On Brokenness
Perhaps the broken man is the very one who can teach you to be whole…?

Perhaps the broken man is the very one who can teach you to be whole…?
Rather than only having tightly-defined training programs for a few, it is important to nurture a broad culture of leader development across the life of our churches and ministries. In this kind of organizational culture, our need for leaders will not go unmet. In fact, we will have no lack of leaders; they will rise up naturally and [...]
People waste years and sometimes their whole lives, never coming close to their purpose in God, because they get caught up in their own or someone else’s religious speculations. If we are to be effective and balanced teachers of God’s Word, we must recognize that our doctrines have various levels of significance and of authority. Jesus [...]
Instead of trying to create a single curriculum for everyone to use, we should nurture leaders’ capacity to design their own leader development. Some will emerge as specialist designers for complex design, while everyone will be able to do simple design.
Anyone can do simple design, and we need to nurture the capacity of every leader (and believer) so that everyone does it. In this way, across the life of the church everyone will understand that they need to build the whole person and everyone at a simple level will know how to do it. Consequently, across the life of the church everyone [...]
Recently I ate a very nice dish when I was in Asia. It was a famous seafood dish for the region – one dish with many different ingredients. There were noodles, water, seafood, ginger, sugar, rice wine and other things. There were a lot of unique ingredients but they all went together to make one tasty dish. This is how to design [...]
Burned out and frustrated Christian leaders are now recognizing that they have been absorbed in His work more than in His Person. Our training programs might harness the latest and greatest of human wisdom and methods, but if we do not bring our emerging leaders into face-to-face encounters with the Son of God, lives will not be changed. [...]
To be effective a leader must delegate many responsibilities, as well as – whenever possible – the necessary decision-making authority. However, there are two critical areas that uniquely require the leader’s personal attention: vision and leader development.
Although there has been spectacular church growth in recent decades, there has not been corresponding attention given to leader development during this time. Consequently, today we have a deficit of Christian leaders in the existing churches. In addition to this crisis of quantity of new leaders, we also face a crisis of quality of [...]
Malcolm’s thought for this week: What is the Lord’s commandment?
Sailing seems to be only action: flying over the water, leaping over the white crests, slicing through the sea spray. But without thoughtful consideration the boat won’t take you where you want to go. The world is not changed by people who think. The world is changed by people who act. The world is changed well by people who think and [...]
Just as the Christian life is union and fellowship, even so the church is union and fellowship. Its nature is union. Its nature is fellowship. Union and fellowship with Christ, and union and fellowship with each other – in Christ. That is all the church is: union and fellowship with each other, in Him. And every other aspect of church [...]
Suffering is not limited to leaders; we all are called by God to endure adversity.
If you’re to teach well, you must first find God for yourself in His Word and in your life. Then, out of that you can teach others. Only then will your teaching be life.
What was God doing before the creation of the world? The answer to that question will define the nature of the Christian life!