Category Archives: Uncategorized

On Being Rooted

Today on my Monday ride (Monday’s being a day off when I try and take a longer cycling ride) I enjoyed seeing the beauty of some of Bartholomew County’s farmland in full summer season.  The corn is growing and beans likewise.  Most of the wheat has been cut and straw baled, with a couple of double crop bean fields noticed.  One farmer was disking up a field that was yielding the sweet smell of fresh earth as I rode past – life in the country!

With such a firsthand view of these scenes my mind kept falling back to the importance of being grounded or rooted in life and faith.  I’m a country boy at heart, raised to appreciate the land and the resources it provides.  I’ve also come to understand there is a spirituality of land and place that God often uses to get our attention and draw us close. Continue reading

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Filed under Christian Faith, Cycling, Spiritual Formation, Uncategorized

Community

Last Sunday as we gathered for worship at First Baptist Church – Columbus I noted at least nine persons in our midst who’d not been able to attend in some time.  These individuals, couples and households, each have overcome something (either that very day, or over the past days, weeks or months) that kept them from worship with our faith community.  It may have been bereavement (the difficulty of going to worship for the first time as a widowed person), or an ongoing illness or health struggle (that makes mornings especially difficult), or a “come back” from a life threatening scenario.  For the purpose of this post the specifics of what these persons are dealing with is secondary to the fact that they were able to  come – seeking to be in community with fellow Christ followers for worship on a Sunday morning. I know that my spirit was lifted just seeing their individual and collective faces amidst the congregation.

Community matters – it makes a difference – it is important.   But community is a largely undervalued aspect of the Christ-following experience in middle class America. Continue reading

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Our Need for White Space

The idea of “white space” may have had its origin in the field of publishing and design, but it has become a metaphor in other disciplines, including the Christ following way of life.  In design work (think newspaper, magazine or website) white space is the portion of the page left unmarked.  It’s the margin or the space between columns and pictures that gives your eye an opportunity to rest.

The business world took white space on as a metaphor, and talks about it as opportunity – that place “where no one is in charge”, leaving room for creativity and passion to emerge. Businesses that give their employees a certain amount of white space often find them more engaged and energized in their work. Continue reading

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Living a Leadership Legacy

Today was a good day.  It wasn’t good because I accomplished things of great significance.  It was good because I got to listen to how God is at work in the lives of others. And I got to  think about, and give thanks for, how God has been at work in my life through the influence of others.  Let me explain. tree

In the world of basketball, long tenured and successful coaches often have a coaching tree.  That is they have a list of persons who’ve both played or coached for them that have gone on to take the coaching reins elsewhere and become successful.  Well, today I spent some time in my leadership tree.

Leadership tree? Continue reading

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New Vistas on a New Year

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I had the opportunity, along with fifteen other members of our short-term mission team, to welcome the new year while guests in Chile. I doubt that any one of us will soon forget this most unusual celebration of New Year’s, both because of our location and the vistas it provided. Nestled in the foot hills of the Andes, as guests of the Mapuche people (the indigenous tribal people of Chile) we were rich in both hospitality and scenery for the holiday.

The particular vista my host home offered was that of a pasture overlooking an alpine lake, with an active volcano jutting forth in the distance. (See picture above) Continue reading

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