Daniel was sent as a servant-slave to Babylon. Daniel’s nation, Israel, had been destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar’s forces, but the real ruin started centuries earlier when they rejected God as a leader and asked Samuel to find them a king.…
Category: Social
Issues relating to social justice, government policy, social causes and more.
Servant Leadership in Beastly Places
Greenleaf’s 1977 classic Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness reminds us that the most important characteristic about anything—a cell phone, a boss, even a God– is service. Without good service none of them are…
Crucified and Risen Leadership
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Trembling is an overwhelming, almost uncontrollable, “natural” response to deep cold, fear, emotional exhaustion, or…
Resisting Beastly Leadership: Jesus Flowering in Dark Places
Bad leaders have several ways to lead people astray but there may be only one good way to prevent that from happening. One way leaders lead us astray is when they appear “good” or “strong” but lack moral character and…
Church Leadership: In Season or Out
When Presidents come and go, the church needs to be the church. When Parties come and go, the church needs to be the church. When Nations rise or fall, the church needs to be the church. When Good Times lull…
Called and Sprawled into Leadership: Lessons from DeVos Urban Leadership
I experienced the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative this week. This training experience serves 50 urban faith based youth leaders from across the country with leadership development events and coaching. It helps them find sanity, refocus on trusting God, and create…
8 Areas or Ways to Improve Your Teaching and Learning
We can improve learning, ours and others. We can!!!! As an Adventist university teacher I feel deeply my inadequacy to teach and to learn. I get overwhelmed with how little I have learned and how limited the development of those…
Conversation, Community and the Creativity that Cares
“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures…
Judgment’s Cure for Judgmentalism
Somewhere in my teens I developed a deep judgmentalism. I can’t blame my family. My parents gave us lots of freedom, were very non-judgmental and their positions as a teacher and a nurse, gave them skills of nurturing. I can’t…
Democratic Republics need Educated Citizens and Wise Leadership
The Influence of Democratic Republics on Morality Democracy has shaped the moral landscape of the west for centuries. It has led many to throw off monarchies and lose their interest in dictators. It has made the WEST suspicious when power…
Prophets and Politics
If you live in the United States it is hard to avoid the vitriolic moral wars that characterize this year’s U.S. Presidential race. The police shootings of black men and the shooting of police has fueled an added moral fear…
7 Rests Worth Entering
I had one of those four and a half hour nights recently. I was running low on energy and high on bad attitude the next day. The next night was different. 7-8 hours of sleep does wonders for me. It…
And All the Multitude was Silent
Our university department trains leaders. We mentor leaders who face difficult and contentious conflict and have to make tough decisions. We have to train them to confront but also to find safe places to duck into. A safe place gives…
Jude, Judgment and Tough Words
I like to read and memorize catchy sayings, especially well-woven punchy advice. “Words, like sunbeams, when condensed, burn deeper” continues to help me control my often long-winded responses. “A stitch in time saves nine” reminds me to take care of…
The Prodigal Son’s Father has Love….and Food
The story of the family with a Prodigal Son and Elder Brother (Luke 15:11-32 ) is a favorite parable. It continues to dazzle our understandings about God, ourselves and the human race. It teaches us a lot about moral living.…
Jeremiah 4: Grace in Judgment
My first three posts on Jeremiah’s “Adventist” ethic reviewed the role of prophets as moral irritations (post 1) against the status quo. Prophets are holy and morally sober in the presence of widespread moral confusion and intoxication. Such a stand…
Jeremiah Ethics 3: Can Adventists Run with Horses?
I run 5k races and once I ran a 10k with my daughters (only because there was no 5k event). I don’t run long races. I can’t handle it. As such, God’s question to Jeremiah hits a sensitive spot: “So,…
Jeremiah Ethics 2: No More Ethical Cowards
There is a big difference between wise caution and cowardice. One will help you make better decisions. The other will thwart great innovations. One will lead you to heaven. The other will take you straight to hell. “But the cowardly,…
Jeremiah Ethics 1: Moral Irritation
Living moral truth often means going against the status quo. It means “standing up for the right though the heavens fall” (White, 1903, Education, p. 57). It is evident when a person seeks sexual purity or promotes heterosexual marriage when…
More Moral Leadership in Our World
Most of us need more exercise. Most of us want more money. We all could use a little more love. But the greatest need and want is for moral leadership. I have been on a twenty year journey of using…
Acts 15
In part one, Stir, Stew, Chill and Serve, I detailed how the Desmond Ford crises of the 1980s rocked and split my small SDA church. This experience made me a champion for unity. I am more eager to search for…
Stir, Stew, Chill & Serve
Adventist Problems in the 1980s: Part 1 It was the simplest directions for cooking a meal. I figured even I, as a pre-teen, could prepare it. “Why wait for my mom when I had a kitchen and a recipe and…
Right vs Righteous
He was the paragon of perfection. He was the epitome of the Jewish lifestyle well lived. He honored his parents, managed his money well, worked hard six days a week and rested the Seventh. He controlled his anger and was…
Angry Leaders
As we noted in the last several blogs, anger can be good as it initiates reaction to injustice’s two forms: apathy and abuse. Anger can rally our emotions and juice up our soul to make us aware that something is…
Anger, Protests, and Riots
It is November 25, 2014 (I updated this November 26, 2014. Updates in parentheses) In the middle of a three part series on anger, it seems appropriate to take a moment to discuss the recent demonstrations and riots in Ferguson,…
Speaking the Truth in Love—Body Anger
Our group at church has been going through the small group DVD series by Chip Ingram, Overcoming Emotions that Destroy: Practical Help for Those Angry Feelings That Ruin Relationships. As with other Ingram DVD’s series, his ideas have been well-received…
Authority and Power: Exercised and Ascribed
It was a key theme throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, especially in the final weeks leading up to His crucifixion and death. It has been a key theme in Jesus’ heavenly ministry, as High Priest, especially in the closing work of…
Three Stories that Frame the Moral Life: God’s, Satan’s, and Yours
The following is longer than usual and Adapted from a talk given at Andrews Academy, Sept 9, 2014…. Seniors, Thank you for letting me talk with you on your special day. Your motto “Bene in Christo” is in Latin.…
Labor Day
In the US, we celebrate work with a holiday, a day off for many workers. We call it Labor Day. According to wiki and the U.S. government page on this, labor unions spearheaded the creation of Labor Day as a…
Neither
“My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly…