Tag Archives: Leadership

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Looking West To Wilderness

The Need For A Spiritual Retreat

Colorado is probably my favorite place on this planet; and to be more specific, a small retreat center in the mountains west of Colorado Springs is my favorite place on this planet. And I go there every year.

Wilderness at Bear Trap Ranch

Recently, I have been writing about my thoughts and ideas concerning all the stuff in my life, and all the stuff going on in my life. I have come to realize that it is time for some simplification, some reorganization, and some reprioritizing of much of my life. That’s not always easy to do, simply because the regular pressures of the day to day grind can prevent us from taking the time to really evaluate where we are and compare that with where we want to be.

I have found that a spiritual retreat can be a very helpful tool to help accomplish this. This is something I have implemented into my life on a regular basis for several years, and have seen some very amazing results in my life. I do this at two different levels: Annually, I take a week and head to Colorado with several other people in ministry. It’s a time of refreshing and renewal. More on that in a moment.

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Strategically Simplifying

Choosing The Best Things

For the past few weeks, I have been evaluating some of the things in my life, and reducing or reorganizing a lot of it. What I’m doing has been called by many “simplifying.” But I’m trying to be much more strategic than that.

Strategic simplification

Often, the things that we have can get in the way and become a distraction to us. I believe that is the case much more often than people realize, and when “things” get too important, we lose track of our proper priorities.

The Bible calls that idolatry.

But what we need to stop and realize is that it’s not the thing itself that is the problem, it’s our motives and attitudes towards it. So when we start looking into our lives to simplify things, and to remove distractions, we need to look more into our hearts than into our homes. Because that’s where all of this is rooted.

So I have been seeking to be strategic as I simplify my life some. I have been reevaluating a lot of stuff. Do I really need to keep this? It this something that God can use through my life to accomplish good for his Kingdom? Or is this something that I am attached to too deeply? Those are the kinds of questions I’m asking.

But it’s not just about the physical possessions. Sometimes it’s other things as well. And sometimes, in order to simplify our lives, we need to strategically add some things in as we take some others away.

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Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

What To Do When Life Gets Full

Right now, I am in the process of purging some of the things in my life that I have accumulated. I’m shooting for something more simplified, maybe even leaning towards minimalism, in theory. And I’m finding it very hard to do.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Throw Stuff Away

My life is complicated.

I don’t state that in a complaining fashion, because I know just how many different things I have going on in my life. Some I can control, others I cannot. My wife and I have a large family, with seven kids. A couple of them are in early adulthood, a couple of them are teens, or soon to be, and the rest are younger children. That fact alone ensure that we are busy, and that we live in a cluttered home.

I’m also in ministry. Every time I see something that might be a resource, I’m tempted to grab it and hold on to it. More on that in a moment.

My wife is also very frugal. She’s always thinking ahead, so if she sees a deal on something that we don’t need now, but will need later, it’s quite likely to be brought home and stored until we need it. She saves us a lot of money that way.

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Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

What To Do When Life Gets Crazy

You may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here lately. That has been both good and bad, for a number of reasons. I hope that I can maintain a regular schedule again soon.

Sometimes, You Just Need To Take A Deep Breath

Sometimes, it’s just time to take a step back from things and take a deep breath. In a way, that has been good for me. I have been able to focus on a few things that needed some attention, and a few things that I have wanted to do for a long time. But at the same time, stepping back wasn’t great, because the habit of writing regularly has slipped a little. This is still a priority in my life, and a slipped habit will be a bit of an obstacle to overcome.

Let me share with you a few of the things that have impacted my schedule over the last few months.

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Opening Up After Quarantine

A Cautious Approach To Regaining Equilibrium As A Church

The past several weeks have been difficult for our nation, and even our entire world. COVID-19, the Coronavirus, has brought us to our knees and complete disrupted our lives in almost every single area. And finally, it seems like it may be time to start opening things back up. To that end, here is our proposed plan for Parkview.

Opening Up After Quarantine

We heard it from every avenue: the Center for Disease Control, the federal government, the state government, our own county health officials and city leaders. Stay home. Close down anything that isn’t essential. Stop the spread. Flatten the curve.

