I love Andrew Murray's definition of humility. Humility is our acknowledge of our total dependence upon God. In that sense, I think humility and gratitude are inseperable. You can't have one without the other.
I love I Corinthians 1:31, "The person who wishes to boast should boast only of what the Lord has done." I think evangelism is bragging on God.

What a difference a year makes!

A year ago, some neighbors/friends got divorced. He said, "It was the most miserable day of my life." She said, "I don't want you to ever call me again and I'll never set foot in this house again."

About ten minutes ago I pronounced them husband and wife again. They were remarried one year to the day after their first marriage ended in divorce! I told them that their divorce and remarriage symbolized what the gospel is all about--God can bring anything that has died back to life again--even a dead marriage. Their marriage was crucified and resurrected.

There is nothing as sweet as reconciliation--having and losing and finding again. I just hope that having lost each other will help them appreciate each other even more.

In the words of Winston Churchill--one his shortest and most famous speeches--"Never give up, Never give up, Never give up!"

I just finished reading Peter Vaill's book Learning as a Way of Being. There are a few concepts worth blogging about.
I totally resonate with his underlying theme--we live at a place and time in history that could be considered permanent white water. We live in a turbulent and chaotic time in history that is full of rapid change. Vaill says it's like "playing a game we have never played before." The key to surviving white water is continual learning--learning as a way of being.
I love Vaill's distinction between three kinds of knowledge. Acquiring the ability to do something is know-how. Acquiring a fuller and deeper knowledge of something is know-what. Grasping the value and meaning of something is know-why. Vaill says, "We need to understand human learning in terms of all three dimensions: know-how, know-what, and know-why."
I think most Christians are strong on know-what, but weak on know-how and know-why. As a communicator, my challenge is helping people grow in all three dimensions.

Edwin Schlossberg makes an interesting observation that is one of those "shifting of the tectonic plates" kind of changes that impact the way we live life. He said, "People still knew more about local events than they did about national and world events until 1941 when President Roosevelt told everyone about the attack on Pearl Harbor." We now know more about what is happening half-way around the world than we do about our next-door neighbor.
We're like the proverbial fish in the fishbowl. We're so accustomed to CNN that we don't realize what a different world we live in than the one that existed 50 years ago.
News used to travel at the speed of boats and horses. England didn't find out that America declared Independence until weeks later! We now live in a "speed of light" world. The question is this: how has this shift from local to global focus impacted the psyche and soul of America?

I love Oswald Chamber's perspective. "Organization must be seen to be scaffolding raised by the organism, and must never be allowed to take the place of the organism."
I think we look for permanent solutions when it comes to organization and administration and structure, but the church is dynamic not static. Doing church is a moving target. I'm more and more convinced that budgeting and strategizing and systematizing are not even annual things--our plans must be "living documents" that are always amendable. So much of leadership is about calling audibles at the line of scrimmage. That doesn't mean we shouldn't call good plays in the huddle, but we've got to be flexible to make mid-course corrections.
I told one of our ministry leaders this week, "If you do everything next year that you did last year you're doing something wrong." We've got to prune. We've got to take scaffolding down and put it back up all the time.