Thankful
This Thanksgiving day I’m very grateful for… An amazing Lord who is full of never-ending love, grace and and power. A wonderful wife who is a true best friend, ministry partner, and fellow traveler on this great adventure of life. Bright, creative kids who surprise me every day with what they can do and who they are turning out to be. A fantastic family who has taught me to put Jesus first in everything.

Some devotional observations from Matthew 14-16
Every once in a while, I post some devotional observations. I have a pattern of daily digging into the Word through a  devotional reading plan that our church works through together. Here are some things that I meditated on from Matthew 14-16 yesterday: 1. Jesus withdrew—a lot! He got away and prayed. Often when He was alone, people found Him and He ministered to them anyw

Congregational Creativity: Getting Out of the box (Pt 2)
Continued from Part 1 If the church is a reflection of an infinitely creative and original God, then how does a congregation manifest that creativity? How do we start to climb out of the boxes we’ve learned to live in? I think it starts with an understanding. We can choose to be—in the words of one of my hero’s, Ron Mehl—either “prophetic or parasitic”. The essence of a prophetic community or le

Creativity: Getting out of the Box (Pt 1)
“In the beginning God created…” (Gen 1:1 NIV) The very first thing we learn about God in the Bible is that He is creative—and for the first 26 verses we see God at work masterfully creating an unfathomable cosmos, life-sustaining systems, invisible atoms and everything else imaginable (and unimaginable). Then, as a grand crescendo He creates human beings (have you ever considered that people are so valuable to God that we were His grand fin

Collaborative Leadership
Recently I was asked what kind of a leader I was—did I lean more towards micromanaging or releasing? I didn’t really answer the question: “I’m a collaborative leader,” I said, “somewhere in the middle.” So, what is a collaborative leader? A picture might come to mind of a person who brings everyone together and takes a vote, “majority rules” style, or worse, “we’re going to lock ourselves in this room until we a