There is no movement of God in and through us unless we listen attentively to the Holy Spirit. This led me to ponder, over the past few weeks, my leadership journey around listening to the Holy Spirit. I spent most of my first seventeen years as a Christ-follower and leader in different expressions of the Pentecostal/charismatic stream of the church that emphasized the Holy Spirit. But a dramatic shift, both theologically and practically, happened as God led me into the journey, we call Emotionally Healthy Discipleship in 1996. With that came surprisingly new roads to listen to the Holy Spirit in fresh, powerful ways. In this podcast, I examine three unique ways emotionally healthy discipleship enables us to tap into the explosive power of listening to the Spirit. I begin by examining the life of Philip in Acts 8 as a model for us of listening to the Spirit, contrasting it with Peter’s posture. Read more.

In last week’s podcast, I explored the issue of caging “tigers” that emerge under our leadership. I defined a “tiger” as someone who invades and damages the overall health of our community due to their own lack of awareness and immaturity. These are among the most difficult, and revealing, moments for us as they test our level of differentiation like few others. In this week’s podcast, I focus on the taming of “tiger” behaviors that happen on every team. This is the work that must be done regularly if we are to create healthy cultures. I begin the podcast by briefly reviewing a theological foundation for this work:  Leadership is reparenting people to live in the new family of Jesus; it is slow and takes lots of time, and we must embody the healthy culture we want to create. I then address the ten top questions that people ask around taming tigers and creating. Read more.

In this podcast, I explore the issue of caging and taming “tigers” who emerge under our leadership. These are among the most difficult, and revealing, moments for us as they test our level of differentiation like few others.  I define a “tiger” as someone who invades and damages the overall health of our community due to their own lack of awareness and immaturity. I frame the podcast from a parable called “The Friendly Forest” out of a book by Edwin H. Friedman called: Friedman’s Fables. Friedman was a well-known ordained rabbi and a practicing family therapist who applied family systems concepts to synagogues and churches. The fable describes a Tiger who is allowed the join a Friendly Forest community of animals but, by his presence and nature, threatens a lamb who eventually feel obligated to leave the community. A number of questions emerge out of this story such as: Why do the other animals. Read more.

In this podcast, I share an important truth from one of my favorite biblical characters – John the Baptist. In the midst of a religious system filled with anxiety and expectations for the kind of prophet/leader he is supposed to be, John clearly defines who he is and who he is not. And, as you shall see, as we look closely at this passage in John 1:19-28, it is a key foundation for his authority from God. The following is the handout I refer to in the message that we placed in the bulletin for people to fill out. I trust you will find it helpful: “There are different kinds of voices calling you to different kinds of work and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the super-ego, or self-interest. By and large, a good rule for finding out is this: The. Read more.

Building on last week’s podcast, I build on the theology of rhythms and limits from Genesis 2:15-17 and seek to apply it practically to our most important task – cultivating a deep spirituality with and for Jesus. We want to be role models for those we lead by embracing God’s rhythms and limits in the midst of a world that respects neither. Like the apostle Paul, we want to say: Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Towards that end, I expound briefly on the Desert Fathers of the third through fifth centuries who served as spiritual role models for the first 1500 years of church history (and continue to do so for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches of today). In particular, I highlight their development of “rules of life” that they developed to give structure and rhythm to their monastic communities, enabling them to pay. Read more.

This podcast discusses limits and rhythms as two of the most counterintuitive, difficult truths in Scripture to embrace. They touch the core of our relationship with Jesus, how we function as a team, and the way in which we lead. Both limits and rhythms fly in the face of our natural tendency to want to play God, control outcomes, and run the world. Yet they remain deep truths to which we must return, over and over, as leaders and teams. In this podcast, I examine Adam and Eve’s original rebellion against God as a refusal to accept God’s rhythm, and limit, for them. God gave them enormous freedom in the Garden. Then, without explanation, He set a boundary before them. They were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.2:15-17). They were to trust and surrender to Him, bowing humbly before His incomprehensible ways. They were to be active, then. Read more.