I talked not long ago to a man who spends his life working with churches on stewardship.  i asked him what the number one characteristic of generous churches is, and the rapidity of his answer startled me:  "They have generous senior pastors."   He didn't cite programs or teaching or systems.   Just a person. It struck me how deeply this is true of the whole area of spiritual formation.   Sometimes a person will want to become a 'spiritual formation champion' in a church.  They may know a fair amount about techniques like lectio devina, they may read good writers and be able to articulate substantial ideas.   But the biggest question remains:   When people look at this person, do they say 'I want to be like him or her?' When it comes to transformation, the single most helpful gift ...more

When i first got married, I did not understand about the need for reserves.  (Actually there were lots of other things I didn't understand, but there's no time for that now.)  Then our car got injured, and our washing machine went on strike, and I learned. When I first worked at a church, I did not understand about reserves.  We lived financially from week to week.  Then one week we did not have enough money to pay the staff, and I learned in a hurry. But as important as financial reserves are, they pale next to our need for spiritual reserves.  Often in ministry I feel like Jesus (that's a dangerous comparison!) when he was touched by a woman in a crowd 'and felt the power go out of him.'   Ministry can be the most draining activity known to human beings, because it draws on th ...more

Want to guess what the single best way to prevent divorce is? I have been thinking lots about marriage and spiritual life lately. When my daughter got married recently i was able to fulfill a life-long dream. In movie weddings the clergyperson always says, "If anyone has any reason why this marriage should not take place let them speak now or forever hold their peace." But I have never been to a real-life wedding where this gets said, So I decided to say it when my daughter got married. My brother-in-law Craig Harrison, who is actually a pastor in Escondido, stood up to object, claiming to be Laura's parole officer. It was pretty much the highlight of the wedding, except for where the best man brought out the rings attached to two tiny kittens who would not stop mewing an ...more

There is a vehicle for spiritual growth that many people in your church have already voluntarily signed up for. In fact, most of them paid for it. It has the potential to produce more spiritual development than new members classes, spiritual gift classes, evangelism training classes, end times classes and small group involvement put together. Its called marriage. Too often churches avoid leveraging marriages as a tool for spiritual growth because we don't think about it. But Gary Thomas has written a wonderful book called Sacred Marriage, which focuses precisely on the value of marriage as a 'vale of soul-making.' Marriage has the possibiltiy of helping people learn the fundamentals of spiritual life: --how to encourage one another --how to be in conflict ...more

I went to Krispy Kreme this morning. Partly because its good for my arteries. Keeps them on the offensive. But mostly because of my daughter. When my children were young I often used to get them out of the house on Saturday mornings by taking them on a doughnut run. My wife never fully approved, but she valued the time and space and chance to be alone enough not to complain. Their interest in donuts was starting to flag until ten years or so ago when Krispy Cremes came north. You get to watch them being made with 1940's style technology; little lard boats floating down a river of molten grease. There's something about being able to watch the donuts go from infantile lumps of fat to fully developed sugar-frosted lard-infested maturity that defies resistance. The miracle o ...more