Listen to the commentary Here’s a somber reality that you’ve probably confronted at some time in your believing past: is what you’re reading right now – in the Bible – a source of comfort? or, conviction? There’s a passage in Matthew’s gospel that can sometimes cause pause: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will […]

Listen to the commentary Talk about “late to the party!” In the era when magazines and printed publications are on the way out, COSTCO is going against the grain: the COSTCO Connection goes out every month to 123 million members across America. Though principally a 100-page advertisement for their products, they lure readers with a

Listen to the commentary Can you keep a secret? How many times every day is that question posed between people who already share a close relationship, but are on the threshold of entering into a virtual contract with the power to either ensure the bond shared forever, or to set in motion the disclosure that

Listen to the commentary Do you have kids?  If you’re a parent, you’ve learned a lot about life through the unavoidable assignment of shepherding them through the young-and-cute stages to the old-enough-to-know-better era when they drive you nuts and make you ponder escape strategies. If the “whose kids are these oddballs?” phase hit you where

Listen to the commentary What time is it? Don’t ask Phil Connors that question: for him, it really didn’t matter. In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, Phil (played by Bill Murray) was stuck in a strange time loop, repeating the same day, continuously. If life isn’t moving toward some significant future horizon – if every

Listen to the commentary Allow me to import some thinking from leadership in organizational life and apply it to real life. Most people live with either a passive or reactive mindset: passivity resigns leadership to someone else, while reactivity operates with no agenda other than to operate defensively in response to uncontrolled and unforeseen circumstances.

Listen to the commentary   I don’t know when you’ll read this. Maybe you’re sneaking a look at your incoming emails today, during your holiday break; or, perhaps you’ve allowed the pile to grow until Wednesday morning, after the hot-dogs and sparklers wore out their welcome, and we’re connecting mid-week. Here’s the question: is America’s

Listen to the commentary   Halftime. Bob Buford – a dear friend and mentor from 1986 until his death in 2018 – made that concept – halftime – one of the banner themes of his Kingdom calling. The idea – modeled in football – that the break in the middle allows a reframing of strategy

Listen to the commentary   Perhaps, some self-disclosure is in order: in multiple views of modern western society, I am among the ringleaders of what is, by the definition created by sociologist John Lofland in 1966, a Doomsday Cult (“a group that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism”). By that definition, I’m clearly within those parameters.

Listen to the commentary School’s out! For the last few weeks, academies at every level have been marking the end of their school years, releasing their charges for Summer. In each setting, the finishers have been honored through commencements that recognized the students who were completing that phase of their get-ready-for-life season, under their care.