Articles & Writings

by Dan Haseltine
Jars of Clay
Blood Water Mission

I have no sense of exactly when I first became aware that deep within my soul, or more precise, deep within my gut, an ache and a restlessness, a physical response to things not right in the world, had grown. I had a revelation that once I was just an innocent bystander but I had been chosen to become owner or steward of pain and suffering that I only just observed in the lives of other people.

Infuze Magazine

You can tell when you encounter an artist that weaves the four elements into their work, into their faith. It is seamless. They cannot help but create work that serves God and neighbor; it is simply overflowing into their work.

by Janis Balda and Wesley Balda

We came across some challenging ideas from The Three Tasks of Leadership: Worldly Wisdom for Pastoral Leaders, edited by Eric Jacobsen. The book is built around one of Max De Pree's well-known statements:

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant and a debtor.

As the highly successful CEO of the Herman Miller Company, author of excellent leadership books, and longtime board chair at Fuller Seminary, his legacy is firmly fixed. His life and work have touched many, and his results have been lasting—perhaps because he has had a core purpose, a sense of direction for his life journey.

by Ray Blunt
Associate Director and Teaching Fellow, The Washington Institute
Senior Consultant, Leadership Institute at the National Center for Leadership

Leadership, even godly leadership, is not the sole province of the individual, but the outcomes are often shaped as much by those who advise, support, encourage, and come alongside a leader. It is within a network of relationships or of a like-minded community that the great movements of change occur. Those with whom leaders surround themselves, their choice of companions on the journey, help to make them who they are and determine what they can achieve. These colleagues also help to further shape and to sustain a transforming vision over time and bring it to reality. We have looked at the role of early mentors in shaping the commitments of Jefferson and Wilberforce; we now turn to examine how those around them later in life helped to sustain their purposes.

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by Ray Blunt
Associate Director and Teaching Fellow, The Washington Institute
Senior Consultant, Leadership Institute at the National Center for Leadership

Exploring three “courses” essential to learning to lead—reflective work that results in a guiding life worldview and purpose; learning from the life and experiences of mentors; and being part of a community of practice that learns together and holds each other accountable.

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by Steve Garber

A few years ago a pastor in the city asked if I would meet someone in his congregation whose work was in the world of national security. A senior official with complex responsibilities, he knew that his deepening faith required him to “think Christianly” about his life and labour, but he did not know where to begin.

by Kate Harris

In Washington DC, it is only a matter of time before the kind woman standing next to me at a cocktail party will turn from talking with my husband and ask the inevitable, identity-testing, status-gauging question I have come to dread as a new and mostly stay-at-home mother...

"And what do you do?"

By Ray Blunt

Martin Luther doesn't make many appearances in the pages of the numerous leadership tomes that reach bookstore shelves each year. And it's a shame because he brought about earth shattering change to Europe-- for good and for ill-and forever altered the religious landscape. History books use the term Reformation to describe the movement he helped launch. But what not many may know is that those in public service owe him a large debt of gratitude because he introduced the idea that a calling (i.e. a vocation) is of critical importance in secular life.

by Charlie Lowell
Keyboardist, Jars of Clay
Co-Founder, Blood Water Mission

Somehow, I grew up with this notion that our lives are compartmentalized- that there are times for celebration, times to mourn, times to be quiet, and maybe a little time to be boisterous. Call it an Ecclesiastical view of life. This is true to an extent, but I feel I took it a little too far- Church was for Sunday and maybe Wednesday night, school is for studying and socializing, etc. And I think, like most teenagers, my world was pretty small and self-centered. My faith didn't really permeate each aspect of my life.

by Steve Garber
Director, The Washington Institute

Only connect. Almost one hundred years ago E. M. Forester began his novel, Howard’s End, with these two words. Seeing into the mixed blessing of an industrializing world, with remarkable intuitive insight he offers a story of a businessman who lives a painfully compartmentalized life.?

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