In over four decades of leadership, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the biggest gaps in our leadership training comes down to one essential skill… Creating safety where everyone around you feels empowered to communicate clearly and honestly. Without this skill, church teams remain silenced – unable to speak truth and creating the conditions for an environment of frustration, resentment, and judgement. On today’s podcast, I’m joined by my wife Geri, as we explore the first of 8 essential relationship skills that every leader must adopt in order to unleash the God-given voice of our people. We’ll model a powerful skill called “Community Temperature Reading” and talk about how it applies to real life leadership scenarios. Imagine leading a church where every staff, leader, and volunteer knows how to communicate clearly. Imagine a culture, where everyone feels safe to tell the truth and has the skills needed to do so. Imagine the unity that is. Read more.

Could you forgive someone if you knew they murdered your entire family? It sounds far-fetched. But this is the question posed in As We Forgive – a documentary about the tragedies of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the stories of two women as they came face to face with the men who killed their families. It provoked the question – Would I be capable of forgiving my enemies like this? This is the center point of Jesus’ most shocking, counterintuitive teaching – “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) In saying this, Jesus set a new benchmark for love. He turned the new world order upside down. For Christians, the key distinguishing mark of spiritual maturity is the way we love our enemies. In today’s podcast, I walk through the 3 reasons our love often stops short of this measurement, and what we can do to deepen the way we love others. (Hint, this. Read more.

Language builds culture. Recently on the podcast, I shared 5 timeless leadership axioms – portable and powerful phrases that have become adopted by emotionally healthy leaders all around the world. For example…”Jesus may be in your heart, but grandpa is in your bones”. It’s an easier (and more playful) way of getting at the truth that everyone is deeply affected by their family of origin, going back hundreds of years. Today on the podcast, I continue this series by sharing 5 new axioms that I believe you will find helpful. These leadership sayings are extremely useful to adopt as you build a healthy team and church culture. I pray you will memorize them, ponder them, and make space to allow the biblical truth to penetrate you.

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the fastest growing stream of the church is the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. In terms of overall numbers, it represents 644 million Christians world wide. This is 8.3% of the world population. By 2050, it will reach over 1 billion people. Unbelievable! We need the power of God, gifts of the Holy Spirit, signs and wonders for the global mission of the church. Much of my personal spiritual and leadership journey was formed in the charismatic movement. We regularly experienced the outpouring of God’s power in our church. It was electric. And yet I was still proud, defensive, distant, not present, unable to connect relationally, conflict avoidant, unaware internally, and unloving. This disconnect is what led to the birth of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. In today’s episode, I unpack 5 key contributions of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship that allow us to walk in the healthy, long-term release of God’s power.