Leadership

Reflections for Church Leaders We are more connected than ever … and lonelier than ever. As leaders, we see it every week. People walk into our churches with hundreds of online connections and very few meaningful relationships. Some of those “friends” may not even be real people. But the deeper issue is this. People are not just attending churches. They are searching for a place to belong. And here’s the leadership question we have to wrestle with: Are we building a church that people attend… or a community that people belong to? What Actually Creates Belonging? Acts 2 gives us one of the clearest pictures of the early church. After Peter’s sermon, 3,000 people come to faith in a single day. From a leadership perspective, that’s explosive growth. But growth immediately raises a more important question: What do we do now? Luke answers that question by describing the rhythms of…

A 2018 study from the University of California - Berkeley found something fascinating: humans are biologically wired for generosity. In other words, we’re born to give. But if that’s true, why do so many of us struggle with selfishness? Simple answer: we grow up. And somewhere along the way, that generous instinct gets drowned out by a culture screaming, “Get more. Keep more. Be more.” As someone who follows Jesus, I love it when modern science catches up to ancient truth. Because long before Berkeley ran a study, God already knew this: Generosity changes lives — starting with your own. God’s Wisdom on Generosity In 1 Timothy 6, the apostle Paul is coaching a younger leader named Timothy. And he begins by reminding him of something that sounds almost countercultural today: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6) Translation: you won’t find real wealth in a bank account.…

Someone once asked me if I played baseball growing up. The short answer: yes. The longer version? Let’s just say my dream of playing for the Cubs ended in 9th grade — thanks to an indoor tryout because the baseball field was covered in snow. The same tryout may have involved a bad throw shattering a window. While I don't completely blame Coach Birdrose for ending my dream of playing for the Cubs, he did make the right call cutting me from the team. It hurt at the time, but looking back, I get it. In sports, if you want to improve, the motivation is clear: win. Beat the competition. Get better or get cut. That’s how the system works. But when it comes to our spiritual lives, it’s completely different. In fact, one of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is this: God’s grace is the best motivation for…

What difference does Jesus actually make? What does it really mean to think and act like a Christian? To be like Jesus ... not just on Sundays or in a small group, but in the grind of everyday life? Malcolm X used to ask people coming out of church, “What difference does your Jesus make in your everyday life and in this world?” It’s a powerful question. And it’s one that the book of James answers head-on. James doesn’t give us a bunch of vague religious jargon. He asks pointed questions that hit us where we live. And in James 1, we find three big questions every Jesus-follower has to wrestle with: 1. How do I deal with people who offend me? James 1:19–21 says: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires…”…

Is it possible we've been looking at Christian academics all wrong. For many students, school feels like a blur of lectures, assignments, and exams. Sometimes boring. Occasionally stressful. Rarely inspiring. But when you begin following Jesus, it flips the script. Suddenly, education becomes something more than a GPA. It becomes stewardship. It’s about asking, “How am I developing the gifts God’s given me, including my mind?” One of the ways faith influences our academics is by reintroducing us to wonder. Say you’re in a general biology class, staring through a microscope at some mysterious little cell. What are you looking at? To be honest, I don’t know either. But I do know this: you’re looking at one of God’s many miracles. We need to help students understand: they’re not just killing time before practice or chasing a grade. They’re discovering something God created. That’s not boring. That’s breathtaking. But Christianity…