I know Eric Bryant through our participation together with the Origins Project. On his blog, Eric has been doing a series of teleseminars with church leaders and thinkers. On June 1 (3-4pm Central) he will be interviewing me live about The Divine Commodity. The teleseminar is free, but you need to sign up in advance to participate.

SIGN UP HERE for this free, live teleseminar.  

Eric’s teleseminars are similar to conference calls where you can dail in and listen/interact live, or you may listen online via live streaming audio. By signing up you can also submit questions to Eric and me to answer during the call. Check out other recent teleseminars on Eric’s blog.

I’ll be in San Diego this week for the National Pastor’s Convention hosted by Zondervan. Leadership’s assistant editor, Brandon O’Brien, will also be there and we’ll both be posting regular updates from the conference at Out of Ur. I’ve been to NPC a number of times in the past, and it’s always a great place to make connections. If you’re planning to attend and would like to chat, be sure to drop me a line.

The schedule this year is pretty full for me. Here are some highlights:

-Meeting with Dan Kimball, Dave Gibbons, Erwin McManus and others to discuss the formation of the new network which is still in its early phases of development.

-I’ll be teaching two seminars: “The Critical Role of the Imagination in Spiritual Formation and Preaching,” and “Why…

At any given moment we are each engaged in three dramas, but only one of them ultimately matters.

First, there is the drama of the practical. These are the events and measurable conditions that surround us every day. For many church leaders the current drama of the practical involves the economic crisis and keeping their ministries solvent. At other times the drama of the practical is about increasing attendance, launching a new program, or financing a building campaign. Those men and women who learn to master the drama of the practical are often the most revered and celebrated. They know how to get things done so we buy their books, attend their conferences, and listen to their advice.

But there is a second drama that many practical actors ignore-the drama…

I just returned from two days in Las Vegas. Brandon O’Brien, Leadership’s assistant editor, and I were there to interview Craig Gross. Craig is the guy who started XXXChurch.com seven years ago. In 2008 he relocated his family and a dozen other people to Las Vegas to launch The Strip Church. (There’s a great NightLine video on the site you should see.)

We interviewed Craig about what it means to be a church and engage God’s mission in a culture of growing addictions and vices. The article will appear in the spring issue of Leadership due out in April. Craig’s vision is essentially to create a short-term missions project where churches from around the country send teams of people to Las Vegas to reach out at the many trade conventions.…

Bernie Madoff, a Wall Street mogul, was arrested earlier this month for defrauding his clients, including a number of charities, of $50 billion. If true, it will rank as the largest fraud case ever. I don’t suppose anyone is that surprised anymore when a powerful figure abuses his or her position for personal gain. And sadly we’ve seen such abuses among church leaders as well.

But The New York Times is reporting on a much smaller case of fraud not coming from a position of power in the church, but from the pew. Bryant Rodriguez, 44, began attending El Camino Church last year. He attended baptism classes, became well connected with the small congregation, and subsequently defrauded members of the church out of $600,000.

The authorities said that Mr. Rodriguez asked…

February 10-13 in San Diego.

Something’s wrong. We pastors are the stewards, the spokespeople, the advocates of a message of hope, life, and peace. And yet so few of us seem to be experiencing these qualities in our own lives. Something’s wrong. In a world saturated with fear, insecurity, and stress, we are to show a different way. And yet those at the center of the church are burning out and leaving ministry at a rate of 1,500 per month. If that’s what’s occurring at the heart of the church, why would anyone on the fringe want to move in closer? I’ve just read an article by two Christian counselors about the soul-killing impact of church ministry on leaders. (The statistic above comes from them.) They note that the pressure to grow the church…

I haven’t seen MTV in years, with no regrets, but I recall a show on the network that impacted me like a train wreck. It was awful, gruesome, and terrible—but I couldn’t look away. “Celebrity Deathmatch” featured clay-animated celebrities in a wrestling ring where they pummeled, grinded, or dismembered each other into a bloody pulp of scarlet Play-Doh. It wasn’t exactly wholesome family entertainment.

We can pick apart the moral depravity of the show (which is all too easy), or we can talk about why it was so popular with the young (which is probably related to its moral depravity). Let’s simply draw this conclusion—the younger generation isn’t enamored with celebrities. They aren’t cultural gods to be worshiped and respected. They’re more like rodeo clowns trying not to be…

While studying for my ordination a few years ago I was required to read Oswald Sanders’ classic book, Spiritual Leadership. I’ve forgotten most of his practical advice about leading a church, but one short section has stayed with me. Sanders talks about the choice pastors face between being a popular leader or an unpopular prophet.

The logic seems rooted in the Old Testament differentiation of these roles. The kings of Israel served as leaders over God’s people. They used their power to pull wires and drive the nation forward. The prophets, on the other hand, served as correctors. They came down from the hills to tell everyone what they were doing wrong. And after being rejected, stoned, and thoroughly despised they returned to the hills. Quoting A.C. Dixon, Sanders…