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By Fred Oduyoye and Rick LawrenceIn the week of MLK Day, and on the precipice of Black History Month, Reachable Reconciliation Founder Fred Oduyoye offers up a challenge to everyone who marked the holiday with a post, a photo, a banner, or a Tweet… Post your comments, insights, and responses about our new video “The Downside of MLK
The Downside of MLK Day? Read More »
By Rev. Erik SamuelsonVibrant Faith Coaching Team/Coaching School Faculty If you’re like most ministry leaders I know, after re-inventing pretty much every element of your ministry you’re now in re-re-invent mode. The vaccine is readily available, restrictions are loosening, church life is back, and we’re all on a quest to find a new-new-normal. After my first
The Ministry Coach Imperative Read More »
At the heart of our Christian life is the celebration of the Paschal Mystery—the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. If we’re going to celebrate this journey through Easter well, we must prepare our hearts and minds. Lent invites intentionality. So, in these final days of preparation known as Holy Week, let’s hone
Holy Week Prep – Signs, Symbols, Scriptures, & Questions Read More »
By Fred Oduyoye and Rick Lawrence As everyone in the world now knows, a little more than a week ago actor Will Smith walked onto the Oscars stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock after Rock told a particularly insensitive joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s struggle with alopecia—an immune disorder that causes hair loss. Days after the incident, Smith
The Slap- Recovering from a Harm You Caused Read More »
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion found that the overwhelming majority of teenagers (and their adult parents who were also surveyed) believe in God, but know little about basic theological and faith distinctions. Lead researcher Dr. Christian Smith tried to pinpoint this ignorance by describing the collective responses—he said
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director In the wider world, ministry leaders are deemed less trustworthy than police, and only barely above building contractors—we’re saddled with a below-average reputation for honesty and ethics (according to a Gallup survey, trust in the clergy has fallen to 37 percent among Americans). Trust in ministry leaders peaked in 1985,
The Secret Sauce of Trusted Leadership Read More »
In the process of diving into research for my book Holy Work With Children, I developed a new method for working and doing research with children. Active Wondering became the most beneficial process for my work as a researcher. Engaging in these open conversations created a safe space for us to wonder together, revealing the children’s
Discovering God through Active Wondering Read More »
By Rev. Dr. Mark A. SlaughterVibrant Faith Coaching Team Like all things we do week after week, our worship service can become methodical, formulaic, and uninspiring. A busy, “over-served” schedule drives us into a rut. Worship is deeply connected to our Spiritual formation, but that truth gets lost in the repetition. So, what if we planted two
Worship as Spiritual Formation Read More »
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Outside, in the culture, if feels like we’re just now opening our door and walking outside after a ferocious thunderstorm that felt eternal. It smells fresh and new, but we can’t forget (quite yet) what we just went through. The storm stripped away our facades and exposed the ugliness underneath.
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Dr. Nancy Going and I have been leading a four-week book club for our Vibrant Faith Catalyst community (https://vibrant-faith-catalyst.mn.co), focusing on Dr. Christian Smith’s new book Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion On to the Next Generation. Among the many, many eye-opening and upending observations from Dr. Smith’s
Religion as a ‘Personal Identity Accessory’ Read More »
By Rick LawrenceVibrant Faith Executive Director Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor who researches the foundations of perseverance, says, “People who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local, and changeable. It’s going away quickly; it’s just this one situation, and I can do something about it.” He’s describing the
4 Flexible Approaches to Failure Read More »
Marshall McLuhan famously said: “The medium is the message.” He meant that the way we learn and grow is at least as important as the content of that learning. I’m an introvert, so a truth that may seem obvious to you has taken time to settle in for me: We are not meant to make this faith journey
Grow With God Through Community Read More »
How 2 simple questions lead us straight to Jesus. In the late 19th century, Charles H. Spurgeon was arguably the most influential person on the planet. The great pastor/preacher/theologian was born in England and committed his life to Christ in 1850, when he was 15 years old. He preached his first sermon a year later and took on
By Rev. Erik SamuelsonVibrant Faith Coaching Team/Coaching School Faculty The change of seasons is a good time to look at the big picture. If you’re like most church leaders, many of the COVID adaptions you made are now embedded in your ongoing plans. And in this “getting back to normal” season we’re restarting many programs and
Streamlining Your Ministry To-Do List Read More »
Living well as Adaptive Leaders necessitates changes in how we approach situations as well as how we think and act. Adaptive leaders THINK differently. They have a scenario mindset. Adaptive Leaders who create plans that are set in concrete will not be able to change quickly enough to adapt to a constantly changing ministry landscape. Leaders
Living Well as Adaptive Leaders Read More »
