In July, Gem and I had the honor of leading a two-day retreat for the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda. Present were the archbishop and his wife along with about 35 bishops and their wives. About one-third of today’s 43 million Ugandans are part of this national church. It was encouraging to discover that our important insights about Christian life and leadership were life-giving to them as well. 

At the end of our two days, the Archbishop expressed his appreciation for...

Many talk about the importance of leadership, in the church and in the world in general. In fact, I wrote An Unhurried Leader because we really care about good leadership.

Now there are those who want to talk about leadership hacks—quick, easy things to do that will make a huge, unexpected difference. You’ve probably noticed that in Unhurried Living, we have a bias for action that often takes longer, but produces fruit that lasts longer, too.

So today, we’re talking about...

Recently, we read a study on stress statistics published by the American Psychological Association back in 2014. The numbers from even five years ago are sobering.

77% of people regularly experience physical symptoms caused by stress. 
73% regularly experience psychological symptoms caused by stress. 
48% feel their stress has increased over the past five years. 
And 48% reported lying awake at night due to stress. 

My guess is that things haven’t gotten better in these...

Welcome to an Inhaling Grace audiobook episode of the Unhurried Living Podcast. Here are the next three devotionals from Inhaling Grace. May you sense the real presence of God shepherding you as you listen.

When we get busy, it’s easy to neglect the care of our own soul. And when this happens, everything in our lives—our relationships, our perspective, our attitude, our work—is affected. On this week’s Unhurried Living podcast (episode 95), we talk about the Unhurried Living dynamic of Intentional Soul Care. Intentional is key. Leaders too easily assume the well-being of their own souls and, in our experience, it is a fatal assumption. Soul care requires intention.

We...

The statistics on anxiety, depression and stress are becoming more disturbing. According to a recent Gallup poll about 1/3 of the world’s population are feeling stressed and worried. In the U.S. that statistic climbs to about 1⁄2 of the population. Our instant access to world news combined with the pace of our lives and all the vacation time we leave on the table each year—it’s all coming to a detrimental head. We don’t pretend to have all the answers to this...

Picture this...you are at the gym and you’re getting ready to lift some weights. It’s been a while, but you’ve decided to go for it. The barbell is in your hands and you are prepared to lift it up over your head.

But before you do so, a guy walks over to you and says, “I bet you can lift more than that. Here, let me help you.” You protest, but he insists and then he proceeds to add 20 more pounds to each side. And then he just walks away,...

 Welcome to an Inhaling Grace audiobook episode of the Unhurried Living Podcast. Here are the next three devotionals from Inhaling Grace. May you sense the real presence of God shepherding you as you listen.

In our new book, What Does Your Soul Love?, one of the eight questions we ask is, “What Are You Clinging To?” It’s the question of control. Many of us struggle with control issues. We want to feel safe, so we seek to take control of things and even people around us. This doesn’t generally turn out so well, for us or for others.

What we’ve discovered in our journey with God is that our souls actually love to be abandoned to the loving and good purposes of God for...

We are diving into part two of our discussion on our new book, What Does Your Soul Love? 

When it comes to our life in Christ, change is part of the invitation. Transformation is essential to the journey. But we get stuck when we let what we perceive to be negative emotions and issues stop us from moving forward. Today we are going to address pain, fear, control and, finally, joy.