So you are looking to hire someone and are browsing potential candidates when you come across a work history that includes work at a local church. Is that a red flag? What transferable skills could they have? Will there be a conflict of organisational values? Can they...
In these strange-lit hours of power’s transition, we find ourselves inhabitants of the same city but readers of different maps. The stone-truth stands before us: celebration and desolation walk the same streets, drink from the same wells, breathe the same...
I appeared on a podcast to talk about my life, faith and poetry. The NINE LIVES podcast centres around the Enneagram. (I identify as leading with the 9.) If you are into podcasts, you might like it, especially the 2nd episode where I share honestly on some tough...
“TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF” This week, for the first time in 5 interviews, over 10+ screening calls, and 40+ job applications, I was asked to share about my faith, spirituality, and ideologies. To be honest, it was more validating than I...
This was the alarming start of a recent conversation.”Is it just me, or are older guys willing to be mentors really hard to find?””Yep.” I replied, “At this age and stage of life, they are harder to find.” Let’s call this...
It is almost a decade since I went into voluntary bankruptcy. In 2006 Natalie and I had sold up and sold out to do missions work in Japan. We returned in 2008 with our second child due . As it happened, we landed back in Australia on the doorstep of the Global...
There is an emerging area of leadership practice and theory called Authentic Leadership. If you’ve studied leadership principles for a while you’ll know they are often relabelled (and repriced) social science theories. After all, leadership is grounded in...
It’s hard to know where to start on a topic like this because it is so complicated and multifaceted. When people move away from prominent positions in a church community and do something outside ‘church ministry’, there is often a storm of emotions and responses that...
Once upon a time, a company was not held together by a legal structure. It was not limited and protected by firewalls of intricately woven words and laws crafted to protect its beneficiaries from having to… well… care. This isn’t to say that every...
See the spike on that graph? It’s labeled Mt. Stupid. Right now, that’s pretty much where most of our COVID-19 related posts are situated. The Dunning-Kruger Effect illustrates how most of us approach knowledge. It starts with knowing nothing. Next minute,...
In light of the recent the COVID19 pandemic, a number of pastors, teachers and trainers have been considering streaming online services/training/classes in place of meeting in-person. My wife and I ran gatherings and teachings for Christians for about three years. We...
Just before recording this, the Christian world had been watching the fall out generated by American Pastor John Macarthur’s comments on Pastor Beth Moore. There were some choice statements made about women in ministry. Annie Layton and myself thought...
(4-minute read) “I don’t get it, I thought we were friends! I leave the team, and boom, I’m cut off and no one contacts me anymore.” Sound familiar? In working with leaders across organisations, you come across many cases of ‘disappointment’ stemming...
It’s a confronting, tough and frustrating time. It’s filled with new energy and a different type of the drive to what we experienced in our teens and twenties. Guys between 28 and 32 (roughly) who hit their thirties tend to make major, life-altering...
Person A: “I’m in pain. I need help.” Person B: “OK… I see,” Person A: “OK??! Well, I’m telling you because I need you to be here for me. I need someone to care… and possibly help me too!” Right here, at this point, any number...
I wanted to film this instead of writing it because sentiment can get lost in translation, and I wanted people to hear my heart on a topic that I know is dear to many – but also a place of great pain and confusion to some people, also. It’s a...
As a follow up to last week’s essay and articles on the dark side of organisational sacrificial, I wanted to add a couple of thoughts on the dynamics of organisational wounding. Because I think there are two main reasons we might find ourselves sacrificed for...
Foreword:Â Before writing this I published a social concern essay on the Utilisation of Staff and Volunteers in church life. I received a few brief comments and some very lengthy emails from people who thanked me for writing it because it helped normalise their...
I’ve been in church leadership roles from the time I came to know Christ in my late teens. It’s been a wild 22-year ride, and I want to keep riding – albeit with less falling off, being shot at and running the horse into the ground. The thing is, that stats...
Being born in 1978, I straddle the Gen-X and Millennial (Gen-Y) Generations. By 2020 it is believed 35% of the world’s workforce will be Millenials [1]. And I love the prospects. I know some social commentators have been critical of the Millenial’s flaws, but...
