Fred's Blog
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A Fatal Attraction
Our culture tends to use covetousness, envy and greed interchangeably – but they are very different.
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Up in Smoke
Growing up Southern Baptist I have indelible memories of the Sunday School offering envelope used by the church. It was more than a tracking device for offerings. We were also graded by our teacher on bringing our Bible, preparing for the lesson, and attending church to hear the preaching afterwards. However, I don’t have any recollections of our asking the church about its own performance during the week. I remember hearing occasionally about attendance, baptisms and money – and that was pretty much the whole list. We gave our offering because we were supposed to give and had been taught to do so out of obedience, not unlike the Old…
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An Abiding Interest
If David Brooks and Frederick Buechner do not know each other, I wish they did because they have at least a couple of things in common. Buechner once told an interviewer that he is “too religious for secular readers and too secular for religious ones.” Both Brooks and Buechner share an abiding interest in the world around them. David describes it as “paying attention” as he walks around New York, travels and teaches at Yale. His ability to find both the obscure and the familiar and hold them up in fresh ways is what keeps people coming back to his columns and books. Frederick Buechner writes about “listening to…
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Till the Cows Come Home
I have had the privilege of learning from many wise older men throughout my life, one of them being Peter Drucker. Peter and I worked together through my role with Bob Buford and Leadership Network. For the first 12 years I was around Peter, I spoke only when he asked a question. Otherwise, I listened and took notes. In 1996, Peter and I spent a day together talking about the future of The Gathering. He was especially interested in our focus and what we hoped to accomplish. And if you know anything about Peter, you know that all discussions lead back to results. Peter and I met again to…
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The Civil Wars
As the Lutheran scholar Martin Marty once observed, people these days who are civil often lack strong convictions, and people with strong religious convictions often are not very civil.
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To Give Yourself Away
Most of us are first made to read Shakespeare before we have enough life experience to even partially understand it. It wasn’t until I was teaching King Lear in senior English at Stony Brook – and had a daughter of my own – before I realized that King Lear was so much about his relationship with his daughters and his desperate attempt to pass off responsibility without giving up privilege. It was the tragic tale of a father demanding love and honor – things that could only be earned. Years went by and I didn’t reread King Lear until much later when I was co-teaching “The Wise Art of…
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David Brooks: A Holy Friend
Dr. John Stott’s last bit of advice to his assistant before he died was simply this, “Do the hard thing.” “Uncle John” believed that choosing the easy trail, the road most taken, and the path of least resistance can only end in mediocrity – even if it comes with praise. I experienced firsthand John Stott doing the hard thing. He arrived late at night from London to talk with a group of pastors the next day. I met with John to let him know we designed the meeting to allow him the freedom of no preparation; he had only to reflect on what he had already written. When I told…
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Give Thanks and Break Bread
He sat down, paused before he spoke, and then said, “It's too much for me to give thanks. I cannot be thankful for this. I will never be thankful for this.”
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Catch of the Day
There are times I understand how pastors feel when people ask them what they do the rest of the week because the only time they see them is on Sunday. The Gathering conference could at least qualify as a revival because it lasts four days, but people sometimes ask me how we spend our time after we pack up our tent and go home. We go fishing. Every morning we get up, put on our waders, sling the creel over our shoulder and get out in the stream. Now you know. We cast for ideas, people, topics, different perspectives and practical applications to bring to The Gathering. We look…
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Nothing Left Undone
I am at the age (and in a line of work) where people come to talk about what legacy they want to leave behind – in their families and in their businesses. In almost every case we eventually get around to talking about core values. And I’m one of these boomers thinking about succession, but I also think as leaders we need to talk as much about our core idols. Most of the books, articles and sermons about idols and idolatry are directed toward us as solitary individuals, and that makes sense because we are an individualistic culture. We see our idols as personal. The top three you hear about are money, sex and…