I’ve been thinking about the unique connections between preaching, salaries, and leadership recently. In most workplace settings, employees clearly work for those who pay their salaries. If you work in a large company, for example, you more than likely work for your...
One of the dangers of being a long-time Christian is that you begin to think you know what a particular section of the bible is about — since you’ve read it so many times — before you sit down to encounter it once again. Case in point: Romans 6-8. For many years, I’ve...
Anxiety is a lie. The worst kind of lie. The kind your own mind and body tell you. Mine tells me that people will hate me. Leave me. That things will snowball beyond my control. That an insignificant incident will become an uncontrollable catastrophe. For everybody...
Years ago, I heard a clergy-coaching-type ask a rather provocative question of a group of us: Do you pastor so that you can preach or do you preach so that you can pastor?Meaning: as one who leads a local church, do you provide a ministry of presence in people’s most...
Given that this is US Open time of year, the Charlotte Observer recently ran a story about the rather unusual — OK, bizarre — routines, habits, and superstitions that pro tennis players bring to their games. For example, Andre Agassi went commando in his first match...
As part of its ongoing Leadership Development process, the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church asked five of its preachers to answer five specific questions about the craft. The column released late last week, but may have been overlooked...
I recently picked up Bruce Springsteen’s 510 page memoir, “Born To Run.” While Springsteen is not my absolute favorite rocker, I DID live in New Jersey for seven years and once won a contest that gave us front row center seats for one of his concerts. I count...
Many of you are familiar with the Romans Road, a collection of verses from that signature New Testament book designed to lead people on the “road” to salvation. It starts out with our Problem from Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It...
I have been reading the New Testament for a long time, but I realize that I am only now learning how to read its epistles correctly. And to read the New Testament well, you need to read the epistles (Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, et al) accurately. Here’s...
Way back in the spring of 1984, as I was winding up my English degree in college, I took a class on theories of literary interpretation. It sounds kind of high falutin’, and I suppose it was. The teacher was Louis Menand, who has gone on to a measure of fame as...