Will you pray for us? Many of us, especially men can find those words terrifying, I know I do.  You might ask why?  What is so difficult about praying?  You pray every day throughout the day not only on your bended  knees at night, but also whenever we want or need anything during our day. However whenever we are asked to pray over someone else, or prior to an event or just aloud we choke on our prayers and our throats go dry. It should come naturally with the words rolling off our tongue and yet we begin to get anxious and our palms start to sweat like we are getting ready to speak to thousands rather than just One.  We are humbled in prayer to ask of anything and our words become laden with the arid air of the desert as where the battle was won so many years ago. We are entangled in a battle of the mind against the heart every time we pray as we have the thoughts of inadequacy and the fear of a child asking for anything.  While we are told to pray unceasingly and that our prayers will be answered we still feel incapable and unworthy. The seeds of doubt and fear are planted within us at birth and we are forever burdened with the overcoming and the desire to battle in a war already won.  We allow naysayers to get into our minds and convince us that we are not worthy of Grace,  yet Grace was granted […]

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There are some leadership lessons that can be learned from Kevin Durant’s MVP acceptance speech. Kevin Durant was just named the NBA MVP – In a matter of a few minutes he shows all of us how to be a MVP leader in just over 7 minutes he exemplified what being a servant leader means and set an example we could all try to follow. 1. Share the credit and spotlight with others – As a basketball player  he could have made the MVP award all about himself, yet  he gave all credit to God and his teammates and never once made the award about himself.   As part of any team we are only as successful as those that we lead.  In moments of triumph a leader is best to be humble and gracious and acknowledge their teammates. 2.  Publicly Honor and commend the sacrifice of others– He stresses about how his team sacrifices for him and how they would run through walls for him.  He expresses his gratitude for their actions both on and off the court that motivated and inspired him to be his best. Will your team sacrifice for you and you for them? http://youtu.be/AKk-yJ4cRDM 3. Always thank those that help you succeed (especially your mom) – He gave most of the credit to the real MVP in his life, his mom who had sacrificed for him and his brother to get them where they are. He played the heart-strings a bit when he talked about moving into their first apartment that had nothing in […]

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We were all made to be fishers not only of the sea but fishers of men, we are set to cast our nets and pull in our brothers that have gotten lost at sea. We sit in the pews of our church’s looking for redemption, salvation and something to believe in. We are filled by the Holy Spirit and are on fire as we sing our praises to change the world.  As soon as service ends we rush  back out into the world and our fire passes as an adrenaline rush and we become numb. We sink back into our routines of yard work, school work, getting prepared for the work week, NASCAR or football on TV, whatever is on tap for our Sunday afternoon.   Our families are the only things we tend to pray for when we bend our knees that night in preparation of the new week.  Within hours the fire that was inside us has dulled to a mere glimmer, a spark to stoke just to keep lit until next Sunday. As men we were made for more than just being pew sitters on Sunday and then to cover up our faith with our ties and suits the rest of the week.   We tend to find that when we are around our co-workers, neighbors and friends