Barnabas File

When I visited Conception Abbey a couple of years ago I purchased an icon of St. Patrick.  I chose this not as a means to facilitate worship but because of my admiration for the pioneering evangelist.   I often include George Hunter’s book  The Celtic Way of Evangelis m  on the required reading list of the Missional Church class I teach from time to time.  Hunter explains very clearly how a pagan people were won to the Christian faith, establishing an arm of the church that flourished in a period when other parts of the church were experiencing conflict and decline.  Although the role of St. Patrick in the conversion of the Irish is shrouded in myth and legend, this “patron saint of Ireland” is credited with the rapid conversion of the Irish to Christianity and the establishment of an enduring Christian community there.  Certain principles at the core of this outreach reflect the experiences recounted of the mythical Patrick’s life, ...

Despite major shifts  in society, the economy, and technology, changes in education have been slow (even glacial) in coming.  Whether we are looking at education for children, teenagers, or adults, we see systems  grounded in the 19th or early 20th centuries that seem impervious to adaptation. In Most Likely to Succeed:  Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era, authors Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith draw on their backgrounds  in education (Wagner) and innovation (Dintersmith) as well as their experience as parents to challenge the status quo in education. Here are their primary arguments: • Rapid advances in innovation are eliminating structured routine jobs from our economy, leaving millions of young Americans at risk. • The critical skills young adults need in the twenty-first century for careers in the world of innovation, and for responsible citizenship, are the very skills the school years eviscerate. • The education policies our country is ...

Life Coach  was a new term for me when Mark Tidsworth approached me about becoming one almost 8 years ago. Although Mark assured me that I already had the gifts to do this because it was what I had been doing in my ministry for years, I made the commitment to receive formal training and seek a certified coaching credential. I eventually completed the necessary training, the hours of being coached by a mentor, and the required number of coaching hours—both paid and pro bono—and ended up with two coaching credentials.  Part of the requirement to maintain one of those credentials is continuing education hours and on-going mentor coaching.  In other words, I am committed to being a professional in my field of coaching. Coaching is an unregulated industry at present.  Anyone can set up a website and print up cards claiming to be a coach.  This may change due to abuse on the part of some who have abused this freedom.  A recent lawsuit  i n Col...

Our family became  members of First Baptist Church, Jefferson City, Tennessee, while I served as campus minister at Carson-Newman College.  The church is located adjacent to the campus and is an integral part of campus life. The first Sunday we were there, we noticed something interesting.  Women were taking up the offering.  We soon discovered that these women were deacons and that the church had been ordaining women as deacons for several years.  This made a very positive impact on our eight-year-old daughter, Stephanie.  When we left Jefferson City and joined another church in middle Tennessee, she began asking, “Why doesn’t this church have women as deacons?”  This is how revolutions start! Given this history, I was surprised to hear that the local Baptist association in Jefferson County took action this past  fall to remove First Baptist Church from its membership citing the fact that the church  ordained women as deacons and min...

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”—Galatians 6:2, NIV I have made many mistakes over the years, but I finally came to realize one that I could correct.  For too many years, I depended on my own ability to handle things.   Sometimes the thing I was dealing with was professional and at other times it was personal.  I felt that if I just exerted enough time and energy, I could make it happen. Fortunately I discovered two things: first, I had limitations; second, other people were willing to help me.  Both of these discoveries required humility.  I had to learn that I could not do everything and also to learn how to ask for help. Think for a minute about those who are available to help you. First, there are fellow team members who can be of assistance.  Others have abilities and gifts that can complement your own.  Where you are not particularly talented, another person may be very gifted (and vice...

While introducing me to a group last fall, my friend Bo Prosser said, “Ircel has shown an ability to reinvent himself.”   I felt complimented by this observation and readily embrace it.   Although my vocational bent has been Christian ministry, I have had the opportunity to pursue that vocation in several ways—pastoral leader, campus minister, denominational worker, and now as a coach and educator.    Some of this has been intentional but there have also been times when, in the providence of God, doors have opened that I did not expect.   I say this to be very clear that there are some things that we do not orchestrate in our lives, but even so we can develop a mindset that is open to learning, inquiry, and personal growth that provides new insights and prepares us for the unexpected. Learning is a key to this idea of reinvention.   In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Monique Valcour suggested some intentional steps one can take to...

In TransforMissional Coaching , Steve Ogne and Tim Roehl write:     “A great C.O.A.C.H. . . .      Comes alongside      Observes carefully      Asks questions wisely      Communicates options and resources      Holds accountable (and cares for the Heart)” A life coach or leadership coach is not a miracle worker, but a good coach can make a positive difference for a person at crucial points in life.   So when do you need a coach?   Here are three (of many) possibilities: 1.   You have accepted a new responsibility that may very well exceed your present capacity.   You are being stretched.   Perhaps you have accepted a new pastorate, a new leadership role in your denomination, a job with a new organization, or been promoted to a new responsibility in your present setting.   It’s time to step up to the plate and hit a home ru...

In an article on the exponential growth of knowledge, David Russell Schilling wrote: Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.  According to    IBM, the build out of the “internet of things” will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours. Of course, all knowledge is not of equal value.   There are some things that we can live without knowing but there is other information that can be invaluable to us.   How do we do about acquiring it? As you begin a new year, how will you go about acquiring the knowledge that will...