Practical Application

Abide in Me

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). It was never designed as an entry in the “have to” category, but we shoved it into that column, making it a chore rather than the grand adventure it was intended to be from the beginning. Spending time alone with the Father, carving out a sliver of the day to hear his voice and respond to his word, should always be firmly fixed in the “I-can’t-believe-I get-to-do-this” frame of […]

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Launch Your Leadership in 2017

10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – Liftoff! Have you ever witnessed the launch of a rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on the coast of central Florida? It is a magnificent sight! I spent many years working as an aerospace engineer designing and developing rocket engines. When launch day arrived, there was always some excitement and a tangible anticipation of success. Your leadership launch day is Jan 1, 2017. Please think of yourself perched on the leadership launch pad of 2017. You are now completing the […]

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Energize Your Prayer Life in the New Year

Why is prayer so important? Have you ever wondered why we pray? I mean after all, if God is God, why does he need me to pray? Questions like these two are common for Christians to ask. When you really think about reasons why we should pray, we are always confronted with the reality that God already knows what we need. So, why pray? At the same time, the Bible makes one thing abundantly clear. God expects us to pray, encourages us to pray and even has ordained that his purposes be carried by and through prayer. Here is what […]

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Four Ways to Restore Your Christmas Spirit

Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to exude Christmas Spirit? Do they do this naturally or is it some secret? Let’s face it; none of us wants to be around a Christmas Scrooge robbing the season of joy. Yet, if we are real honest about how the season can affect us, it’s real easy to slide into a Scrooge mentality. So how do we restore the Christmas Spirit in our hearts?   Too busy for Christmas Consider the “busyness” that Christmas generally entails. There is shopping, planning, wrapping, coordinating, inviting, participating, cooking, cleaning, driving, ordering, scheduling and […]

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Unspeakable JOY!

To be sure, this was my truth growing up. I could not wait for Thanksgiving to be over so we could put away the pumpkins, turkeys and little Pilgrim figurines.  Every day I counted down to that day . . . Christmas day . . . when we would finally get to open the presents under the tree, see everything Santa left behind, hoping it would not be a stocking full of coal, and bring baby Jesus out from behind the stable to lay him in the manger. Well, I am a whole lot older and a little bit wiser […]

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Leaders See Things Differently

Leaders are people, like all of us. But there is something different about a real leader. Leaders see things with a clarity that brings life into focus. Leaders see things that other people don’t see. Physical eyesight is one of the five senses. We take special care to preserve our vision. A few years ago the total vision care market in the U.S. generated about 34.5 billion dollars. Eye sight is important. We often use the analogy of sight to express our agreement or disagreement with each other. Sometimes we say that we see eye-to-eye about a certain situation. At […]

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Seniors Benefit from Participating in Operation Christmas Child

  Through active aging individuals can live as fully as possible within different dimensions of wellness, providing rich environments for living. With that in mind, Operation Christmas Child provides an opportunity for seniors to serve the Lord and reap many benefits for their own health and well-being. Senior Centers and Senior Living Communities often approach involvement as a seasonal program, or even as a year-round program, but the benefits to both seniors and to the children served by Operation Christmas Child OCC are immeasurable. A ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child provides children in need around the world with […]

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Trinity International University Makes Strategic Moves

Trinity International University (TIU) has announced its second strategic move to improve facilities and expand its local programs in the South Florida area. Last August, classes in Miami-Dade moved from a church site to a facility in Kendall with administrative offices, current technology and the classroom space needed to serve their Miami students. This month the Davie campus is moving to a location in Miramar to better fit their growing needs. These new facilities were designed especially for educational purposes and are expected to enhance the deliverance of all programs. The new site is conveniently located off of I-75 on […]

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Burnout: Recognize the Signs Before the Flame is Gone

Recently I read an article about a senior pastor, Pete Wilson, of Cross Point Church, who resigned from the multi­site mega church he founded 14 years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. The reason he gave was that he was, “tired, broken and had been leading on empty.” What he was describing was what we refer to as burnout. Now you may be wondering how can a pastor be burned out? All he has to do is preach a sermon on Sunday morning. The reality is there are a lot of stressful jobs and pastoring is right at the top. Depression and […]

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Q Commons to Discuss Ways to Engage a Divided Nation

We live in a nation that’s divided. We live in a region that’s divided. Our cities, our workplaces, even some of our own families are divided. In this moment, we are divided by culture, race, politics and just about every other difference you can image – or so it seems. We see protests and riots, hashtags and video clips, pundits and debates on television. We scroll through our newsfeed and become overwhelmed with dissenting opinions. In those moments it’s easy to get a sense that nothing could ever change for the better. The toxic combination of declining virtue alongside unfiltered […]

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