I’m on a kick to read books on employee engagement. My reading list for the New Year is full of them. As the head of our company’s human resources function, my role is help drive employee engagement. The reason is simple—when employees are engaged, everyone wins.

So how do we drive engagement?

In his book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, Patrick Lencioni shares three causes of “job misery” (what a wonderful, yet terrible term). If you’ve ever been...

Although spiritual gifts are one of God’s ways to build a healthy Church, many Christians aren’t operating in them.

• They don’t know what a spiritual gift is.
• They don’t know what a spiritual gift is not.
• They don’t know what their spiritual gift is.

And consequently, the Church isn’t benefiting from their gift nor is the individual experiencing joy from operating in their gift. The Body is dismembered.

But the Bible exhorts us to pursue spiritual gifts...

When I was a senior in college, I struggled with depression.

It started as a deep gray feeling, then widened and darkened into a black abyss. I lived with five of my college friends, but felt all alone. It got so bad I dropped out of school and entered treatment.

The doctors said I had suffered from low grade depression for years. I don’t know if this was true, but it’s what they said. Apparently I had a knack for coping. But this current season of depression, this slick and...

Praying the Bible is praying the words of the Bible as your prayer. God’s words become the content of your conversation with him. You say his words back to him, and as you do, you tap into the ancient words that are alive. And when you do, you connect with the generations before you who prayed God’s Word.

You pray like Joshua. Joshua was the leader who took over for Moses on the Israelite’s forty-year exodus out of slavery and into destiny. The former slaves were on their...

Someone once asked me what difference Jesus Christ makes. It’s a good question. We should be able to see Christ in his followers. Unfortunately sometimes we don’t. Sometimes Christians act far from the person of Jesus we see in the Bible. And they repel others from the magnificent, passionate, and revolutionary Jesus. I’m sure I have at times.

But let’s not forget that it’s a process. We don’t grow into Jesus and become a new creation fused of Christ and us...

Life is a process of becoming more aware of yourself and others. As you do, you become more effective at life and work. As you pay attention to those around you, you notice different types of people.

Understanding things like what drives them, how they communicate, how they contribute, what they need, and what can be their downfall, will help you as you relate to them.

In addition, it may be helpful to see examples from the Bible, key verses, and a word to remember.

Everyone is different, and...

One morning I sat down to spend time with God.

Sometimes I make a specific appointment with him and other times I don’t. I’ve found that he’s flexible and can always see me on a whim. I don’t know how he does this with such a full schedule, but I’m grateful.

Our time didn’t start off well. Yeah, I showed up, which is an accomplishment because half the time we make plans, I ditch. But here, now, something was off. We didn’t have the usual...

One time I visited a new church. During the worship time, the man in front of me turned around, laid his hand on my shoulder and said God had a word for me. I was shocked. I wasn’t used to this type of thing. If God wanted to say something to me, why not just tell me Himself?

But I was curious, so I said to go ahead. Slowly he shared the word with me, and as he did, my mouth almost hit the floor. Everything he said was right on. How did he know this? He said things, secret things, that...

Sometimes when I drop our children off at Sunday school, I wonder what’s really going on. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great church with a great children’s program. There are whimsical characters painted on the walls, shelves full of toys, boxes of crafts, reams of Bible curriculum. There is a check-in and check-out process so parents leave with the right child.

And there are lots of people who love our kids – from the director of the program to the shift...

I participated in the National Prayer Assembly hosted by America's National Prayer Committee and was asked to lead prayer for emerging leaders. I think of an emerging leader as one whom God is lining up to lead. It's not a distinction of chronological age, but rather the work of God--children and youth can be emerging leaders as well as older people. It depends on whom God is in the midst of preparing to release into leadership.

We must be praying for these people now. Here are seven things...