How to give and take criticism

Identity - Who am I?

So much pride, jealous, hurt, misunderstandings... could be avoided if we could only get this and practice it.

I use this at the halfway point of the National Directors Institute to help our leaders reflect on who they are in Christ and not who they are because of their title or ministry statistics.

If anybody knows the source of this, please let me know. It's very well done.

Essentialism - The Disciplined Pursuit of less

Here's a concept I am currently looking into that I think is very important for Christians in ministry and leadership. To people pleasers, who say yes to every opportunity that comes their way, Greg says, "The biggest lie that we tell ourselves is that when we take on more there are no trade-offs". I think that is so true but so often I tell myself "I can do it – I can squeeze this in and still do everything else well". When I think about all the areas of my life where I need to maintain balance, when I give too much time to one area, other areas pay the price.

As Kevin DeYoung says in his book Crazy Busy, "God expects us to say no to a lot of good things so that we can be freed up to say yes to the most important things He has for us". Saying no is not easy but it becomes easier when we know what is essential and use that conviction to be deliberate in how we use our time, energy and resources. If we are aware of what God has called us to do in life and we desire to stay on point, then we need to stop the undisciplined pursuit of more, and embrace the disciplined pursuit of less.

EVERNOTE or DAYONE?

This is the question I have finally reached a decision on after several months of going back and forward testing both platforms. My decision is that EVERNOTE and DAYONE both have their strengths and weaknesses that's why I will continue to use both. So have I really made a decision? Well yes, because I believe the key is to decide which App is best for which task - and to be consistent in their use, no matter what. In case you have not a clue what I am talking about – let me explain! EVERNOTE and DAYONE are both applications available for computers and digital devices. They have been created to help you organise (and even replace) your paper notes and records. There are many such Apps available but as these two would seem to have made their own dent on the App store, I will give you my impressions of both.

EVERNOTE

EVERNOTE is very powerful, provided you think long and hard at the outset about the storage categories you want to use. Another key, is to understand the difference in notebooks and tags. I have set up notebooks for the different organisations I am involved in as well as separate notebooks for bigger projects. Tags are then used as subheadings to attach to the notebooks. For example I have a notebook called “CEF”, then I have separate tags such as “meeting” and “NW Advisory Group” which can then be added to an individual entry. Both EVERNOTE and DAYONE have powerful search and display capacities, providing you take time to assign the correct labels when creating your entry. Both Apps automatically record the location the note was created and can attractively display these on a world map. 
There’s not much EVERNOTE cannot do and I will not try to mention all its features here, however the importing of handwritten notes using the camera on a smartphone/iPad is worthy of particularly mention. This feature works extremely well and with the premium option, a search will also turn up handwritten words. I found it quite impressive.

What do I do with EVERNOTE?

• sermon notes (my own "ready to speak" manuscripts)
• meeting notes (my own notes. Later I import the official minutes from Word files)
• research cut and paste (store quotes from articles)
• clipping webpages (using the one-click clip function available as an extension for most browsers) 
• songs and sheet music (for when I have the guitar but don't know what to play)
• store all my highlights in Kindle books
• receipts, bills, costs, documents (can all be photographed, scanned in or imported

Cost

Free with 60 MB/month of new notes, unlimited total storage, and sync across all devices. For the past year I have been using a complementary 12-month subscription to "EVERNOTE Premium" which gives you some additional search features, presenting tools and 1GB/month. However most people will find the EUR5/month to be too pricy and will be very happy with the free version.

DAYONE Journal

The DAYONE journal is a really nice, clean, clutter-free interface that is designed to inspire you to write creatively with the minimum of distraction. It won an Apple Design Award in 2014 and won the Mac App Store "App of the Year" in 2012. 
This is a great outlet for journaling down those thoughts that, let’s be honest, shouldn't really appear on Facebook or Twitter. If you later decide to share your thoughts, simply clicking on publish will create a link to your post that is not restricted to the 140 twitter characters.
Each entry automatically records the date and time, weather at that moment at your location (which it also records), the title of the music track in the background, your motion activity and you can add one photograph per entry (Evernote allows multiple photographs).
There are many things that DAYONE doesn't do but it's the simple interface that is so pleasing to the eye that invites you to write. Even this blog post started out as a draft on DAYONE.

What do I do with DAYONE?

• sermon notes (when I am the one listening)
• noting down key points of conversations as a memory aid 
• journaling (as a way to record and order thoughts)
• taking notes (anywhere I find myself thinking)
• ideas / brainstorming
• drafting ideas for an article or seminar/sermon
• travel log (writing a text to accompany a photograph)

Cost

A one time charge of 8,99 € thereafter free. Sorry this App is only available for Apple products. However if you are using Android, then you will not have the dilemma and to be honest, with Evernote you have an “all-singing all-dancing” product in one package.

In a further post, I will share about some other essential Apps and how I use them.

Billy Graham interview when he was 92

Q. If you could do it again, would you do anything differently?
A. I would travel less and read, study and pray more.

Q. Why would you travel less when you have been able to preach all over the world.
A. I would accept less speaking engagements at conferences. Concentrate on the crusades and winning people to Christ.

Q. What advice would you give to young preachers?
A. spend more time in study and prayer

Leadership Matters Course at Kilchzimmer

The team of instructors at the 'Leadership Matters Course' in Kilchzimmer. (From back left) David Cummings (former International Director of Wycliffe Bible Translators), Chris Lorimer (OM France), Susana Turnbough (FWBIM), Carlos Diaz (Guatemala), Edward David (OM and LMC coordinator), (front) Rachel Johnson (OM), me and Jeff Turnbough (Director of Field Operations at Free Will Baptist International Missions).

I count it a tremendous privilege to have been able to serve as a trainer at the LMC course for 23 participants who are leaders working with various agencies across the world. I have been able to sharpen my own skills as well as investing in the coaching of other leaders from USA, GB, Ireland, Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Austria, Spain, France, Barbados, Czech Republic, Malaysia and several other nations.