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A simple way to address hidden curriculum issues is to spend time talking with staff and key leaders about their spiritual lives.
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Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.
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Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.
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It strikes me that presidential campaigns can often bring out the worst as well as the best in us.
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Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor.
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When someone is in crisis, don't start by teaching, leveraging, or explaining. Just be with.
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Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world.
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The church is in the hope business.
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We do not need answers or formulas to minister in crisis.
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Tithing is like training wheels when it comes to giving. It's intended to help you get started, but not recommended for the Tour de France.
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We all want to feel spiritually vigorous, and we hurt when we don't. This pain is intensified for people who lead church ministries.
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Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly.
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I hate how spiritual formation gets positioned as an optional pursuit for a small special interest group within the church.
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I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.
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Sometimes in churches somebody will discover a particular vein of spirituality and seek to recruit others into it, or assume a superior position because they have found certain techniques - but no one actually wants to become like them.
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Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings.
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Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
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Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams.