Barnabas File

This was part of the text for my Bible study lesson this past Sunday:   In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. (Luke 1:5-7, NIV)   As I read Adam Hamilton’s commentary on this passage, I was pleased that he devoted a significant portion of his comments to the contributions that the “very old” are still able to make to the work of the Kingdom.   In reality, Zechariah (and Elizabeth) were probably at least two decades younger than I am right now.  As a priest, Zechariah would have been expected to start giving up his duties at the age of 50.  Of course, if someone reached the age of 60 in the New Testament world, their longevity was not only exceptional but seen as

And   I   tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock   I   will   build   my   church , and the gates of Hades   will   not overcome   i t.(Matthew 16:18, NIV)   I probably spend more time on social media than I should, but I find it a good way to keep in touch with how my friends at the grassroots feel about the church—both laity and clergy.   A big theme I pick up goes something like this: “The church is in decline and is losing its influence.  I just hope it lasts one more generation for me and my family or until I retire from ministry.”   Such thoughts are not new.  There have been many times in the last two thousand years when the church has been counted out. Even so, it is still here.   Perhaps we should clarify some terms.  What do we mean when we use the word “church”?  The Church (big C) was established by Christ.  In theological terms, when we use big C for church, we are talking about the Church Universal—all believers, in all expressions, in all times.  When we use the t

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”   Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:13-14, NIV)   As you can imagine, I receive newsletters—both hard copy and digital—from several churches on a regular basis.  This week I received one online that invited me to click on a link and view the church’s Five-Year Plan. So I did.   I was impressed by the Purpose Statement and Guiding Principles identified. These were Kingdom-oriented and life-giving.  The themes identified were clearly based on conversation and dialogue within the congregation.  But then I turned to the goals.   Let me be perfectly transparent here:  Goals written with a horizon of over a year are useless. Here’s why.   In the next year, we may face an economic recession.  We may be faced with another worldwide pandemic.  The war in

In our disruptive context, many see innovation as a priority for survival.  In The Innovative Executive, author Bella Rushi goes a step further and argues that innovation can also provide sustainable growth.   Writing from her broad experience with both life sciences and consumer products company, Rushi seeks to address these three items:   What do companies need from their leaders today? What can we do to uncover new possibilities to go to market and to create new processes and new customer experiences? What is the real challenge companies face when it comes to innovation?   The three levers she identifies to address these questions are:   Rethinking Your Business Model Innovation and Collaboration Making the Most of Your Technology Spend   She provides insights and illustrations in each area, but I was particularly taken by the Innovation and Collaboration section.  She shows understanding of the Design Thinking approach by recommending that companies combine “big data” and an anthro

Old Testament Reading: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, NIV   9  Two are better than one,     because they have a good return for their labor: 10  If either of them falls down,     one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls     and has no one to help them up. 11  Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.     But how can one keep warm alone? 12  Though one may be overpowered,     two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.   New Testament Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:11, NIV   11  Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.     Sometimes we must unlearn old things so that we can learn new things.   One of the things I had to unlearn was that scripture was not just written for me but was created in community and directed toward communities.   In regard to the Hebrew Bible, I knew pretty early that most of the content was directe

A pastor friend recently noted that he had stopped submitting his church’s annual report to the denomination.  He said, “ {They want] metrics that no longer matter and are irrelevant. [The report] doesn’t ask how many Muslims have become Christians, number of internationals reached, Facebook or YouTube views, website hits.”  All of these are important metrics in his context and in a post-COVID (?) world but the denomination is not asking about those things.   We all know the measures requested in these reports:  number of Baptisms, Sunday school attendance, worship attendance, resident members, etc.  So, do you include those attending services online in worship attendance?  What about the couple who now live in another state but are still members of the congregation and continue to send their tithes to the church? What are the measures of a successful ministry to the unhoused?   It is not that metrics—the things we measure—are unimportant.  I believe the adage, “What gets measured gets

