I read with interest the news of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association laying off 50 of their staff – or 10% of their total.  In the announcement was their plan to focus more of their resources on internet evangelism and by implication away from the more traditional activities of the association.  I’m assuming that means crusades and the retreat/conference ministry of the Cove among other things. This is the second time in three years they have reduced their staff.  It’s not a reflection of hard times financially as the BGEA is probably one of the best funded ministries in the world with a 2010 budget of almost $128 million…

  Every year I get about 200 inquiries from ministries and Gathering participants asking to talk about the possibility of their organization or their favorite ministry making a presentation at The Gathering.  While The Gathering is not a grant making foundation it does have one asset that is valuable to ministry leaders: exposure to present and potential funders.  The opportunity to be visible with those who attend the annual conference is a rare one and I understand that.  As well if a ministry is doing it’s development job right ” it will have Gathering participants asking me and the program committee to invite them to speak – whether it is…

My family and friends give me grief for watching public television because they think I’m just watching book reviews and documentaries. In fact I’m also downloading blues classics like Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan together on “In Session” or B.B. King and Eric Clapton on “Riding With The King.” Of course the list of white artists whose music and careers has been built on the work of black musicians like Muddy Waters Buddy Guy Bessie Smith Koko Taylor Willie Dixon Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker is long. Most of those men and women played the Southern “chitlin circuit” for years with little or no recognition by the mainstream.…

Years ago I was part of an organization – Leadership Network – that convened senior pastors and staff of large churches.  While they were used to hearing from their peers they told us they wanted to hear from non-pastors about issues of management and leadership because the seminaries and conferences they attended did not address those issues for large churches.  We began to seed our conferences with management speakers business professionals secular authors and other “non-church” resources.  While the emphasis was still on church professionals learning from other church professionals about the “business” of the church the introduction of outside resources was welcomed with enthusiasm.  A couple of weeks ago…

Ross Douthat’s article this week in the New York Times titled “Can The Working Class Be Saved?” starts with a reference to Charles Murray’s latest book “Coming Apart.” “What’s brilliant is Murray’s portrait rich in data and anecdote of the steady breakdown of what he calls America’s “founding virtues” — thrift and industriousness fidelity and parental responsibility piety and civic engagement — within America’s working class and the personal and communal wreckage that’s ensued.” There may be one more founding virtue as well. It’s what Lord Moulton in a 1924 essay in “The Atlantic Monthly” called “obedience to the unenforceable.” What’s that? “There are three great domains of Human Action.…

One of the most pronounced trends in the non-profit world in the last ten years has been the number of men and women in business careers making a transition to the non-profit world. While most assumed there would be some differences in the way those two worlds operated I think many discovered they had no preparation for how different they are! Making a lateral move from business leadership to non-profit leadership was more of a shock than they knew it would be and it has taken them years to make the adjustment. Many have not made the adjustment and chosen to go back into business or join boards. The two…

In our last blog we looked at how Paul encouraged Timothy to take seriously his role as an example to the other believers. We continue by seeing Paul telling Timothy where he needs to focus and at the same time tells his elders how they can learn from him if they are wise. They can learn from his speech. In the same way we can learn from their straightforward and enthusiastic speech of our younger members. What has too often become a professionalized process with specialized language for us is still a thrill for them that is often hard to articulate. It comes out not as “That looks very effective…

If you’ve ever been to a football game at the University of Oklahoma you’ve experienced the “Boomer/Sooner” yell. One side of the stadium shouts out “Boomer!” and the other side responds “Sooner!” This goes on for quite some time. Quite a long time actually. I only bring it up because it reminds me that there are many of us boomers who have become elders much sooner than we expected. This has not gone unnoticed at The Gathering. In fact I’ve had a couple of friends ask why there seem to be so many young ministry leaders showing up on the programs at the conferences. It’s intentional…and it’s intentional because our…

I’ve been wondering if our political leadership (both parties) is now perceived as being so far removed from our actual lives and instead seen as entertainment that the actual effects of an election are incidental. The impact of who wins is about as significant in the minds of voters as who wins on “American Idol.” Why did the Italians continue to elect Silvio Berlusconi? Because he was entertaining and seeing him on television turned him into someone with “fans” and not a constituency.This is not a screed. Just a thought. Years ago I did a study on the uses of television. Marshall McLuhan was right in saying “the medium is…