?[Quoting Charles Spurgeon] Have none of you ever noticed, in your own lives, that whenever God is going to give you an enlargement, and bring you out to a larger sphere of service, or a higher platform of spiritual life, you always get thrown down? That is His usual way of working; He makes you […]
A Simple Strategy for Dealing with Depression
A book that I?ve found practically helpful on the theme of contemplative prayer is Martin Laird?s A Sunlit Absence. At one point, he mentions a man who wrestled with depression for some time, and finally found help in contemplative prayer. I have found myself struggling at times with seasons of depression. I?ve discovered that […]
Overflow Leadership, Part 3
In my last two blog posts, I talked about Vertical Leadership, the traditional model that creates leaders and followers, and Horizontal Leadership, a collaborative style of leadership that seeks to foster communication and collaboration. Now, let?s talk about Overflow Leadership and how we define it at the Leadership Institute. Our mission captures well the heartbeat […]
Overflow Leadership, Part 2
In my previous blog post, I discussed the most dominant organizational structure of our time: Vertical Leadership. This structure, I argued, has served its function well: It gets things done. But today, many in the business world are moving away from this model of leadership in favor of a new way of organizing: Horizontal Leadership. […]
Overflow Leadership, Part 1
I live in Omaha, NE where it seems we are always about a year behind any national trends. When some new wave hits us here in the Midwest, it?s old news to my friends in California. Sometimes, I feel like the church functions like us Midwesterners ? like trend-followers. More and more, it seems like […]
When Was the Last Time You Asked “How?”
Dallas Willard often mentioned a book that was one of his favorites: Lawson?s Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians. I read it again recently and came across this little paragraph about the difference between surrender and self-abandonment: A will surrendered is not always a will abandoned. ??as Madam Guyon says, ?A will surrendered is not always […]
The Trouble with Techniques
Our instinct as leaders is to find ways to do things that are productive and, hopefully, predictable. This is understandable and often helpful. But there is a technique mindset that can move us into an orientation in which we fail to pay attention to God?s guidance. Listen to some thoughts on this from Marva Dawn: […]
