Carl Medearis said something in a recent sermon at Mountainview that grabbed my attention. I'll paraphrase: Sometimes the ornaments obscure the Christmas tree. The ornaments may be pretty, sentimental, or traditional but they are not the tree. Applying this to church (and perhaps Christianity in general), the tree is Jesus. Yet we often allow our traditions (the ornaments) to obscure the tree. Even today's innovations may inadvertently draw attention away from the tree they are supposed to accent. Ornaments have meaning, even value. They represent family and memories and love. But they are not the tree. If all the ornaments were taken away, would we be satisfied with just the tree?
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Inscribed on a plaque at the Yokefellow Institute in Richmond, Indiana, is this quotation by Elton Trueblood: "Jesus Christ can be accepted; he can be rejected; he cannot reasonably be ignored." "Reasonably ignored." I found that to be an interesting phrase. If something is reasonable, it has enough merit to warrant further exploration, if not belief. To be unreasonable is to be beyond the boundaries of credibility. Is Jesus "reasonably ignored" today? Or is it more likely that he is "unreasonably ignored" because what many people think they know about Jesus is actually beyond the boundaries of credibility? Reminds me of Phillip Yancey's book, "The Jesus I Never Knew." The Jesus we think we know may not actually be the real Jesus. Thoughts?
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One of the points Patrick Lencioni made during his Leadership Summit talk was this: Many churches suffer from terminal niceness. In other words, we allow problems to continue because we don't want to cause ripples. A critical spirit is allowed to bleed onto innocent bystanders because we don't want to hurt anyone feelings. Jesus calls us to be kind; did he also say nice?
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Of all the sessions at the 2011 Willow Creek Leadership Summit, the one by John Dickinson may have been my favorite. An Australian, which gives him an automatic advantage due to a cool accent, Dickinson spoke powerfully on the topic of humility. First take home: humility makes the great greater. Here are the five reasons he shared as to why we should cultivate humility. Humility is common sense. In short, none of us is an expert on everything. Leaders have to fight the temptation to believe that expertise in one area automatically transfers to another area. Humility is beautiful. We are more attracted to the great who are humble than those who are great and know it. Humility is generative. Humility generates new knowledge, new abilities. A humble person is willing to learn; the proud already know it. Humility is persuasive. The most believable person in the world is the…
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