We’ve just added a link to the School of Christian Ministry at BTSR on our Organizational links listing. The School of Christian ministry provides quality continuing education courses, programs, and events for clergy and lay church leaders. Many convenient online learning opportunities here! Check out their offerings, there’s probably one you need. You can register online.

It seems that times of anxiety and change bring out a fair share of clairvoyance in some folks. These like to declare with some confidence the future state of affairs, stating what will work and what will not. I confess I’ve not developed enough discernment to know how to sort through those predictions. I suppose one way to think about it is that any prediction about the future has about a 50% chance of being right (or, wrong, depending on how you want to look at it).

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Every once in a while I hear something in church that catches me by surprise. It’s usually not a good surprise, admittedly. More often than not the surprising comment reveals a disconnect between my perception or assumption of church and faith and people’s experience or interpretation of those. But they are helpful reminders that there often is a great divide between what clergy assume about church compared with where their members are in matters of faith, membership, beliefs, doctrine, or practice. As I say, “Things look different from the other side of the pew.”

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Applications to BTSR’s Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program are now being accepted. You can use their convenient online application to begin the process (see Apply Now section of the website). You will find a description of the D.Min. program on their website.

Feel free to contact the program Director, Dr. Dan Bagby if you have questions about their D.Min. degree. Director of Admissions, Tiffany Kellogg Pittman can help you with the application steps. Do you need to re-tool for ministry? The BTSR D.Min. may be what you need.

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I came across some notes from a presentation by my friend Ken Hurto (who recently pleasantly surprised me by finding me on Facebook). Ken’s presentation on leadership was titled “Being a Lighthouse and Not a Bulldozer.” In it he used the bulldozer and the lighthouse as metaphors for different styles of leadership.

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The concept of the self-differentiated leader is attractive. And those who work toward being a self-differentiated leader strive toward a high goal. But while the concept is relatively easy to define, it’s easier said than done when it comes to living it out as a reality.

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A perennial struggle for religious educators and pastors is finding ways to connect orthodoxy to orthopraxy. Achieving “right belief” (head knowledge) seems so very easy compared to achieving “right behavior.” Too often there is a disconnect between what congregational members say they believe about the Christian life and how they actually live their lives. It has become a high compliment to say of someone that they “walk the talk.”

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During a recent conversation I was asking for help in clarifying a misunderstanding from a colleague. She began our conversation by saying, “It’s probably a gender thing.” I’ve never found that a helpful way to start a conversation. My thought was that in my experience, “It’s only a gender thing if you make it a gender thing.”

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I sometimes share with my students the phenomenon of what I’ve come to call “The Jay Leno Jaywalking Effect.” If you’ve ever watched Jay Leno’s man-on-the-street interview segment called “Jaywalking” you’ve seen the phenomenon. Leno will ask a passerby a question. If the person interviewed does not know the answer, the person just makes one up. But the more interesting thing that happens is when Leno follows up and it becomes apparent that the person immediately comes to believe that the answer he or she just made up is true!

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A friend recently asked if anyone was working on Bowen’s ninth concept, supernatural phenomenon, or, what many are referring to (regrettably) as “spirituality.” I mentioned a few resources and persons, and, I mentioned Joe Carolin’s Wisdom of the Ages conferences I’d attended in the past. Much to my delight, I received in the mail a few days later a brochure for the Wisdom of the Ages IV conference.

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