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Tag Archives: failure

Lead Your People to Follow the Crucified Jesus: Part 1 – EH Leader Podcast

I have spent 19 months studying the theme of discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew (I expect to finish this month), taking careful notes, and making specific applications to my own life and leadership. Last month, at the opening Session of The EH Discipleship Summit, I shared the summary of my learnings. The response was so significant that we decided it was worthy of a 2-part podcast. Below is a chart of the outline of my points out of which I make specific applications to the formidable task of making disciples today: Listen to Part 1 here: Warmly, Pete Learn a discipleship framework that deeply changes lives!

The Gift of Winter

Parker Palmer’s work on the seasons is among the best I have read. The following is a part of what Geri used with our NLF staff team this past Tuesday to help us anchor ourselves in Him. There are few things more important for us as leaders than discerning the season of God -personally and corporately: Winter is a demanding season – and not everyone appreciates the discipline. It is a season when death’s victory can seem supreme: few creatures stir, plants do not visibly grow, and nature feels like our enemy. And yet the rigors of winter, like the diminishments of autumn, are accompanied by amazing gifts. One gift is beauty. I am not sure that any sight or sound on earth is as exquisite as the hushed descent of a sky full of snow. Another gift is the reminder that times of dormancy and deep rest are essential to all living things. But, for me,. Read more.

My Five Most Important Lessons – Leighton Ford

Leighton Ford has been one of my primary mentors for the last 32 years. He has walked with Christ for 80! Yes, 80 years.  I asked him over lunch recently his most important life lessons. Here they are: 1. Start with what you have been given (i.e. your raw material, what is in you through blood, your family/cultural history). 2. Listen to the voice most true to your heart (i.e. following the invisible thread of God in your life). 3. Be willing to listen to other voices too (e.g. secular novelists, new Christians as they talk about faith, theologians who differ from you). 4. Learn to be thankful for what seems thankless (e.g. pain, loss, betrayal, failure). You will become more than what you would have been otherwise. 5. Open your life to contemplate beauty and cultivate wonder.

My Five Most Important Lessons – Leighton Ford

Leighton Ford has been one of my primary mentors for the last 32 years. He has walked with Christ for 80! Yes, 80 years.  I asked him over lunch recently his most important life lessons. Here they are: 1. Start with what you have been given (i.e. your raw material, what is in you through blood, your family/cultural history). 2. Listen to the voice most true to your heart (i.e. following the invisible thread of God in your life). 3. Be willing to listen to other voices too (e.g. secular novelists, new Christians as they talk about faith, theologians who differ from you). 4. Learn to be thankful for what seems thankless (e.g. pain, loss, betrayal, failure). You will become more than what you would have been otherwise. 5. Open your life to contemplate beauty and cultivate wonder.

Addressing the Questions of Every Decade

As part of our month-long celebration around my transition, we invited Gordon MacDonald, one of my long-term mentors to speak at New Life this past weekend. He is now 74 years old. Among the many gifts he offered out of his 50 years of pastoral leadership, were his reflections that a deep, healthy church includes people in every stage of life. Every decade, he argued, has a question. Teens-Who am I and who am I becoming? 20’s-What am I going to do with my life and with whom? 30’s-Now that I have all these responsibilities and obligations, how do I manage all these priorities? 40’s–Am I a success or a failure? 50’s –As I move into the second half of life, who is this younger generation that wants me out of the way and how do I cope with the disappointments in my life? 60’s-How much longer can I do what defines me or. Read more.

Shame, Guilt, and Leadership

How much of our leadership is actually driven by guilt and shame? In broad terms, shame has to do with feeling about who we are; guilt is related to our feelings about what we do. They both rob us of the profound experience that we are God’s beloved children. We may feel deep, hidden shame about who we are because of addictive behaviors or dysfunctional choices. We may feel shame due to negative messages from our family of origin – “You are no good.” “You’re a loser.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” Then there is the shaming nature of so much Western Christianity. As one author said, “My very being was so sinful that God himself was enraged.” She recognized later that she was trying to repent her way out of what she thought was guilt. Some of us don’t need to repent. We need to be rescued from our shame. Ask the Lord to. Read more.