Category Archives: Stillness

Top 10 Blogs of 2015

As we enter a New Year I like to take time to review and listen afresh to what God might be saying and doing. This process includes my blog. The blogs that I thought were most important (e.g. Beyond an Airbrushed Spirituality) didn’t make the top ten. Blogs that I considered less important did. A key lesson for me is that people are very interested in detailed applications of EHS in different, real life situations (e.g. “Emotionally Healthy Birthday Planning” is a future blog). Here are my top ten posts from 2015: 10 Qualities of an Emotionally Healthy Wedding Top 10 Quotes from Elie Wiesel’s Memoirs Characteristics of the Emotionally Unhealthy Leader Quit Living Someone Else’s Life Four Steps to a Meaningful Sabbath You Know Your Not Doing Endings Well When Quit Overfunctioning Four Unhealthy Commandments of Church Leadership My #1 Mistake as a Leader Why Can’t We Slow Down

Making Room for Jesus

Christmas is when we remember the staggering reality that God entered human history as a baby. It is also about receiving the new things the living Jesus wants to do in us now. Let me invite you to ponder the painting, The Visitation, by He Qi and his capturing of the great story in Luke 1:39-56. First, notice Mary’s right arm protecting her womb. She knows God is birthing a precious gift inside her. She thus makes a three-month visit to Elizabeth’s house after she becomes pregnant, seeking support and encouragement for this new thing God is doing in her that is about to change the trajectory of her life. What new thing might God be birthing in you that you need to protect? Who might be a companion, a peer, a godly friend, or a spiritual director who might be able to be an Elizabeth to you as you. Read more.

Give Your Presence This Christmas

God invites us to practice the presence of people within an awareness of His presence. That is no small task, especially at this time of year. How then can we do this? By intentionally practicing His presence first. No greater teacher can offer us insight on how to do this better than Brother Lawrence, a 16th century Carmelite from Paris. I reread The Practice of the Presence of God every couple of years to remind myself of his simple, timeless wisdom. Here are a few of his gems for you to prayerfully consider this Christmas: I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence…which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, a habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God. The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of the kitchen, while several persons. Read more.

Blue Christmas

This past Wednesday, Geri led our New Life staff team through a Blue Christmas service. It was so profoundly moving, that we plan to do it with our whole church later this month. A Blue Christmas service is a space created for people to grieve their losses while holding on to the reality that Jesus is the Light and Savior of the world. It is usually held around the winter solstice (December 21 or 22), the longest night of the year and the day that marks the start of winter. Theologically, it integrates the fuller Christmas story – both the joy surrounding Jesus’ birth and Herod’s horrific slaughter of all the male children two years old and younger. For many people the Christmas holidays are a painful time. A loved one has died. Others have lost meaningful relationships, marriages, jobs, security, or a sense of direction. Others find themselves battling cancer or some other health crisis. Read more.

Mother Teresa’s Nobel Prize Winning Rhythm

In Stephen W. Smith’s recent book, Inside Job, he cites the Rule of Life Mother Teresa laid down for her nuns in their work among the sick and dying in Calcutta. It reads as follows: The Sisters shall spend 1 day in every week, 1 week in every month, 1 month in every year, 1 year in every 6 years in the Motherhouse, where in contemplation and penance together with solitude she can gather in the spiritual strength, which she might have used up in the service of the poor. (p. 344, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light) Imagine 1 Sabbath day every week, 1 Sabbath week every month, 1 Sabbath month every year, and 1 Sabbath year every 7 years. What I like best about this is 1 Sabbath week every month! Every one of us ministers among the sick and dying. Yet we consistently underestimate how much emotional/spiritual life is flowing out from us.. Read more.

Looking for God in Our Limits

Going beyond our limits is one of the most significant challenges and temptations we face as leaders. Why? It touches the core of our tendency to want to play God and run the world. Adam and Eve’s original temptation of rebellion against God was all about limits. God gave them enormous freedom in the Garden of Eden. Then, without explanation, God sets a boundary before them. They were to bow humbly, to surrender, before his incomprehensible ways. Ask yourself: Why don’t I take appropriate care of myself? Why do I feel like am never “finished”? Why don’t I spend enough time reflecting on my interior world? Why do I always feel as if there is too little time and too much to do? Why do I feel chronically restless? Why do I have so little margin or flexibility? Why don’t I invest the time I need in my marriage, my children, or a healthy. Read more.

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