Spiritual Life and Leadership

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!David Zahl is founder and director of Mockingbird Ministries and the author of Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself).One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is that people are not always going to look out for what’s best for one another--or for me.  In fact, sometimes people are going to outright try to tear each other down. But our expectation is often that people would be good--an expectation that David Zahl says is rooted in a high anthropology.But maybe what we need is a low anthropology—a way of understanding humanity as being essentially limited and broken and focused on their own good.That sounds depressing. But David Zahl makes the case that a low anthropology actually helps us lead in a way that is more gracious and brings about more healing for people who are broken—including ourselves.THIS EPISODES'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:David Zahl is founder and director of Mockingbird Ministries and the author of Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself).One’s anthropology refers essentially to one’s view of human nature.According to David Zahl, a high anthropology views human beings as prone to doing great things and bringing about positive transformation.  Low anthropology views humanity as inherently limited, compromised, and is perhaps a more sober view of humanity.A high anthropology tends to breed a sense of entitlement in people.A low anthropology puts everyone on a level playing field.  We are all broken.David Zahl believes a low anthropology is a doorway to talking about grace.The three pillars of a low anthropology are:Limitation – There is a God and it’s not you.Doubleness – We are a bundle of competing motivations.Self-centeredness – We often want what’s bad for us or what comes at a cost for other people.David Zahl reflects on the ways that limitation, doubleness, and self-centeredness are experienced in churches.Ultimately, a low anthropology is a biblical anthropology.A low anthropology, according to David Zahl, says that people are fundamentally in need of help from other people and from God.A low anthropology allows us to encourage people in their giftings.A low anthropology goes hand in hand with a high Christology.RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:David Zahl:Mockingbird website - https://mbird.com/Mockingcast podcast - https://mbird.com/category/the-mockingcast/Books mentioned:Low Anthropology, by David ZahlSeculosity, by David ZahlGet Becoming Leaders of Shalom for free HERE.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss this quote from Michael MacKenzie in Episode 122: Burned Out and Broken.“Success is more dangerous for the human soul than failure.”Ep. 122 is a conversation about Michael MacKenzie's book, Don't Blow Up Your Ministry.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!What do you do when you’re set up to be the successor of the lead pastor of one of the biggest and most well-known churches in the world and suddenly everything comes crashing down? What do you do when it becomes clear that the beloved pastor you were meant to follow has been found to be abusive toward women—and the church’s leadership fails to take responsibility for the systems that allowed that?What do you do?This is exactly the situation that Steve Carter faced.  Steve was set to succeed Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Church in Chicago.  And when news broke of the things Hybels had done, Steve had to make a decision.  Would he stay and become complicit in the system that made Hybels’ abuse possible?  Or would he step away and let go of everything that to this point had given him a sense of value and meaning?Today, Steve Carter is the pastor of Forest City Church outside Chicago And the author of The Thing Beneath the Thing: What's Hidden Inside (and What God Helps Us Do About It).THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:Steve Carter and Markus Watson walked the Camino de Santiago together in October 2022 as part of the Journey Home cohort led by Jon Huckins.Steve Carter met Bill Hybels while interning with Rob Bell.Steve joined the staff of Willow Creek Church and was soon tapped to succeed Bill Hybels as pastor of the church.Eventually, Steve found out (from his book editor!) that a story was going to come out about Bill Hybels.Ultimately, Steve resigned from Willow Creek because the story of Bill Hybels’ history of abuse was being mishandled by the leadership.  Steve felt that by staying he would have been complicit.Leaving Willow Creek was incredibly difficult and painful for Steve.It was while walking the Camino de Santiago that Steve Carter was finally able to say, “I love Bill Hybels.”Markus Watson shares about his experience of healing and transformation and healing while on the Camino de Santiago.According to Steve Carter, we need to respond to the reality of suffering in three ways:Past:  Practice forgiveness for what has happened.Present:  Rely on your core values—because you’re not going to make everyone happy.Future:  Prepare and practice for what may come.RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:Steve Carter:Forest City ChurchCraft and Character podcastBooks mentioned:The Thing Beneath the Thing, by Steve CarterJourney Home: A Pilgrimmage for MenGet Becoming Leaders of Shalom for free HERE.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss this quote from Ian Morgan Cron in Episode 121: The Story of You."All transformation begins with story transformation."Ep. 121 is a conversation about Ian Morgan Cron's book, The Story of You.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Lisa Lamb is professor of preaching and theology at St. Paul’s Theological College and the author of Resonate: How to Preach for Deep Connection.Sometimes I wonder how effective sermons are.  As a receiver of sermons, I probably don’t remember 99% of the sermons I’ve heard. At the same time, some sermons I’ve heard have been life-changing for me. The question for us preachers is: How do we preach sermons that connect?  Sermons that make an impact?  Sermons that truly resonate?Lisa Lamb helps us answer these questions.THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:Lisa Lamb is professor of preaching and theology at St. Paul’s Theological College and other schools in Malaysia and India, and the author of Resonate: How to Preach for Deep Connection.Lisa shares what she loves about preaching.The preaching framework is grounded in verbs.  