In the early 90’s I invited Dr. John Stott to meet in Florida with a select group of pastors from large churches around the country.  I was the President of Leadership Network a ministry to senior ministers and staff of those large and growing churches.  While many of these highly entrepreneurial pastors had little regard for academia or even the seminaries from which they had graduated, they all thought of John Stott as something of a rock star in their world.  Even though they were often far more interested in being with successful business leaders they jumped at the chance to be with “Uncle John.” The normal format for these…

Two years ago I heard a teacher of the psalms remark that our modern worship songs and the choruses we sing are full of praise, hope, thanksgiving and God’s love for us. In fact, he went on to say, maybe there is so much emphasis on God’s love and care for us in every detail of our lives that we have excluded hymns that reflect our own laments, complaints and petitions. In doing so, have we unintentionally taught that all of our burdens, problems and questions should be resolved by focusing only on those songs that encourage and inspire us? Something like the power of positive psalms. I don’t think…

On Thursday night, I quoted from 2 Timothy 1 and Paul’s admonition to keep our special gift stirred up: God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible. Sometimes boldness becomes distorted and the flame of the gift consumes not only the person but those around them. I think that is part of Phil’s message to all of us in his book, Me, Myself & Bob. Some of our failures are private and well hidden and some, like the failure of Veggie Tales, are painfully public. To take a small company and experience revenue growth of 3300% or from $1.3 million to $44…

I don’t believe I have ever introduced a speaker using his own words until now. I might quote from a book they have written or something said about them but never have I used something from personal correspondence. You’ll see why shortly. When I asked Eugene Peterson to be the Bible teacher this year I did not know what to expect. When he said “yes” I was delighted because in the small amount of personal contact I have had with him over the years I have been impressed with his directness, practical application with poetic language, and his dedication to his own ordination as a pastor. When the trend seems…

I met Jim for the first time several years ago when he was brand new to the role of President at Focus on the Family. It was in the Board room and, I confess, I was expecting an appropriate wait with a bit of a grand entrance with maybe some mid-level advance staff preceding him making sure everything was just so. I could not have been more wrong. Instead, a smiling and genuinely friendly Jim Daly walked in and all of us relaxed. This was not an audience with a ministry leader. This was a conversation with a new friend. I’m not going to tell Jim’s story for him. I…

When you turn 65 your friends say things like, “Do you still have the fire in the belly?” and, of course, the response is “Yes, but it’s probably Mexican food.”  Others send you books on fanning the flames of marriage because the fastest growing divorce rate is for couples in their 60’s. AARP has turned up the heat on supplemental insurance and the financial advisors are preparing me for cutting back and dialing down.  Fires go out for one reason or another. It doesn’t matter what age you are.  Either through neglect or exhaustion or a host of other reasons the fire fades. Oftentimes we simply run out of reasons…

I love hands.  So much of Scripture is about hands – hands that create, that work, that cover to protect and to fight.  We are held in our parents hands at birth and our own hands are held by our children and loved ones when we leave.  Hands hold and they let go.  Hands open and they close. Hands say hello and they say good-bye.  We wear on our hands our constant reminder of fidelity and commitment.  From childhood we are taught to fold our hands to pray and open our hands to bless. We give them and we lend them.   Hands are beautiful and smooth.  They are rough and…

I wrote this to several of my father’s closest friends after his funeral.  Enclosed was a special gift for each of them. Many years ago, one of Dad’s several dreams as a young man was to sing professionally as an operatic tenor.  He worked at developing his voice with the same discipline and enthusiasm he applied to everything else he did.  One of his life’s greatest disappointments was the day his teacher told him the dream was out of his reach.  As with so much else in his life, he turned the experience into a story.  “Fred, you have everything a tenor needs to succeed.  You have the dedication, the…

Over the years I’ve noticed that people make three basic mistakes in introducing Os Guinness.  The most common is their trying so hard to sound as smart, educated, articulate, well-read, urbane, witty and provocative as Os that they badly overshoot the mark and end up sounding like their remarks were prepared by a graduate student eager to please the professor.  The second trap is spending so much time on Os’s achievements, honors, awards, publications, speeches and groundbreaking work in social thought that they use up the time that Os has to speak.  The third is they always bring up the question “So..are you the same Guinness family as Guinness beer?”…

Two years ago when Tim was last with us we introduced him in the context of a growing movement toward cultural, political and social engagement among young evangelicals. It was apparent then that we were entering a new phase of evangelicalism that was waiting for someone to articulate a theology that is more than proclamation but also more than well-intentioned and superficial social action. That movement toward a deep and active interest in social justice, culture, the arts and new institutions is now a groundswell. It is exciting…and it is dangerous. Without an adequate theology for grounding them and giving roots to their excitement theirenthusiasm will wither quickly. They will…