Check out Len Hjalmarson’s post on Leadership Substance. Len quotes Chris Lowney who writes,
“What often passes for leadership today is a shallow substitution of technique for substance. Jesuits eschewed a flashy leadership style to focus instead on engendering four unique values that created leadership substance:
- self-awareness
- ingenuity
- love
- heroism
Then read the iMonk’s post, The Hobgoblin of Theological Minds. Michael begins with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Later in the post, Michael writes,
I and many others are weary of hearing that brothers in Christ are of questionable place in the body of Christ because they will not salute the flag some theological team has chosen to fly. I am tired of being under suspicion because I had teachers fair, humble and reasonable enough to teach the text without resolving every tension into a battle of theologies. (Might I shout a hearty Amen!)
The young prophet, Jared Wilson quotes the older prophet Oz Guinness in Jared’s post, The Cross Runs Crosswise. Guinness speaks of the Gospel
….There is challenge as well as promise, warning of costs as much as offers of rewards, and talk of sacrifice as common as invitations to the party. There is therefore a stern truth in Adlai Stevenson’s quip about the distortions of positive thinking: “Paul I find appealing, but Peale I find appalling.” [Bill notes: Norman Vincent Peale should be seen as the true father of the Cross-less Positive Preaching of Joel Osteen]
In an age when comfort and convenience are unspoken articles of our modern bill of rights, the Christian faith is not a license to entitlement, a prescription for an easy-going spirituality, or a how-to manual for self-improvement. The cross of Jesus runs crosswise to all our human ways of thinking. A rediscovery of the hard and the unpopular themes of the gospel will therefore be such a rediscovery of the whole gospel that the result may lead to reformation and revival.
That should give you a moment or two of good reading. I’ll be back later this weekend with something that’s bound to annoy at least one or two folk. Perhaps even you.