The Fourth of Seven When you look at yourself honestly and see the gap between where you should be and the place you now find yourself, you have a decision to make. You can look away and pretend everything is fine or you can decide to do something about it.  King Josiah looked into the mirror of God’s Word, he grieved the gap. But after grief there should be purposeful action. The third step in the renewal cycle is to Refocus . We must let God’s Word set our direction. No mat

The Third of Seven Never skip step one: Remind . It isn't enough to simply know who we are. We have to tell ourselves that story every day, and pass it on to the generation behind us. Identity can't just be a concept in our heads; it must live in our souls. Only when we are grounded are we ready for the second—and hardest—step: Review . We have to look our reality in the face. When the high priest’s secretary reads the newly discovered Book of the Law to King Josiah, his rea

THE SECOND OF SEVEN It’s not easy to look honestly at ourselves. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. True self-examination can be painful because it forces us to face uncomfortable truths — to see what we’ve become. And often, what we see is someone we don’t like, someone we never meant to be. So instead, we hide behind the image we project, believing our own carefully crafted propaganda. Yet, remember this. We are not the sum of our actions. It's not decid

THE FIRST OF SEVEN This is the first of a seven part blog series focused on church renewal. I believe I have some wisdom on this subject. I've served on staff of one church and been a pastor of three other churches for 22 years. In the pastorate, two of the churches were new and grew rapidly and prospered. The other church was a legacy church that had been losing a 100 people in attendance a year for seven years in a row (yes, -700 in seven years). Reminds me of the lean year