Tag Archives: marriage

My Top Ten Lessons of Leadership

If you ask 10 different leaders what they had learned over a long period of time, you will receive 10 different lists. It is determined by your unique journey and your strengths and weaknesses. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of what a leader needs to learn. Rather it is what I wish a mentor had helped me understand from the beginning. I wish some kind mentor might have said the following words to me: 1. Be Yourself Pete, calmly differentiate your “true self” from the demands and voices around you. Discern the desires, vision, pace, and mission the Father has give you as you lead. Take off Saul’s armor. Be clear about yourself. Learn to control your reactivity. And remember, “to live unfaithfully to yourself is to cause others great damage.” Rumi 2. Your First Work is to be a Contemplative before God. (i.e. to be with Him) You are not. Read more.

Book Review: How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins

I just finished reading Jim Collins’, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, and found it filled with excellent insights. While his study and work is focused on corporations and why great ones decline, a number of the principles he lays out have application to the leadership of churches and non-profits. The following were 3 highlights for me with particular application to my journey in answering the question, “What does an emotionally healthy leader look like? How does one bring contemplative leadership that waits on the Lord and actually leads?” Be careful about being distracted from your primary, core values that make you who you are (He calls it your primary flywheel). In our case, it is emotional health and contemplative spirituality, reconciliation and leading people to deep, personal relationships with Jesus Christ here in NYC. He observed that great painters (Picasso), musicians (Beethoven), and companies (Walmart) continue to intensely and. Read more.

Reflections on Singapore Leadership Conference, July 2009

Geri and I have just begun our yearly, summer “sabbatical” rest (our old term was “vacation”). We are in Thailand, beginning to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Yet we wanted to take a few moments and share with you several highlights from our time in Singapore at the Eagles Leadership Conference where we spent the last 6 days. 1375 delegates (pastors and leaders) from 19 countries attended this very well-run, powerful conference. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were the top four countries represented. Geri and I did a plenary session around our story and the main insights of EHS. This was followed by a full day workshop for around 200 leaders, and then 2 shorter workshops around “The Leader’s Spouse (by Geri) and Insights of Monasticism for the 21st Century (me) on the final day. We were very well-received and felt greatly honored. We also learned quite a bit. The following are a few. Read more.

What is Success?

As thirty churches have finished up the EHS Church-Wide Initiative and I have continued to interact with Pastors around North America, I am now convinced that defining success is a critical question for us in leadership. Sadly, it has been defined narrowly as numbers and budgets. I don’t think I am going too far in saying that may be idolatry and the very antithesis of the mustard-seed nature of Jesus’ kingdom. To do leadership in the church differently is no small challenge. The following is my first draft for success as a Senior Pastor (for me): 1. Walk in Integrity – with God, self, and others. This is reflected in a sense of peace, rest and a life filled with communion with Him. 2. Experience a joyful marriage with Geri where our we serve our children and others out of a cup that overflows. 3. Provide leadership in short, mid and long range issues that is thoughtful, prudent,. Read more.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Conference Online

We are now in the midst of our Pastors/Leaders Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Conference at New Life Fellowship in Queens, NY. Geri, myself, and the rest of our staff had a wonderful time with Pastors/Leaders and their spouses yesterday at our pre-conference. We are looking forward to the next couple of days in journeying together toward healthy God-centered lives and marriages. I have asked Drew Hyun, one of our associate pastors who also serves on our Teaching Team, to connect you with the blogging/twittering that is going on at the conference. If you’d like to follow real-time updates on our conference (as well as updates from the pre-conference yesterday), you can click below at the following link: www.twubs.com/ehsconf For those of you on twitter who would like to join the discussion, you can use the hashtag “#ehsconf” and include it in any tweet that you post. Meanwhile, there is a list of blogs found at. Read more.

Marriage, Singleness and Spirituality

This weekend Geri and I are leading a retreat for 16 couples in NJ. It is the fruit of over 12 years of thinking about a theology of sexuality, marriage and spirituality. We limited the retreat purposefully and spent an inordinate amount of time creating a one and a half day experience in Scripture, small groups, time alone with God and emotionally healthy skills. It will be the first of 2 parts that we hope to make more permanent a part of NLF culture for all marrieds. It was a challenge for me to clear my life the last two weeks in preparation. I find myself easily pulled into larger, more “grandiose ministry”. God used her groundedness and this weekend to pull me down to earth (humus-humility) about what is really important. That is integrity in our spiritual lives and vocations — whether we are single or married. Paul makes clear that if we are skimming on. Read more.

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