Radically Happy

  • LEAD! A.7 Man’s Rebellion

    When God created the world, He gave us (mankind) dominion over all the plants and animals. But it was not an unconditional grant: rather, we have a responsibility to take His already “very good” creation to the next level, by filling the earth with His image. And if we fail…

  • This is my blog…

    This is my blog on Wordle.

  • LEAD! A.6 Father’s Kingdom

    In Which We See God Creating His World, and Our Place In It The overriding theme of our journey has been exploring what it means to be “baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Having dealt (however superficially) with the ontological aspects of that “name”, we…

  • LEAD! A.5 God’s Tri-Unity

    LEAD! A.5 God’s Tri-Unity

    In Which We Discover The Persons Who Make up the Godhead, and How They Relate to Us We believe in one God, consisting of one substance — one name, one identity, and one character — sometimes called the Godhead. Yet, that name is expressed through three distinct persons, as illustrated…

  • LEAD! A.4 God’s Character

    LEAD! A.4 God’s Character

    [Renumbering so we can start at 1, instead of 0] In Which We Discover What God Looks Like, And Why Moses Wants to See More of Him Continuing our discussion of God’s name — which we are supposed to be baptized into — we turn from the incommunicable aspects of…

  • LEAD! Syllabus for “Theological Foundations”

    LEAD! Syllabus for “Theological Foundations”

    In thinking about it, I realized I should take my Curriculum one step further, and actually identify the passages and key learnings for each lesson. Not only will this help ensure I’m on the same page as my pastor, but it would enable others to write some of the lessons…

  • LEAD! Curriculum Reset for “Theological Foundations”

    LEAD! Curriculum Reset for “Theological Foundations”

    So, the good news is that our church is gearing up to start LEAD! on September 4th, and already taking applications! That’s also the bad news, since I’ve only finished three classes. 😦 Still, it only takes me about four hours per class, which is two late night waiting-to-feed-Rohan sessions…

  • LEAD! A.3 God’s Identity

    LEAD! A.3 God’s Identity

    In Which We Discover Who God Is, and Why That Matters In the previous lesson, we discovered that God wants us to disciple all peoples into His “name.” This week, we discuss the first aspect of God’s name: His identity.

  • LEAD! A.1 God’s Word

    LEAD! A.1 God’s Word

    [Based on feedback, this study will actually become the first lesson, prior to God’s Commission] In Which We Discover How God Speaks to Us, and Why We Ought to Listen to Him [Updated Sunday, August 3rd]

  • LEAD! A.2 God’s Commission

    LEAD! A.2 God’s Commission

    In Which We Discover God’s Call For Us As Leaders, And What Theology Has To Do With It

  • LEAD! Part A: Thinking Theo-Logically

    The LEAD! Bible Study is a tripod, built on three legs: theological education character formation skill development While these roughly correspond to three 12-week “trimesters”, the larger goal is to incorporate all three aspects in each and every segment. The question thus becomes, what is the most effective way to…

  • LEAD! Underlying Assumptions

    The LEAD! Bible Study is supposed to focus specifically on the training of leaders, as opposed to merely general-purpose discipleship. To accomplish that, I’m planning on observing several fairly strong constraints — listed below — as I develop this material.

  • LEAD! A Transformational Small Group Bible Study

    The format I’m proposing for LEAD! is what I’m calling a “Transformational Small Group Bible Study”. This builds on my many years in InterVarsity Small Groups during eleven years of college, as well as numerous “home groups” in churches since then. The key aspects are: • Bible Study History and…

  • LEAD! Leadership Enrichment and Development

    [Or maybe: Leadership Equipping And Development] Good news! My pastor bought off on my proposal breaking next year’s Leadership Training into three 12-week semesters, structured as a focused bible study. We are using “LEAD!” as the working title. The initial draft syllabus is below. The catch is that I am…

  • Requirements for Transforming Leadership

    As part of my journey to rethink leadership training, I wanted to summarize the goals and constraints of such a process. Here’s a first cut…

  • CTE Light: Imago Christi

    In my Rules of War, I assert that the most important challenge is to “Know your Objective” — i.e., understand where you are going. Earlier, I stated that The Purpose of Comprehensive Theological Education was: to equip leaders for a lifelong journey of bringing their “whole selves” (heart, soul, mind…

  • ESS is More: Essential Skills for Serving

    For the third part of my trilogy on leadership development, I want to focus on practical skills. Here’s my short list (twelve, again) of the key abilities I believe leaders need to cultivate. Anything you would add or subtract?

  • TELL: Theological Essentials for Lay Leaders

    As a counterpart (or even prequel) to my previous article about “safety skills“, I wanted to identify those theological topics essential for lay leaders to understand. In particular, I believe lay leaders need a more concise and practical “boot camp”, in contrast to the multi-year “officer’s training school” provided in…

  • Twelve Steps to Arrow-Proof Your Ministry

    Apologies for the pretentious title, but I wanted to challenge myself to identify and reorganize the lessons we covered in last year’s leadership class into a coherent prescription for facing down “Ministry Killers”.

  • “Insights into the critics on revival” by John D.

      [Reposting an essay by my cousin, at his request. — Ernie P.]