Over the weekend I was on a conference board call with another organization, and we were discussing a grievance policy that needs to be put in place so that people know how to approach each other when issues need to be worked out. The policy is pretty much the Matthew 18 sequence of presenting the grievance to the person and then working through a series of meetings to come to resolution. Continue →
Psalm 133:1 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (NASB)
Something happened at our field directors’ conference. Our mission has gone through some very difficult changes in our structure, our communication patterns, and our culture. And part of that is determining how the field directors, the pastors to our field staff, come together and work together.
And so we had this conference. And I watched what happens when we talk about our hearts. Continue →
Ben Patterson, the campus pastor at Westmont College, challenged us to answer that question. It’s obvious that he had talked to the students about it many times before because they all raised their hands with their index fingers up, saying there is one church. God looks at what’s happening in Santa Barbara, with the different styles of churches and different types of worship, and at those who are sealed with the Holy Spirit and know Him as their personal Savior, and He sees only one church. He looks at all these little congregations who worship in different ways and express their faith in different ways, but He sees one church. Continue →
On Sunday my family and I went to the battlefields of Gettysburg. I’d been there before when I was younger. I remembered having a powerful experience, and it did not disappoint me this time.
A couple of things stood out. One was the cost of internal conflict. The Civil War pitted brother against brother, family against family, Americans against Americans; the cost was the loss of over 600,000 lives, and the dignity of our nation as loving one another. It seems incredible that we could have an internal war, but that’s exactly what happened. Continue →
Last week, our eight regional directors from all over the United States came to Villanova to discuss the future of the mission. The economic environment, the donation environment, has led us to where we need to make some hard decisions, as (like most organizations) we are having difficulty responding to reduced income.
What impressed me was that the more details we laid on the table, the more transparent we were, the more we said, “Here’s what we’re dealing with,” the more unity there was. There is a cancer in secrets and a freedom in transparency.
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