Let me be very clear.     I am a former Southern Baptist who attended Southwestern Seminary.   When I was a young minister, fellow alum Rick Warren was a role model for pastors.     He was not only a challenging teacher and preacher, but he was emerging as a successful church planter with Saddleback Community Church. It is now one of the largest congregations affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.   My respect for Warren as a pastor continues.  I have a couple of his books on my bookshelf.  Due to some family experiences, Warren has been a strong champion for Christians to address mental health issues.   He championed evangelicals fighting AIDS overseas.  In recent years, he led the Saddleback church to ordain three women as staff pastors. His successors in pastoring Saddleback will be a married couple with the wife recognized as “teaching pastor.”   Even so, Warren misses the boat on some key issues.  As the recent meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention mulled over wheth

The Mentor’s Guide:     Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships has just been published in its third edition, a clear testimony to its importance in the practice of mentoring.    Authors Lois K. Zachary and Lisa Z. Fain have updated this “bible” of mentor practice to reflect new insights, developing theories, and contemporary reality.   The authors see the mentor relationship as a mutual experience that generates growth for both mentor and mentee (although I prefer the word protégé).  As such it requires investment, preparation, and reflection on part of both participants.    The revised edition considers not only evolving theories about adult development and mentoring, but also incorporates insights about the global nature of organizations, the importance of innovation, the reality of diversity, and the necessity of innovation.   One insight relating to innovation is the idea of SMARTER goals to augment SMART goals.  We are all familiar with the idea of SMART goals—specific, mea

A few short years ago, a seminary student asked one of his professors, “When are you going to start teaching online?”  The professor replied, “When you start leading worship online.” We know where that went, don’t we?  During the pandemic, most churches learned how to take their services to Zoom, Facebook Live, or some other digital platform.   In The Great Digital Commission , author Caleb J. Lines encourages the church to go even further, embracing social media not only to connect those who are already involved in a local congregation but to use digital platforms to reintroduce itself to those outside the church.   Just as Jesus and the early apostles developed community to reach and disciple believers, Lines argues that community is still at the heart of the Christian faith and the social media can be used to engage the unreached and to nurture believers.  He defines social media as “applications and websites that enable social networking and the creation/sharing of digital content.

In our coaching and coach training, our focus is usually on the partnership between the coach and the client.     In this process, the coach leads the process with the client providing the agenda—the subject for discussion, resource discovery, action plans, and achievement.    In a recent online presentation, Professor Peter Hawkins suggested a new perspective for the coaching relationship. His presentation on “From Ego to Eco Coaching:  Creating Value Beyond the Client” offered a challenge to place the coaching relationship in a larger context.  How can the coaching relationship benefit the organization, society and the world?   Hawkins outlines the change in perspective in this way:   For the coach it means moving “from facing the person you are coaching as your client, to going shoulder to shoulder with them as your partner, jointly facing what their world of tomorrow is asking them to step up to.”   For the coach and client, the new orientation is one “where coach and client are jo

Through the work of Daniel Goleman, most of us have been exposed to the concept of personal emotional intelligence (EQ) and its components—self-awareness, self-management, other awareness, and relationship management.  Understanding our own EQ contributes to our mental health, resiliency, and allows us to relate to others effectively.   The authors of Team Emotional Intelligence 2.0 have applied this approach to teams with the goal of developing high-performing teams.  They identify the four skill sets involved as emotional awareness, emotional management, internal relationships and external relationships.     Under each set, they offer strategies to enhance the awareness, health, and effectiveness of a team and give concrete examples of successful application as well as planning ideas.  The approach is very practical.  The primary concern is that the leader or group facilitator not become overwhelmed but focus on a few key strategies.   I have used the individual Emotional Intelligen

