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Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
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Tag Archives: slow

Jesus’ Upside Down Strategy

Jesus focused a disproportionate amount of time discipling the Twelve – and one of them didn’t even work out! This was His upside down strategy to reach the world with the love of the Father. Yet we have programs to run, meetings to lead, people to pray for, money concerns, attendance to monitor, administration to be done, messages to prepare, strategies to execute, visions to cast, and crises that won’t wait till tomorrow. We live in the great tension of the big and the small – a tension I carry with me each week as I set priorities. How do I focus on the few, my Twelve, when modern culture demands the big… and now? It helps me to remember that so much in and around me resists focusing on the few. Why? Discipling the few is slow. The kingdom of God is a mustard seed and always will be. Discipling the few is. Read more.

Remember the Loaves: A Leadership Team Experience

At our New Life staff retreats, and occasionally at our staff meetings, we create “being” experiences with God before our “doing” of the actual work. This importance of grounding our doing out of our being is so critical we look for as many creative ways to keep ourselves grounded in Jesus. I have received many requests over the years from teams for this material. In response, I provide a sample called “Fire” in The Emotional Healthy Leader book in the “Culture and Team Building”. The following is another that I have used multiple times over the years and am planning to speak on at our upcoming Emotionally Healthy Leadership 2016 Conference on April 20 and 21. Feel free to use this personally and with your leadership team. The miracle of Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes is the only miracle, besides the resurrection, that occurs in all four gospels. It is that important!. Read more.

The Slow Power of Jesus’ Kingdom

Jesus compared His kingdom to a mustard seed – almost invisible, apparently powerless, defeated, and insignificant. Yet He assures us it will grow into something magnificent that will cover the whole earth (Matthew 13:31-32). This smallness was a scandal then. It is a scandal today. In our efforts to copy the ancient great cities of Rome, Athens, and Corinth, and our desire for “real disciples” who aren’t like Peter, James, John, Thomas, and Judas, we end up chasing after goals that aren’t His. We easily miss His movements. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS) is a mustard seed that has rediscovered and applied a few simple biblical truths. For example: Slowing down for loving union with Jesus is the foundation of all  leadership. We are to lead out of a marriage, or our singleness, as a sign and wonder for Christ. Spiritual formation requires we break the sinful patterns of our family of origin and culture. Read more.

Fast – the Achilles Heel of the Church

In Homer’s Iliad, we read of Achilles who had been dipped in the river by his mother to make him invulnerable. The problem was all of him was dipped in the river except his heel by which she held him in the process. This heel was where he suffered his deathly wound during the Greeks’ battle with Troy. Our Achilles’ heels are our weaknesses, our dark sides, the unconscious parts of us that can be our undoing – regardless of how strong we are or how well we are doing in every other way. I have become convinced the Achilles heel of the Western church is our rushing. The crowds can be large, the programs effective, our growth impressive. But if we participate in the speed of our culture and do not slow down, it will prove to be our mortal wound. Why? It is violent. As one scholar noted: “The dominant form violence takes. Read more.

Fast – the Achilles Heel of the Church

In Homer’s Iliad, we read of Achilles who had been dipped in the river by his mother to make him invulnerable. The problem was all of him was dipped in the river except his heel by which she held him in the process. This heel was where he suffered his deathly wound during the Greeks’ battle with Troy. Our Achilles’ heels are our weaknesses, our dark sides, the unconscious parts of us that can be our undoing – regardless of how strong we are or how well we are doing in every other way. I have become convinced the Achilles heel of the Western church is our rushing. The crowds can be large, the programs effective, our growth impressive. But if we participate in the speed of our culture and do not slow down, it will prove to be our mortal wound. Why? It is violent. As one scholar noted: “The dominant form violence. Read more.

Wine and the Slow Work of God

When I was in Italy, we visited the small, fortified city of Volpaia where we were given an in-depth tour of their winery. Their best, highest quality, and most expensive wines are aged over years in oak barrels. The barrels themselves are only used three times before they are replaced. The cheapest, most plentiful wine is aged very quickly in stainless steel containers. It is easy to offer wine from stainless steel containers in our churches. It is plentiful and quick. The problem is the taste is very different from wine that has had time to age in our hearts. This wine is scarce and slow. Consider this prayer by Pierre Tehilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), the French Jesuit priest and theologian: Above all, trust in the slow work of God.  We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on. Read more.

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