A friend of mine that I originally met at our church in Iowa just published a book, “Istanbul Moves.” It combines graphic design and photography to give a hundreds of new views of an old city. Justin has lived in Istanbul for eight years. From his web site describin

I read a few posts on the call for closure of Chick-fil-A on college campuses because of their stance on marriage. Here is my summary of the logic behind the author’s arguments:                   When I say YOU’RE wrong, it’s because I think; When you say I’M w

The key article in lesson 2 is Steven Hawthorne’s, “The Story of His Glory“. A summary and discussion questions are below. His central text is: Psalm 96: 1-4

Link to more maps from Pew Forum: here

Leonard Sweet’s thesis is that many of us have inadvertently bought into an incorrect view of leadership. In the church, it isn’t all about gaining leadership as we have been told, it is about joining together to be followers of Christ. This changes everything! The goal in

What if you just heard that your organization is going through another restructuring? It looks like it will affect your position, but you’re not sure. What should you do? Here is some advice: Offer solutions to your leadership, don’t just point out problems. A guy that I supervi

The new year has brought about some changes for me at the office: I moved down the hall to a different office because another “department” needed my space. Because of some recent staff changes, I took on the leadership of an additional work group and an additional team. Our leadership

Last Sunday we began a major project at our church: hosting the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course. As the staff member responsible for overseas ministries of the church, the course falls under my area of responsibility. Just a few minutes before the class started, on

If you can get past the kid yelling at the camera and the editing job, this video is worth watching because it brings up a number of points that we should all consider as we develop strategy for sending short-term teams. For me, it helps to separate cross-cultural work into two catego

The key article in lesson 1 is John Stott’s, “The Living God is a Missionary God“. A summary and discussion questions are below. His key text is: Genesis 12:1-3

Click here to go to Pew Forum site. Observations: This is a Protestant map, if it were a Christian map the 75 million Catholics in the Philippines would make it the largest group. China has the largest protestant population in this region, estimate: 58 million or 4.3% of the populatio

I just have to say that Gordon MacDonald is a great writer. The point of the book: church leadership needs to shepherd its members to distinguish between timeless truths and cultural practices, all told within a compelling story. The book is a narrative of a pastor leading various cha

The poorest counties in America… An MSN Money article describes the 15 poorest counties in the USA. With poverty rates close to 50% of their population according to the most recent Census Bureau data. What if fifty churches located near these counties united together to serve th

The Iowa State Daily reported that a course, Application of Biblical Insight into the Management of Business/Organization was recently canceled because of potential violation of “the establishment clause of the Constitution which outlines separation of church and state.” A

I responded to an article on the tension caused when International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries interact with people from other cultures who handle the issue of drinking alcohol differently.  FYI, IMB missionaries are not only prohibited from any alcohol use, most of the trustees