization or industry and must be identified and addressed in order to adapt with what is coming down the pipe. To ignore them [...]

Ronald Heifetz’s 5 Principles of Leadership

I have a bunch of stuff running around in my head that I want to get to on the blog (Gospel of John, Revelation, Acts, Holy Spirit, etc). Here is another one to add to the pile. I found these five principles really helpful and I want to take a few posts to talk [...]

Repentance and Courage in the Lives of Saul and David

There is an unfortunate paragraph division in the NIV between 1 Samuel 16:13 and 14. The verses read,
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed [David] in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came on David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah. Now the [...]

Christian Leadership (1)

I just wrapped up Ronald Heifetz’s book Leadership Without Easy Answers. It was an excellent read and has a tremendous amount of application to Christian leadership. When I get a moment I am going to share some thoughts on this book and give some implications for ministry and Christian/spiritual leadership. In the mean time, what [...]