Most of us are so steeped in the achievement values of our contemporary Western culture that we take for granted that an intense level of ministry activity is normal. If a door of opportunity opens for us, we assume walking through it must be God’s will. It is not. The reality, however, is that this tendency to blindly seize more and more opportunities for God has destroyed many a leader. Throughout Scripture and the history of the church, the desert has been a place of spiritual preparation, purification, and transformation. Moses spent forty years in the desert before God called him to lead his people out of Egypt. The prophet Elijah lived in the desert and, as a result, stood firm in one of the lowest moments of Israel’s history. John the Baptist spent much of his adult life in the desert. Paul spent three years in the Arabian Desert receiving God’s revelation before. Read more.

Most of us are chronically overextended, doing more activity for God than our relationship with God can sustain. The notion of a slowed-down spirituality — ​or slowed-down leadership — ​in which our doing for Jesus flows out of our being with Jesus is more of a dream than a lived experience. Jesus spent over 90 percent of his life — ​thirty of his thirty-three years — ​in obscurity. In those hidden years, he forged a life of loving union with the Father. He continued to prioritize his relationship with the Father throughout his three-year ministry. As a result, Jesus modeled contentment amidst pressure, calmness in the face of betrayal, and power to forgive at his crucifixion — ​the fruit of a long history of living in knowing deeply that he was “beloved” by his Father. I am convinced that a significant reason many of us lack the qualities Jesus modeled in public is because we skim in our relationship with God in private. Instead. Read more.

I have pondered the Sayings of the Desert Fathers/Mothers for more than 15 years. We may not be monks, but we can learn many things from them as we seek to lead for Jesus in our day. We each have a solitary, a monk, within us, i.e. a part of us that longs for rich, creative, deep communion with God apart from the gods of the world that tempt us away from Jesus. We are not called to do exactly what these desert teachers did, but we are called to the same ruthless determination to break every spiritual chain that keeps us from becoming who God has called us to be and doing what he has called us to do. In this podcast I talk about 4 gifts/applications that offer a challenge to us in leadership today. Here are a few of their sayings that I discuss: 1. Grow in Love and Not Judging. Read more.

At the end of the third century in the deserts of Egypt, North Africa, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. Christian men and women began to flee the cities and villages of the Nile Delta in Egypt to seek God in the desert. They discerned that so much of the world filled the church that they had to pursue God in a radical way by moving to the desert. They saw the world: as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life. . . . These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster. . . They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they. Read more.

Benedict (480-547 AD) lived during a time when the Roman Empire was disintegrating and eventually founded twelve monasteries near Rome. To guide these monks to live a simple, orderly life around Christ, he wrote “a little rule for beginners” now famously known as the “Rule of Benedict” (RB). This “Rule” became one of the most powerful documents in shaping Western civilization and has guided tens of thousands of people around the world over the last 1500 years. In this podcast, I expand on the 7 primary lessons (or gifts) from the Rule of Benedict that have profoundly influenced my life and leadership since my first exposure to it in 2003. These 7 lessons are: Rhythms and the Daily Office. Benedict structured these prayer times around eight Daily Offices. He realized that stopping for the Daily Office to be with God is the key to creating a continual and easy familiarity with God’s presence the rest of the. Read more.

The pressure to present an image of ourselves as strong and spiritually “together” hovers over most of us. We feel guilty for not measuring up, for not making the grade. We forget that not one of us is perfect and that we are all sinners. We forget that David, one of God’s most beloved friends, committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. How many of us would have erased that from the history books forever lest the name of God be disgraced? David did not. Instead, he used his absolute power as king to ensure the details of his colossal failure were published in the history books for all future generations! In fact, David wrote a song about his failure to be sung in Israel’s worship services and to be published in their worship manual, the psalms. Can you imagine doing that with our sins! David knew something about the power of brokenness. Read more.