01/23/2015 — We’re sometimes guilty of thinking of the prophet Daniel as a wise man in his 80s whose faith enabled him to spend a night in the lion’s den without so much as a scratch on him. But remember, he was kidnapped as a teenager and brought from Jerusalem to Babylon to serve King Nebuchadnezzar. And the biblical record shows that Daniel was every bit as faithful to God as a teenager as he was when he became a seasoned citizen.

Two stories from Daniel’s early life not only model that faithfulness, but also show how to demonstrate leadership skills when you’re not currently in a position of leadership. That’s important because, as my former Bible college instructor John Maxwell notes, there simply isn’t enough room at the top for everyone. But when opportunities for promotion arise, they’re far more likely to go to someone who acts like a leader than to someone who’s merely biding his or her time in a job. Read More

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01/16/2015 — One of the most gratifying projects I’ve begun in the new year is a collaboration with Valor Christian College. It’s called Influential Leadership 120, and it’s a sequel of sorts to a lecture series I presented to our local congregation and our ministerial alliance last fall. I am speaking for eight Sunday nights on various leadership topics, and those lectures are being incorporated in an online Valor class this semester, as well as in a class presented on our campus.

The response I’ve received from both series has been gratifying, and I’m enjoying the presentations – and the entire process –immensely. This week I came across a news story featuring someone who, I’d like to think, could have benefitted from one or both of these lecture series – or any basic training in leadership. Read More

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01/09/2015 — If you have heard some of my initial messages of 2015, you’re familiar with the phrase “From Release to Rest.” It’s a phrase that God deposited in my spirit late last year. It’s a shorthand of sorts for the notion that God provided an open door for us in 2014, and that the results of that action will manifest this year.

“Rest” in this context doesn’t necessarily mean that the Body of Christ is supposed to take it easy in 2014 – far from it. Instead, it means that we are to be free from worry, free from anxiety and confident that God has provided all that we need.

But I’ve become more and more aware that on God’s calendar, this is a shmittah year coming before a year of jubilee. At our recent New Year’s Eve service I declared, “He (God) has never been more serious about Sabbath than in 2015.” The question I have for you is, are you serious about Sabbath? Or don’t you prioritize obeying God? Read More

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11/06/2014 — There are many powerful lessons to be learned in what is perhaps the best-known parable of Jesus, the story of the prodigal son. At its core, of course, it shows the heart of God toward sinners who ask for redemption, in stark contrast to the way the religious people of Jesus’s day saw them.

But I am starting to see in this parable something I’ve never seen before: a cautionary tale for those in the Church who would leave its covering.Read More

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10/22/2014 — Like many of you, I’ve been amazed and appalled by the recent actions of Houston Mayor Annise Parker. Not content to use her powers to advocate for an ordinance giving special privileges to homosexuals and transgendered persons, she has taken unprecedented steps to punish people of faith, whose only crime has been disagreeing with her.

Mayor Parker is charged with serving the citizens of her city. Instead, she and her staff have blatantly violated the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression, in an unconstitutional assertion of authority. It’s difficult to imagine a judge with any credibility doing anything but shutting down these shenanigans, but the mayor has already made her mindset clear: she sees orthodox Christian doctrine as a threat to her administration, and she’ll trample the Constitution to stifle that threat.

The great shame of this story is that the Church could have stopped this from happening a long time ago, and did nothing.Read More

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