A friend got very upset with me once when I said, “I don’t treat all of my children the same way.”  He thought this was very unfair, but I tried to explain that my desire was to relate to them in a way that was appropriate to them as individuals.  I am sure that I did not always succeed, but I realized that each of them was unique--the needs of one were very different from the needs of another.  I loved, and still love, all of them but the important thing was that I attempted to provide what I thought each one needed.   So here is my secret:  I don’t coach all of my coaching clients in the same way!  Why?  Because they are individuals with different needs, experiences, and capacities.  Each person has their own particular way of processing experiences, learning, and acting.  If I fail to take that into account, our coaching relationship will not be effective.   For example, one client may know what she wants to work on and comes prepared for the session.  She already has some action st

The first real “job” for which I was paid was as a math tutor.     Considering that I failed Calculus in college, this is rather ironic.     I was a junior in high school and my math teacher recommended me as a tutor for an eighth grader.    The parents paid me ten dollars a session.   As I began working with this young man, I realized pretty quickly that he already knew what he was supposed to do.  He understood the calculations and was probably a better math student than I was!  The key was focus.  He needed someone who would just sit with him, respond to his work, and provide encouragement.  I did not need to be an expert; I just needed to be there.   I find myself in the same situation very often as a leadership coach.  As I talk with a client, I discover that not only does the person have the best knowledge of the situation we are discussing, but he or she has some ideas about how to address it in a positive way.  So why does the person need a coach?   One of the things that a coa

When we discuss the value of coaching, we usually focus on the difference it makes in the lives of individuals, but coaching also has benefits for the churches and organizations that provide it for staff and employees.     In an article in the February 2016 edition of Coaching World, Odile Carru and Mark Weinstein discussed the growth of internal coaching in organizations and its value to employees at all levels.     Carru and Weinstein presented three of these benefits:    talent retention, leadership development, and improving soft skills   When a church or organization provides coaches for leaders, the person who is coached not only develops new skills and abilities, but they appreciate the investment being made on their behalf.  This encourages them to stay with the organization longer rather than seeking another position “where the grass is greener.”     According to Carru and Weinstein, key areas for coaching in organizations are leadership development, onboarding (bringing new p

I have been doing professional life coaching over 15 years and I find that I still have a number of opportunities to introduce and explain the concept to people.     Just about everyone understands athletic coaching either from observing a sports coach in action or serving as a volunteer coach.     Life coaching is a bit different.     Three basic ideas will help you understand how life coaching works.      First, the person being coached is the focus of coaching.  The coach is thoroughly engaged in the coaching conversation, but the conversation is all about the client.  When we engage in a normal conversation with a friend or colleague, we expect that each person will have their fair share of the time—not simply reacting but sharing their own ideas and experiences and carrying their part of the conversation.  In coaching, it is all about the client.  The coach is there to serve the client’s agenda—to listen, ask questions, and support.   Second, the coach guides the process and the p

As I talk with potential coaching clients, the unspoken question is often, “Can I afford this?”     In conversations with other coaches, someone will comment, “This person really would benefit from having a coach, but they don’t want to pay for it.”   Christian folks don’t like to talk about money either in the church or as individuals, but let’s set aside our anxiety for a minute and think about this.  We can look at this concern from a couple of angles--from that of the coach and from that of the client.   First, most of the coaches that I know are very competent individuals.  They bring their own personal experience in working with people to the coaching relationship.  The majority have invested time and money in training to practice their craft as skilled professionals.  They have invested in being professionally credentialed.  Many could be doing other types of work, but they set aside the time to do this specific ministry because they think it is important.   As Jesus commented i

We live in an amazing time.     We can share our ideas instantly in various forms with people around the world.   The challenge is being heard among all the different voices trying to do the same.   In Reach, Becky Robinson has provided an accessible, effective way to get our message out.  Whether your content is written, audible, visual, or in-person, Robinson provides a strategy for engaging with your potential audience.  Her approach is not a quick fix but one that requires commitment, discernment, intentionality, and clarity.  To make an impact, one must be willing to invest herself or himself to do the hard work.  The author has learned this from years to promoting her own work and that of other thought leaders.   The key ingredients that Robinson identifies are value, consistency, longevity, and generosity.  She shares practical, effective ideas to implement each aspect of the strategy, but at the heart of this process is a love for people and creating relationships.  The ultima