NEW E-BOOK

LeaderSHIFT: 8 Pivotal Breakthroughs of Emotionally Healthy Leaders

LeaderShift eBook

Personal Assessment

How Emotionally Healthy Are You?
Take a free 15 minute personal assessment now!

*We respect your privacy by not sharing or selling your email address.

Personal Assessment

Close

Tag Archives: celebrate

3 Things “To Do” in 2014

According to Jean Vanier, the founder L’Arche, argues that three activities are absolutely vital to create community: 1. Eating together around the same table. How can think creatively to foster this in 2014, especially in our larger churches? I think we have a lot to learn from immigrants and ethnic churches on this! 2. Praying together. What might it look like to pray more as a lifestyle as a community, outside our prayer meetings? How do we infuse prayer in a way that everyone participates and no one feels intimidated? 3. Celebrating or having fun together. “By celebrating,” Vanier writes, “I mean to laugh, to fool around, to have fun, to give thanks together for life. When we are laughing together with belly laughs, we are all the same.” (see Living Gently in a Violent World, p.17).  We have an intergenerational New Year’s Eve Party each year at New Life. We dance, party, sing, eat, laugh, and dress up. Read more.

3 Things "To Do" in 2014

According to Jean Vanier, the founder L’Arche, argues that three activities are absolutely vital to create community: 1. Eating together around the same table. How can think creatively to foster this in 2014, especially in our larger churches? I think we have a lot to learn from immigrants and ethnic churches on this! 2. Praying together. What might it look like to pray more as a lifestyle as a community, outside our prayer meetings? How do we infuse prayer in a way that everyone participates and no one feels intimidated? 3. Celebrating or having fun together. “By celebrating,” Vanier writes, “I mean to laugh, to fool around, to have fun, to give thanks together for life. When we are laughing together with belly laughs, we are all the same.” (see Living Gently in a Violent World, p.17).  We have an intergenerational New Year’s Eve Party each year at New Life. We dance, party, sing,. Read more.

10 Qualities of an Emotionally Healthy Wedding

After 9 months of planning Pete and I celebrated our daughter’s wedding last Sat. with about 180 guests. Out of that experience we realized there is such a thing as an “Emotionally Healthy Wedding.” Here are a few reflections as to what made it such a distinct, rich experience: 1. We Recognized Our Peerage. Our peerage with Christy had been established years ago. (We have done it with each of our daughters in young adulthood). We were not in a one-up, adult-child relationship. 2. We Clearly Expressed that the Most Important Thing for us was their Premarital Preparation. This was part of our gift to them. 3. We Gave a Gift of a Fixed Amount of Money and Let Go. Because this was a gift, they controlled the wedding, not us. There were no strings attached. They made the decisions and asked us for input along the way. 4. We Recognized the Most Important. Read more.

The First Thing To Do Each Day

Seth Godin wrote a great blog called, “The First Thing You Do When You Sit Down at the Computer” each day. He says, “If you’re an artist, a leader or someone seeking to make a difference, the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals.” I think he is right – for artists and leaders at least. If you are a Christ follower, however, the first thing you are to do is “to get up and go” to the place of grace like the younger son in Luke 15:11-24.  Soak in the unconditional love that God bestows on you. Let Him heal your shame and celebrate over you “with music and dancing.” Dare to believe that you are His beloved. Adam and Eve lost this sense of their blessed identity and listened instead to the voice of temptation. In their hiding God sought them, asking “Where are you?”  God. Read more.