Dear Partner in Preaching, Hey – I know it hardly helps to get these reflections so late in the week. And I apologize. My work at LTSP, and particularly our efforts to unify the Philadelphia and Gettysburg seminaries, has been pretty much all consuming of late and it’s getting harder to find time to write. Again, my apologies. I’ll try to do better. In the meantime, I’ll keep this week’s reflection relatively short. So….what strikes me most about this story is not the miracle itself. This is Jesus we’re talking about after all. But rather the reaction of the crowds. Luke tells us that after Jesus gave life back to the widow’s...

Dear Partner in Preaching, A question: Do you think the disciples were more frightened before the stilling of the storm or after? I realize the answer may seem obvious. After all, not only does Mark describe the “weather event” the disciples are experiencing out on the See of Galilee as “a great windstorm,” but he also tells us that the boat is so swamped with water that the disciples are frightened for their very lives. And yet consider: after Jesus stills the seas and wind with his voice, after the disciples recognize that even the elements of nature obey their teacher, and after all that was once terrifying has been banished, the...

My sense is that leadership these days is more often than not about change. Whether you’re a leader in business, at home, in a volunteer agency, school, or church, the world has changed significantly enough – and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon – that organizations inevitably need to change, often continually, to adapt to both the challenges and opportunities ahead. And change is hard. Why? Because change is disruptive, and we tend greatly to prefer stability to change because, quite frankly, stability promotes growth. So the idea of changing direction, changing practices, and perhaps above all else changing personnel,...

One of the really interesting side discoveries of the research we did as part of the Vibrant Congregations Project is that it’s really hard to change alone. Maybe I should back up a bit to put this more in context. The Vibrant Congregations Project was a research endeavor generously funded by the Lilly Endowment to help a team from Luther Seminary investigate what contributed to congregational vitality and vibrancy. Partnering with congregations all over the U.S. and Canada, we studied four dimensions of congregational life – stewardship, vocation (connecting faith and daily life), biblical preaching, and biblical fluency (patterns of...