NEW E-BOOK

LeaderSHIFT: 8 Pivotal Breakthroughs of Emotionally Healthy Leaders

LeaderShift eBook

Personal Assessment

How Emotionally Healthy Are You?
Take a free 15 minute personal assessment now!

*We respect your privacy by not sharing or selling your email address.

Personal Assessment

Close

Category Archives: Discipleship/Formation

Rebuked by the Buddhists

The front page of Time magazine last week focused on the international interest in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Based on Buddhist practices, it has proven to help people reduce stress in our frenetic world. I attended a seminar on this years ago and was saddened how few people associated Christians and churches with contentment, joy, and “centeredness” in life. The tradition of “centering” is rich in our biblical, Christian tradition. Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness in God’s presence. Elijah was a prophet of the desert who learned to hear God in silence. John the Baptist’s ministry flowed from the quietness of the desert. Jesus had rhythms of activity and aloneness. John Cassian wrote extensively on meditating on Scripture in “mindfulness” before the Lord in his Conferences. The desert fathers and monastics, through history, have continued this tradition. The ministry of Contemplative Outreach, founded by Trappist monks in the 1960′s, was an effort. Read more.

“Fire” – A Team Builder/Personal Experience

Geri led us in this contemplative experience as a New Life staff team last week. On the “planning” retreats we take two to three times a year, we generally take a half a day focused on our internal lives with God before launching into our external work for Him. Enjoy this personally or as a team. Fire – by Judy Brown What makes a fire burnis space between the logs,a breathing space.Too much of a good thing,too many logspacked in too tightcan douse the flamesalmost as surelyas a pail of water would.So building firesrequires attentionto the spaces in betweenas much as the wood.When we are able to buildopen spacesin the same waywe have learned to pile on the logs,then we can come to see howit is fuel, and absence of the fueltogether, that makes fire possible.We only need lay a loglightly from time to time.A firegrowssimply because the space is there,with openingsin which the. Read more.

"Fire" – A Team Builder/Personal Experience

Geri led us in this contemplative experience as a New Life staff team last week. On the “planning” retreats we take two to three times a year, we generally take a half a day focused on our internal lives with God before launching into our external work for Him. Enjoy this personally or as a team. Fire – by Judy Brown What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between as much as the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fuel, and absence of the fuel together, that makes fire. Read more.

Death, Struggle and Discipleship

Ron Rolheiser’s provides a unique perspective on our journey with Christ by breaking it up into three distinct phases. They are: Essential discipleship – The struggle to get our lives together. This is when we are struggling to figure out who we are. As my friend/mentor, Leighton Ford said recently. “We can’t give ourselves away until we know who we are.” Generative discipleship – The struggle to give our lives away. “How do I give my life away more deeply, more generously, and more meaningfully?” Radical discipleship – The struggle to give our deaths away. There comes a point in our lives when the question becomes: “How can I now live so that my death will be an blessing for my family, my church, and the world?” We are meant to leave this planet in such a way that our diminishment and death is our final, and perhaps greatest, gift to the world. Three points resonate with me.. Read more.

Death, Struggle and Discipleship

Ron Rolheiser’s provides a unique perspective on our journey with Christ by breaking it up into three distinct phases. They are: Essential discipleship – The struggle to get our lives together. This is when we are struggling to figure out who we are. As my friend/mentor, Leighton Ford said recently. “We can’t give ourselves away until we know who we are.” Generative discipleship – The struggle to give our lives away. “How do I give my life away more deeply, more generously, and more meaningfully?” Radical discipleship – The struggle to give our deaths away. There comes a point in our lives when the question becomes: “How can I now live so that my death will be an blessing for my family, my church, and the world?” We are meant to leave this planet in such a way that our diminishment and death is our final, and perhaps greatest, gift to the world. Three. Read more.

Bearing Reality Through Reading

T.S. Eliot noted in Four Quartets: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Reading broadly helps us as lead from a a broader place of life, from a place of reality. The following are two short books that I read recently that helped place my life more accurately within “reality.” The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death is about about a French, 44-year old father and husband who was editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. He writes by blinking with his left eye as he lay dying in a hospital as a quadriplegic. Having suddenly lost everything through a rare disease, he finds himself trapped in a body that will not work. His final reflections on life are captured here in painful clarity as he finds himself utterly alone before he dies. The Wave is written by a wife who loses her husband, two children, and parents in the cataclysmic tsunami of December 26th, 2004. Read more.