As a church, such restrictions are extremely difficult. The church is designed to be in community, not isolation. And we have been apart for almost two full months. That has been hard.

Now, with Missouri’s governor opening things back up, albeit slowly, and our own local authorities doing the same, we have a plan for how we will reestablish our physical services, with a strong eye towards the safety and security of everyone.

In doing so, our leaders have weighed three equally important truths: the call from God to meet together (Hebrews 10:25), the requirements given in Scripture to obey our government (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17), and the safety and security of those people under our watch (1 Peter 5:2).

To that end, we have developed a plan for reopening and meeting together as the body of Christ. Our target date is this Sunday, May 24th. But in order to make sure our services are as safe as possible for those who are at a higher risk, or for those who are more worried about the state of the pandemic at this time, we are taking every possible precaution and safety step that we can, and we are asking a few things from our church as well to help us out.

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Keeping A Kingdom Perspective

Seeing The Bigger Picture In The Midst Of Change

Things change. They just do. And sometimes that change can be hard to understand, and even harder to view with the proper perspective, a Kingdom perspective. But that’s something that we have to strive for continuously.

Kingdom Perspective

In early October, I spent a week outside of Colorado Springs at Bear Trap Ranch. This is an annual event that I utilize for my spiritual life as sort of a “spiritually fiscal review” of my life for the past year, and for the year to come. This is a cornerstone event for me, impacting my spiritual growth in ways that I cannot even fathom sometimes.

God uses that literal mountaintop experience to help form a spiritual mountaintop experience that helps me navigate through my life and ministry in the months to come.

It’s not the only thing that I intentionally plan through out the year. I also incorporate single day retreats, called Personal Retreat Days, to review my life and ministry, spend time in prayer, and seek God’s continued direction. I strive to do this at least every six to eight weeks through the year. And it helps, being built upon the foundation of the week in Colorado, to maintain a Kingdom perspective.

That was the theme for Wilderness this year. We looked deeply into the Sermon on the Mount, seeing how God is calling us to be Kingdom oriented people. He didn’t call me to “do” ministry. He called me to “be” a Kingdom person, in my life, in my family, in my ministry, and in every other aspect of my life.

Conceptually, that’s pretty easy. I can conceive what that looks like in an academic fashion pretty easily. But when the rubber meets the road, when life throws some things my way that don’t fit into my routines, that don’t align with my regular, day to day, life flow… Then what? How do I keep a Kingdom perspective in the middle of things like that?

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The Full Focus Planner

Achieving More With A New Planning Tool

I have always seemed to struggle with keeping a calendar consistently. It has just seemed to be an area where I could not maintain any continuity, and every system I tried failed. Until now.

Full Focus Planner

Keeping a calendar has always been hard. I started off in college by using the DayTimer system. I initially used the small, pocket sized planners. But eventually I “upgraded” to the Desk size, and purchased a few different leather covers to go with it over the years. It was a good system, but I struggled to keep it with me, and found that when I needed it, it was either at home or at the office… wherever I wasn’t. And, over time, I just stopped using it.

I moved to jotting things onto a wall calendar, hanging by my desk, and then to a deskpad type calendar. Those seemed to work for a while, but I ran into the same problem. I never had it with me when I needed to check something.

When I got my first BlackBerry, and then later moved to an iPhone, I thought my problems were solved. I started using the calendars on those devices, eventually settling on Google Calendar, which synced across all my devices. This seemed to be much more effective, but I had one small problem. I love writing, especially using pens, and specifically, using vintage fountain pens. While Google calendar was effective, I still struggled to use it. I just forced myself to use it, because what other option did I have?

And while Google does a great job of keeping my appointments, it doesn’t help much at all with my tasks or goals. It still wasn’t fully what I needed.

Several months ago, I discovered a new planner, a paper planner, and a full-feature planner. I was intrigued, but skeptical. So I started digging. I found others who used it, and looked over how they implemented it. I watched videos about it. I read blogs about it. Finally, I decided to pick one up and try it out.