Category Archives: Faith

Family Devotions: A Hard Lesson Learned

Every stage of our life offers us new opportunities to mature- especially in our leadership. One of the most difficult areas to do this, of course, is with our own families. Last month, two of our four daughters set out for an extended time away – one to Spain with her husband for one year, and a second to Australia to work/travel for 1-2 years with her friends. Over the years I have wrestled with the question: How do I respect their independence/separateness (especially in their journey with Christ), while at the same time, keep Jesus as a core value in our family? There is no one “right way” to do devotional time with our children –regardless of their age. So I do have my share of stories about failed “devotional times” with our children at many stages in our family history. But in this case at least, three things bore great fruit. I. Read more.

EH Leader Podcast:Practicing Sabbath Delight

What does it mean to lead out of your Sabbath? In this month’s Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, Pete Scazzero and Rich Villodas share their thoughts on Sabbath and its impact on their lives and leadership. Pete and Rich discuss Sabbath as a counter cultural concept and core spiritual formation discipline which has direct impact on how we lead. You can read more in depth on Sabbath and leadership in The Emotionally Healthy Leader book. Watch the conversation by clicking the image below. We encourage you to share with others.

The Great Temptation of Social Media

The great temptation in social media (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) is to exploit every experience as material to teach others, to speak of truths we don’t live, to present ourselves as someone we are not. This shrivels our souls as we stray further from what is authentic and true. It damages our integrity, widening the gap between our outer and inner lives. It is easy to “remain all our lives on the threshold, never entering into the banquet, but always running back into the street to tell the passers-by of the wonderful music (we) hear coming from inside the palace of the King” (Thomas Merton). How then do we guard against this temptation? We want to lead (e.g. tweet) out of a deep place of being with God, saying like David: I love the house where you live, O Lord The place where your glory dwells. Ps. 26:8 One thing I ask of the. Read more.

My 10 Top Lessons on Writing

The Emotionally Healthy Leader was my most challenging writing project to date. It required 6 ½ years of journaling, pondering, and prayer, and 1½ years of intensive writing itself. By the time it was over, I wondered if I would ever write again. (My first draft of over two hundred pages, for example, ended up mostly in the trash. So I reread two of my favorite books about the art and vocation of writing– Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing and The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard. Their insights offered me, once again, both perspective and vision. They put words on the complexity of the writing experience for me. My top learnings: Why do I write? I write to become clear (Merton, 10). I find that it (writing) helps me pray because, when I pause at my work, I find the mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and deep and serene. Read more.

The World’s Most Inaccessible Church

Located in the Tigray region of northeastern Ethiopia is the Abuna-Yemata-Guh Church, rightly called the world’s most inaccessible place of worship. (I also call it “the world’s least seeker-sensitive church” as well). My daughter and son-in-law visited there last month and returned, like many before them, struck with wonder at the vitality and richness of the church and her ministry. The church is carved into the rocks (from around the 6th century) and located at the top of a mountain. The 2-hour hike involves climbing barefoot and walking along narrow cliffs. (I am told, however, that people from the village can do the hike in around thirty minutes). Consider the pictures below: Evangelical Protestantism has a very short history compared to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that traces her history back to Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). Perhaps you can help me with the question I am holding before the Lord: How. Read more.

Don’t Cast the First Stone!

We often forget that our rich tradition as evangelical Protestants has some “dirty laundry” and blind spots. For example: Martin Luther’s intensely disliked Jews and wrote essays against them that were resurrected and used by the Nazis. He also advised the German nobles to slaughter the rebelling peasants without mercy. Ulrich Zwingli condoned the torture and drowning of Anabaptists—some of them his own former students—because they believed in baptism by immersion. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield were slaveholders. African-American believers in our church have questioned me if they were really Christian! The great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Asuza Street (1906) in Los Angeles split terribly over race, resulting in black and white churches throughout America for decades. Many leaders of the Protestant Missionary Movement, along with a number of contemporary Evangelical leaders, failed in their marriage and family life. John Wesley, for example, couldn’t live with his wife; his marriage was, by. Read more.

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