From a very young age, my brother and I loved giving birth to stories.
We were progressively getting good at story telling, whether it was the one we had to make up to appease our anxious parents for coming home past our curfew hour or the ones we made up for missing school as we could not finish our homework on time. I seriously don’t know where we learned to come up with stories in such short notice.
This is a guest post by Scott Cochrane, Executive Director at The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada. Be sure to follow his tweets and read his blog on Christian leadership!
There’s nothing quite like proven, reliable experience to help a leader navigate through the toughest of challenges.
But at a recent gathering of the board of The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada, I was reminded of an important quality that ‘older leaders’ may need to work at; but which comes naturally to younger leaders.
It’s the ability to see the world through ‘young eyes’.
As our meetings concluded one of the board members closed in prayer by asking God to bless each of these seasoned leaders seated around the table by granting us young eyes with which to view the world.
By this he meant the ability to balance experience with a youthful outlook.
What would happen if we just took time to reflect on our life and captured it with all its laughter, tears, celebrations, tragedies, wins and failures, both in its significant moments and in the everyday mundane things?
I think it would leave us super humbled and awestruck as we begin to notice the grace of GOD at work in every facet of our life.
Thats exactly what happens to me every single time I look at my life as a whole.
To this day, my parents remind me that my life is a miracle. The story goes that as an infant I had some complications and became very ill. The doctors were puzzled with my unique case and my family was afraid that they would lose me. But, God by his grace intervened and my life was spared.
This is a guest post by Jeff Futers, Associate Pastor of The Portico. Be sure to follow his tweets and read more of his thoughts, ravings and more on his blog site.
As I was preparing for yet another year of Easter services this weekend, something occurred to me that I had never really noticed before.
In John’s account of the story (chapter 20), when Mary Magdelene shares the news that the body of Jesus is missing, a foot race ensues between John and Peter.
John gets to the tomb first but doesn’t go in. Arriving right on his heels is Peter. True to his sometimes impetuous form, Peter charges right in to the empty tomb, and inside he discovers the evidence. Strips of linen that had been wrapped around Jesus body…the burial cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head folded up by itself, separate from the rest.
“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income” – Ecclesiastes 5:10
Discontentment seems to be one of the themes of our generation. For one reason or the other, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the jobs we hold, the gadgets we use, the house we live in and the relationships we have – seem to leave us empty and disgruntled, always wanting for something bigger or something better.
Often times, the things we desire are the things we do not need. In other words, they are not our daily necessities, but just ‘wants’ that reflect our greed, envy, and discontentment.
This is a guest post by Dr. Lee Beach, director of Ministry Formation at McMaster Divinity School.
Our culture is not naturally given to the activities of rest, retreat and reflection. To intentionally practice any one of these, let alone all three is to choose a counter cultural approach to our lives.
We value productivity, we exult in being widely networked and we are encouraged to fill our lives with activities, including “spiritual” ones that supposedly add meaning and purpose to our existence. However, it may be that for us to enjoy a robust and meaningful relationship with Jesus practicing the disciplines of rest, retreat and reflection are crucial to that goal.
This is a guest post by Rev. Colin McCartney, founder of Connect Ministries International and author of Red Letter Revolution. You can follow his blog here.
I have been thinking about a survey in which young adult, non – Christians had the opportunity to share their views of Evangelicals. Not surprisingly they are not impressed. In fact they see us in a very negative light.
Specifically, they see us a being homo – phobic, pro – war, insensitive and extremely judgmental. When I read their comments about I could not help but think of what would happen if we were able to go back in time and do a similar research project on people’s views of Jesus.
“Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, and in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”
- St. Patrick of Ireland (389-461)
I call this St. Patrick’s 360 degrees prayer. It is said that he was an active Christian missionary in Ireland during his time. The prayer itself is a sincere plea for “Christ” to increase and the “I”, which is the self to decrease. In other words it is a passionate prayer asking Christ to reign 360 degrees in one’s life.
Over the next six weeks, we will be posting a Colossians Group Study that was developed as a follow up material to Fluid 2012.
This resource can be used for your church, small group or personal use. We hope and pray that it creates space for deeper reflections and authentic conversations.
To download Week 1 of the Colossians Group Study, click here
Looking back at Fluid 2012, I can easily sum up this gathering in one word: Grace.
When we first set out to inspire an emerging generation that has been seemingly written off by many people, we had no idea what the response would be. All we knew is that God put in us a longing to inspire young adults to live passionately for Christ in whatever context their lives flow into.
At most, we imagined a few hundred young adults converging on March 3rd, 2012. To our shock, we witnessed over 900 people from as far as Sault Ste. Marie come together to learn and worship our God together.
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