Last night, flying from Denver to Atlanta, I re-read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer—Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Hoffer was a self-educated philosopher and social historian who worked as a longshoreman in San Francisco for 25 years, during which time he authored more than ten books. I sometimes tell people that I majored... Read More

This morning I returned from three days in New York City with my pastor, Tom Shirk, of Calvary Bible E-Free Church in Boulder. For the past two or three years, Tom has been leading Calvary in becoming internally strong and sound but externally focused. In 2004 our church received the “Colorado Cares Governor’s Award” for... Read More

Chip Sweney also passed on to me the BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS for the church / school collaboration in NE Atlanta… Existing Situation – 2005 Georgia has the second highest high school dropout rate in the countryOver 40% of Georgia’s students left school without graduating (national average drop out rate is 28%)Only 32% of Georgia’s... Read More

Yesterday my friend, Chip Sweney from Perimiter Church in Atlanta sent me a newspaper write-up on what churches in Atlanta are doing to partner with public schools. Chip was also part of the first Leadership Community for Externally Focused Churches and is a leader involved in the Global Learning Community. I love the first line... Read More

Yesterday Don Wilcox and I drove up to Vail to join Lloyd Reeb and Greg Murtha of Leadership Network for a Halftime Summit, hosted by Vail Bible Church and sponsored by Leadership Network. The concept of “halftime” is that many successful people build their lives around success, then after they achieve that success, long to... Read More

After meeting with Rudy, we drove over to a restaurant where we met with Robert and Marlene Linthicum. Bob, along with John McKnight, is the leading thought leader / practitioner on community organizing and grass roots transformation. (There are two approaches to community transformation–need-based and asset-based. Bob is a proponent of the latter–seing each community... Read More

Earlier today I joined Andy Rittenhouse (Compassion Coalition, Knoxville, TN) and Eric Marsh (Hope for Long Beach) for a couple of appointments they had set up. Andy is on a five-day junket meeting with leaders from Mariners, Saddleback, Rock Harbor, New Song-Irvine, etc. Andy, through Compassion Coalition, has developed the best material / curricula for... Read More

I just finished David McCullough’s 1776–the story of America’s fight to prevail for independence. The story centers on George Washington and the leadership he provided during this time of great conflict. McCullough is a Pulitzer Prize winner who is (as a friend of mine calls him) “an historian’s historian.” As with all his books, he... Read More

Several years ago I wrote an article on the value of reading / studying a different book of the Bible each month–a suggestion I first heard from Dr. Howard Hendricks. A bunch of folks have since picked up on this practice and for me it has proven to be the single best practice for getting... Read More