Hi praying friends,Once again, thank you for your ongoing prayers and support - and for the kind words many of you wrote last week as you join us in praying for a miracle in our funding. Some of you asked for that giving link - here it is! This week...

Dear praying friends,Thank you for those of you who sent such nice replies last week.One of the things I appreciate most about this prayer list is knowing that each week we will have hundreds of people praying for us, and we have always been humbled...

Hi praying friends!I am sure with that ominous subject line, you might be wondering just how bad everything is going… so I don‘t want to start there! I want to start with the fact that every week as we have open hours at our gallery, new people are c...

Dear praying friends,This week I had the opportunity to sit down with a potential ministry partner in our part of Berlin. She has been here for a couple of years and has been working hard to build community in our neighborhood. She has a real passion...

Dear praying friends,Have I already told you that on Monday nights we host a dinner at our house? We learned this from our friends and Manchester Envision site coordinators Justin and Brittany Siemens. Ours varies a little bit, because we rotate betw...

Justin Bariso recently wrote an article entitled “Why Brilliant Minds Embrace the Rule of Awkward Silence”.  Bariso often writes on the theme of EQ and explains the rule this way: “The rule is simple: When faced with a challenging question, instead o...

One of the things I value highly in leadership is transparency. I love the dictionary.com definition of the figurative meaning of transparency: a state in which things are free from any attempt to hide something. Living in a state or condition where...

Sometime this last week the Lobster from the Little Mermaid started saying “First you have to set the mood” in my head.  It was probably a direct result of spending a week with 8-10 year old kids at a camp I co-led.  But this advice from Sebastian (t...

I don’t do vacation well.  This is unfortunate, because I want to do vacation well.  It would be great to be one of those guys sitting on the beach with a book (or Kindle) in hand.  I love going to a museum and spending hours surrounded by beauty.  S...

My morning ritual starts with a bowl of Musli, a cup of coffee, and bro.  wsing several news sites.  This morning I came across this story:  Missing treasure hunter’s remains found in New Mexico.  In short, an author and art dealer named Forrest Fenn...

No matter how well you plan, your plans are often dependent on other people following through on their commitments.  I’m currently dealing with the aftermath of a busy week, complicated by people missing deadlines.  We took on an extra project that w...

I remember the first time I read through Aesop’s Fables. The talking animals and the simple life lessons fascinated me. As an adult, I continue to enjoy many of these short little stories with a meaning and a moral.  Many of the lessons are more poig...

Compassion is, according to Miriam Webster “a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick, hungry, in trouble, etc.”. Cowardice is “fear that makes you unable to do what is right or expected : lack of courage.” The words are pretty different, but...

Mistakes Happen! Most leaders discover fairly early that mistakes happen. I remember my first “major” mistake as a youth pastor.  It was not really that big of a mistake.  Someone had asked me shortly before the service started if I would announce so...

Last week about arrogance versus confidence.  After having been accused of being arrogant, I had to start to to develop a leadership approach that I felt was more in line with how I wanted to lead and have my leadership perceived.  I began reading bo...