The Limits Of Leadership: Integrity And Incarnation by Andy Stoddard

One of my great hesitancies when I first entered the ministry concerned leadership.  I was afraid to lead.  I had too many doubts.  What if I choose wrong?  What if I lead my people poorly?  What if I make a mistake and it all falls apart?    As I was going through ordination in the United Methodist Church, my mentor suggested I read In the Name of

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Loneliness And Friendship In Ministry by Carrie Carter

Sometimes there are questions that simply do not have clear solutions.  As my husband and I neared the end of our first ministry assignment, a woman said to me, “I think if you hadn’t have been in your position of leadership, we could have been good friends.” Even in my late twenties, I didn’t completely comprehend what she was saying. It stung,

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Excuses, Excuses: Common Sense, Morality, And The Divine Revelation of God by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Humans are expert excuse-makers.   “Well, GOD, the woman you gave me tempted me, so…that’s why I didn’t listen to you when you told me not to eat anything from that tree.”  “I know I’m not supposed to cut my hair, but…I mean, have you seen Delilah? I’m only human.”  “I’d love to follow you, Jesus, but I have family obligations and an urgent to-do list first.

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Relapse And Recovery: How To Get Back Up When You Fall by Carolyn Moore

Recovery is characterized by relapse.  I wish someone had told me this a long time ago, before I lost patience with people who desperately need my patience. Relapse is what happens when people give up a powerfully magnetic addiction only to find themselves at some point giving into the temptation to try it again. It happens. Relapse doesn’t mean a

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Our Most Important Meeting by Andy Stoddard

There is so much that we can learn about God, our life, our calling, by looking at the life of Jesus Christ.  He can teach us how to love, how to be faithful, how to be holy, how to see to live out the good news of God’s love each day. And today we see something very significant, and very important to Jesus’ life and his

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Do You Need To Move On? by Elizabeth Glass Turner

“Move ON!” a little girl voice shouted from the porch. She’d been watching me weed then went inside. During that time, I’d moved down the flowerbed but doubled back, pulling stray weeds I’d missed the first time in the tangle of morning glory vines. When she came out, she saw me bending at roughly the same spot as when she’d

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The Lost Metric Of Testimony by Brian Yeich

The church seems to be obsessed with numbers. We account for professions of faith, baptisms, membership and worship attendance, and these statistics for church health point to a crisis in the present and increasingly dismal view of the future. We seem to count everything. Even the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, made sure that every Methodist could be counted. However, it is my conviction

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