Part of my Dad’s ability to communicate with people was his use of aphorisms. When I was a young man I thought he either read them heard them from others or they just appeared spontaneously as he spoke. “Wait to worry” “Only criticize as much as the person can correct” and “It’s unfortunate when money accumulates faster than wisdom” were among the hundreds of one-liners we heard growing up. I never thought about the real source of those one-liners until late in his life. We were sorting through his papers and found a stock certificate for 100 shares that were practically worthless. They were all that was left of what…

I love the martial arts choreography in movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I asked a black belt friend how he hardened his hands for real (not staged) competition. It seemed simple enough. Set up a five-gallon bucket of white rice and punch your hands in it 10-12 times in a row five times a day. When that no longer hurts use a five-gallon bucket of dry beans for several weeks and then graduate to five gallons of sand.  While it takes time to become hardened it is a simple process. My martial arts friend cautioned me “Be careful. The process is irreversible once the calluses are there….and you could…

I think ironies make life interesting unless they become cause for cynicism. One of those ironies is our spending a full day of thanksgiving with our attention on gratitude and blessings whole families volunteering to feeding the poor at the Salvation Army or a homeless shelter and so far the retail industry has not figured out a way to turn the focus to presents cards and extravagance – other than food. Still a whole population of shoppers cannot be content with a day of rest and a consumer economy counting on a 24 hour splurge for 40% of their annual revenue cannot allow more than a single day to celebrate…

Last week I attended the annual three day Faith Angle Conference conceived and hosted by Michael Cromartie the Vice President at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.  He also directs the Evangelicals in Civic Life program as well as having served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2006-2010.  (http://eppc.org/scholars/scholarid.10/scholar.asp).  It’s my good fortune that Mike invites me to sit on the “outer circle” of observers who are there to listen but not contribute to the discussion – except during the meals and breaks!  Every year has different themes and speakers but the format is consistent.  Three presenters make remarks and then the invited journalists and scholars are…

Some things run in the family. Years ago  author Pat McMillan (http://www.theperformancefactor.com/author.html) went to my father for advice about becoming a consultant.  Dad sat him down and did his best to discourage him with all the obstacles and hardships of building a consulting business and the likelihood of failure.  Fortunately Pat listened with respect and then went and built a very successful consulting business – Team Resources.  On my part I spent the better part of a lunch dissuading a young pastor from trying to build a ministry on some wild ideas he had about an innovative ministry he described as Mosaic.  Erwin McManus did exactly the same as Pat…

My church hosted David Zahl co-author of The Gospel According to Pixar and the founder of Mockingbird (www.mbird.com) in Charlottesville Virginia where he is on staff at Christ Episcopal Church.  The premise of the book is Pixar films have created high quality films that engage not only children but adults.  Moreover “the films tell compelling stories about love forgiveness fear loneliness identity etc. that provide vivid illustrations of how the Gospel interacts with real life.”  It’s ironic of course that animated films have been the vehicle for capturing the essence of many Christian themes and more importantly the possibility of redemption for everyone.  As well David talked about the “Nazareth…

I hardly ever read books ahead of time when I travel.  I don’t know why.  Most people prepare.  I “postpare” I guess.  I’ve been reading “God’s Continent” by Philip Jenkins (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/004-the-much-exaggerated-death-of-europe-16) after coming back from our Europe trip and he says something that makes sense – in a way that concerns me about our own church in America.  What happens when the “Christian social vision” is accomplished but is detached from the church?  What happens when the way we define that vision leads the way to the demise of people being engaged in the church?  “Living in a society that tries to achieve the Christian social vision – through a…

Nat Wei took on a challenge that was probably doomed to failure – to head the Big Society initiative of Prime Minister David Cameron aimed to reduce the role of the State and get local volunteers to provide more services and “to take power away from politicians and give it to the people.”  The Prime Minister in introducing it said it was “about changing the way our country is run.  No more of a government treating everyone like children…let’s treat adults like adults and give them responsibility over their lives.”  As well it was intended to make government date more accessible and to support social enterprises co-ops and innovations in…

I’ve never been an anglophile and frankly always gone a little out of my way to make the point.  When the opportunity to have dinner at the House of Lords with Lord Wei came up in our trip planning for London I was the first one to say “That’s not the kind of thing we want to do for dinner.”  What’s the attraction of having dinner with someone just because they have a title? My assumption has always been titles have been handed out for the same reasons major donors to successful Presidential political campaigns are awarded positions as ambassadors.  It’s patronage pure and simple.  As well the word “peer”…

I’ve just returned from ten days in Europe – London  Oxford  Paris and Prague.  A small group from The Gathering (11 of us) went together.  In the course of those ten days we made visits or heard presentations from 23 different ministries.  Yes that is insane but you should have seen us high-fiving after the final presentation.  For me 23 in ten days is a “personal best”…but that’s not a record I want to break.  I took good notes and intend to write it up in segments for the blog and the Board of The Gathering.  However this morning I wanted to focus on a theme that kept coming up consistently among the group. All of us have visited…