Moving Forward When Life Pushes Back Have you ever taken a step forward just to have something cause you to take two steps back? This is the momentum two-step. It’s the dance we do when we try to get disciplined, move in a new direction, or buckle down and face something we have been avoiding only to have an immediate…
4 Reasons to Listen to Your Critics Many people say to ignore your critics. Don’t listen to them they say. Once during a wedding prayer of blessing, I actually prayed that the bride and groom would, “shake the haters off.” For some odd reason, people haven’t rushed to ask me to pray for them at their weddings after that. I…
5 Books to Read if You Are Burned Out Your church should be a place that refreshes you and gives you the opportunity to refresh others as well. Even in the best environments we can get caught up in what we are doing and lose sight of the why behind it. In general, it’s just a good idea to take…
A story of happy accidents. Do you have something you are passionate about but maybe are not the most talented in that area? For me, that is running. I started running almost by accident. One year, after moving to a new school, I found out I had missed football tryouts. Instead of sitting out of sports completely I decided to…
3 Ways to Handle Unmet Expectations Have you ever thought of the perfect comeback except it was too late? Maybe someone put you on the spot and you didn’t think of the right response until the ride home. You left the conversation with unfinished business. Once you realized precisely what you wanted to say the chance to show the world your wit…
Doing less so that you can accomplish more Have you ever seen someone is “doing too much” or being what we used to call a “try hard”? Maybe they are being inauthentic, trying to impress someone, or overcompensating for some reason. On the basketball court, he is the guy with all the new gear but can’t dribble or shoot. At…
3 Answers to the Problem of Fear In my previous post I talked about not failing before you start. Sometimes we have voices that come to embody the fear that keeps us from trying. When we listen to them we fail before we even start. If this sounds like something you have faced then you may want to check out…
Overcoming Critics While Daring Greatly 2017 is almost over and I thought I would share one last post to wrap up the year. This is not an encompassing post to process all of 2017, but rather just a final thought. The Critic When I began my first position in full-time ministry in 2005 I framed a copy of “The Critic”…
The surprising path to fulfillment Sometimes the path out of your place of ordinary and into your place of extraordinary is through a place of discomfort. And by sometimes I mean every time. In Ezekiel 20:10 God says that He lead His people out of Egypt, a place where they were in bondage to slavery. But what he says next…