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Not Passing the Buck

It’s well-known that President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk which read, “The Buck Stops Here.” It was the haberdasher from Missouri’s way to describe a crucial quality of all effective leaders: they shoulder, not shirk, their responsibilities.Leaders make tough...

Ministry in the Meantime and the Mean Time

This post originally appeared on the Center for Healthy Churches website on June 27, 2017.Ministry happens in the meantime and in the mean time.The meantime is a season of sometimes bewildering change and troubling transitions. It’s an interval between a past we know...

Re-reading

I rarely watch a movie a second time or tune-in to reruns of television shows, not even the ones I’ve really enjoyed or have made a significant impression on me. Exceptions have been: The Wizard of Oz, the first movie by which I was mesmerized into enchantment; It’s a...

Draining a Different Swamp

It’s painful to face and hard to admit: by the time I was a young adult, fear and shame had formed a dark and dank swamp in my heart. The swamp was fed by slowly-moving streams of culture, family, and folk-religion, streams which carried commands, words, stories, and...

Excavation

I recently spent a couple of days away from my cellphone, Facebook, email, and television. I can’t take complete credit for this media fast, since my cellphone wouldn’t work and there wasn’t a television where I stayed. The Sabbath from “Morning Joe” and “Hardball,”...