Thirty years ago we convened a group of friends from around the country and they became the “Dream Team” charged with thinking about the possibility of what would eventually become The Gathering. We spent two days filling up newsprint sheets and hanging them on the walls of the hotel conference room. Following all the usual steps of brainstorming and strategic planning, we asked great questions and speculated about customers, values, niches, and brands. Still, just one thing remains for sure in my mind – our common desire that we do not become an “elite” group or what one team member called “a Bohemian Grove for Christian donors.” In the years…

William Bridges wrote  “Transitions” 35 years ago and reading it helped me think about the difference between “change” and “transition.” It did not seem like much at the time but the distinction is important. Change happens all the time, and it doesn’t matter if it is small (switch grocers) or large (death of a spouse or a loss of a job). On the other hand, transition is psychological and is a process whereby people gradually accept the new situation and the adjustments that come with it. What matters most is making the transition from one thing to another. Every transition has three stages: The ending, the wilderness (or neutral zone) and the new beginning. To make a…

Marilyn and I often pass each other walking in the mornings. She comes out her front door and turns to the right going up the hill as I am coming down from my home. Sometimes we only wave and smile as I am always listening to something on headphones and distracted. Other times I stop and briefly ask how she is doing. She doesn’t have the same compulsion to make this time well spent with podcasts or NPR. She simply walks her course every morning in silence. Her husband, Frank, died several years ago after a long bout with cancer and a host of other complications. Even though she now…

Many years ago, a friend and I set up a new fund for our giving to ministries. While both of us had our favorites, we wanted to do something other than simply write checks to those select few. We started looking for a way to create categories for our giving, thinking that would give us some guidance and diversity. After a search, we landed on Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats. It looked like there were six acts of showing mercy (hunger, water, strangers, clothing, sickness, prison) that made the eternal difference and, wanting to be on the right side, we chose to name the…

I’ve made light of country and western music for as long as I can remember. The titles like “I’ll Be Over You When The Grass Grows Over Me” are catchy but embarrassing. As well, it seemed so blatantly hypocritical to sing about carrying on Saturday night at the honkytonks while the next track would be “Just A Little Talk With Jesus Makes It Right.”  The world of country music is filled with paradox and contradictions. But my opinion has begun to change after listening to “The King of Tears,” the latest episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, “Revisionist History.” On the way home from Dallas I listened to Malcolm discuss the reasons…

Two times in the Gospels the disciples are caught asking who will be great in the Kingdom. It’s not a bad question. In fact, asking questions about ambition is something I encourage younger people to be serious about for how we define greatness sets the course for our lives. What does interest me most is the differences in the two times – three years apart – it is asked in the Gospel of Luke. The first is in the early days of the ministry where the words tell us the disciples are having a debate among themselves. It’s not an argument. It’s almost a good-natured competition. They are going at each other about greatness…