Ever feel like people expect you to be perfect? Or maybe you expect others to be perfect? Or maybe you find yourself feeling shocked or taken aback or disappointed when your family or your friends or your congregation fall short of your expectations. I’ve certainly been there. On both sides. Those expectations are what we…
Well, if you’re a pastor I hope you got your Easter sermon ready for Sunday. And it better be a good one! I mean, your sermons can be mediocre throughout the year, but you better nail it this Sunday! That’s what you should do! Letting Go of the “Shoulds” It is really easy to…
In this guest article, Dr. David J. Quel shares about his experience raising three Autistic boys. Not only has David been in pastoral ministry for over twenty-five years, he also has a Doctorate in Marriage and Family Counseling and a Master’s degree in Autism Studies. Over the last twenty-one years, I have had the…
Someone said to me recently after church, “Protestants don’t really have a good theology of suffering.” And I think this person is right. In Protestant circles, we tend to focus more on things like: “Victory in Jesus!” “Just believe and it will be yours!” “All things work together for the good of those who love…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of exile as a way of understanding the challenge of church leadership today. It’s a helpful way of thinking about the church’s place in the world right now, especially in Western culture. What is exile? The truth is, most of us in the West are…
On Tuesday, October 4, I landed in Porto, Portugal, to begin walking the Camino de Santiago. For the next eight days, I would walk anywhere from twelve to twenty miles—a total of about a hundred miles—taking one step after another on my way to Santiago de Compostela. The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage…
Have you ever felt frustrated when circumstances changed? Maybe it was vacation plans. Maybe work plans. Maybe family circumstance changed. Whatever it was, you planned for things to be this way, but now they’re that way. When things don’t go as planned, that might put us in a state of what we might call disequilibrium. …
I had a memory this week. Surprisingly, it got me thinking about the dangers of leadership. My Cowboy Lunchbox and Batman Keychain I was five years old when my family moved to Germany. Before the flight, my mom had packed up a “suitcase” for me, which I was very excited about. That suitcase was…
Sometimes you gotta step out of your comfort zone. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer to stay in my comfort zone. It’s way easier inside my comfort zone. I know how things work inside my comfort zone. I know what to expect inside my comfort zone. I mean, I just feel comfortable…
I’ve been fired twice in my life. The second time was from the last church I served. It was incredibly painful and I’ve shared that story in a few different podcasts, which you can listen to HERE, HERE, and HERE. The first time I got fired I was in my early twenties. One of…