What kinds of verbs are being used in the sermon and in which person are they being spoken?Preaching in the first person singular gives the congregation a sense who the preacher is and where the preacher is coming from.Second person singular speech is powerful speech.  It blesses and exhorts.Third person singular is the proclaimer.  Lisa Lamb says that speaking in the third person is where we declare God’s goodness.Third person plural says, “These things are true.”Lisa Lamb explains how the past, present, and future tenses impact a sermon.We don’t need to hit all these aspects in every sermon.  But Lisa Lamb suggests looking back over several months to see if you’ve spoken in all these ways.The indicative form is simply naming reality.The subjunctive form asks, “What if?”The imperative form—the command—can lead people in very life-giving ways.Lisa Lamb reflects on how preaching can help congregations wrestle with competing values.RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:Books mentioned:Resonate: How to Preach for Deep Connection, by Lisa LambParaclete Mission AssociatesRich and Lisa Lamb pageGet Becoming Leaders of Shalom for free HERE.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss this quote from Scot Mcknight in Episode 92: Against a Culture of Abuse."A tov pastor, tov leaders, a tov church does not abuse power, does not sexually abuse women, does not sexually abuse children....  Tov people don't do these things."Ep. 92 is a conversation with Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer about their book, A Church Called Tov.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Matthew Lynch is associate professor of Old Testament at Regent College and the author of Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God.In this episode, helps us understand how biblical stories of violence fit into the grand arc of the biblical narrative, as well as how these stories inform our work as ministry leaders.THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:Matthew Lynch is associate professor of Old Testament at Regent College and the author of Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God.Matthew Lynch’s book focuses on two stories of violence in particular: the Flood and the Conquest of Canaan.We need to read the Bible through the lens of Genesis 1.Matthew Lynch uses “shalom” as a catchall for “right-relating wholeness before and with God.”Violence is a direct attack on the shalom that characterizes the good creation of God.Violence has no essential or primordial place in creation.  It’s not part of creation’s charter.Genesis 6 tells us that before God sent the flood, the world was already ruined because violence filled the earth.Joshua and the Canaan’s conquest is a decidedly “in-between” story.Canaan had been an old Egyptian outpost manned by warlords.Joshua casts a vision of a counterculture to the imperial system that Israel is finally getting out from under.Matthew Lynch unpacks the challenging command of God in Joshua to “completely destroy” the Canaanites.Jericho was more of a military outpost than a city.  There wouldn’t have been many women and children.According to Matthew Lynch, the framework of scripture is decidedly shalom-oriented.RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:Books mentioned:Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of GodMatthew Lynch:Regent College faculty pageOnScript podcastGet Becoming Leaders of Shalom for free HERE.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss this quote from Tom Sine in Episode 118: Forecasting and Innovation.“I ache because churches rarely even look over the fence in their own communities to the new innovation going on.”Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Steven Garber is Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good at the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust and author of The Seamless Life.In this episode, Steven Garber helps us reflect on some important leadership questions.  What does it mean to live a life of deep coherence?  What does it mean to live a life in which every part of our life is a reflection of and an expression of our whole life?  And why do we as leaders need to live seamless lives?THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:Steven Garber is Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good at the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust and author of The Seamless Life.To think of our lives as “incoherent” is to live our lives in compartments.  But Steven Garber says we don’t have to choose, for example, between being a scientist and a Christian.  Both are part of our coherent self.John Newton, the slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace,” for many years lived a compartmentalized incoherent life.When Steven Garber was a young man discovering the invitation to “coherence” in his life, he realized that he was going to have to rethink how he thought about girls!Tamim is the Hebrew word for integrity or coherence.Seamlessness has to do with identity.The question of vocation, according to Steven Garber, always begins with Who am I?  And the next question is Why am I?Vocation is integral (not incidental) to the missio dei, to the very meaning of God’s work in the world.Pastors can begin to live more integral and seamless lives by being mindful of the teachers they listen to and follow.  Are our teachers, not only speaking words of coherence, but living lives of coherence and seamlessness?RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:Website:Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and CultureBooks mentioned:The Seamless Life, by Steve GarberVisions of Vocation, by Steve GarberCaptain Blood, by Rafael SabatiniAuthors mentioned:John StottLeslie NewbiginAugustine of HippoHelmut ThielickeRelated episodes:Episode 48: Integrity and Coherence in Leadership, with Lisa Slayton, CEO of Tamim PartnersEpisode 77: To Know the World and Still Love It, with Steven Garber, author of Visions of VocationGet Becoming Leaders of Shalom for free HERE.Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.

Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!Tod Bolsinger and Markus Watson discuss this quote from Make Work Matter, by Michaela O'Donnell."I am not on a solo mission from God.  I am part of a larger collective of people who get to join in on God’s big mission of redemption creatively working in anticipation of all that God is doing to make us new."Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.