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I think of the movie The Terminal, inspired by the true life story of Mehran Nasseri, who was stranded at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport for 15 years, how he’s waiting to go home, how that’s a metaphor for our situation. The old spiritual goes, “This world ain’t my home/I’m just passi...

I also think here of Col 1.13, that God has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Or John’s words that we have been born “from above,� or “again.� We have a new identity, a new heritage, a new citizenship. Phil. 3.20: “…but we are citizens of heaven.� O...

A good resourcs on this topic is David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen's The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.[/i]

This one hits close to home. What are the dynamics that cause someone who presumably has a genuine heart and calling for the ministry to become a self-serving abuser? I think not only of my own recent experiences of this, but also of the recent scandal in the Catholic church of sexual abuse by pries...

I think of how Jesus did it. He trained his apprentices “on the road.� (I am indebted to Dallas Willard and others for their renewed emphasis on “apprentice� imagery.) There were no classes, handouts, or sermon notes. It was just doing life together for three years. The goal was that at the ...

“Contact with individual animals gives perspective for managerial oversight of his large herd.� This sentence reminded me of Richard Rardin’s model of pastoral ministry: the pastor is a servant-shepherd. A servant who attends to the unique needs of the individual and a shepherd who oversees an...

Other biblical passages that come to mind as I read this: John 15 – fruit results from abiding in Jesus, the True Vine. Apart from him we can bear no fruit. We are fruit-bearers, not fruit-producers, fruit trees not fruit factories. Also Gen. 12 – God blesses Abram not just to make him great, bu...

What you wrote here about goats reminds me of a truism we would often remind each other of when I served on a particular church staff – often the people who “push back� the most against your leadership are the ones most ready to take on more leadership responsibilities. So instead of being mad...

“As we reflect on ourselves in different organizational settings…�: This meditation has prompted some serious soul-searching in me, given the events of the last six years of my life. As I’ve reflected on the two ministry meltdowns I have witnessed, I’ve been asking God, “What are you try...

“Is it possible that we have not shared the work fully enough, and that others are watching us do most of the work?�: I have witnessed firsthand the tragic results when too much power and responsibility is concentrated in the hands of one shepherd and he does not “share the load.� But Paul i...

“Do members feel like family?�: Sadly, most church/ministry staffs I have worked for did not feel like family. In most, the environment was really no different from the corporate world: just put your head down and get your work done. “Sometimes our ministry experience feels too much like a dys...

“I’m left wondering about what righteous tracks or habits of the heart…� This would be a great place to bring up spiritual disciplines and spiritual direction, I think. Are we actively engaging in the historically reliable means of transformation or are we just coasting? Dallas Willard, Euge...

I was watching Charlotte’s Web the other day with my kids I heard a funny line. In trying to discourage a comrade from doing something foolish, one sheep says to another, “How many times have I told you? Just because we’re sheep doesn’t mean we have to follow?!�

I am probably starting to sound like a broken record here, but how much of this “vigilance� and “busyness� is normal and expected and part of doing our jobs well and how much of it is an unhealthy belief that nothing spiritually significant will happen without our presence, a fear that other...

“I wonder about my own orthodoxy too.�: I think the sheep  wolf transformation is not just a question of orthodoxy, it’s also one of personal health and wholeness (among other things – usually the transformation is quite gradual and complex – I’m suddenly visualizing those old werewol...