Quite coincidently, I heard a similar statement from two different people in two different places over the last week. It went something like this: “Don’t try to be the best, simply do your best.” That’s quite thought-provoking, isn’t it. We live in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world today. Everyone is trying to out-do the next person. We all want to be number one. Get to the front of the line. The top of the class. It's a call to excellence. After all, winning isn’t everything, it's the only thing. Or so they tell us. But this can leave us all incredibly... Read more →

I was travelling overseas recently and as the airplane took off the pilot reminded us to turn our phones off or put them in 'flight mode'. Flight mode suspends radio-frequency signal transmission on the device, thereby disabling Bluetooth, telephony, and Wi-Fi. As a result, during this time you can't receive any incoming phone calls, messages or email or surf the Internet. In some ways, this is nice. Could 'offline' could be the new nirvana!? Finally, no more inflow of things interrupting us and needing our attention ... at least for a while. [Of course, some airplanes are now offering wi-fi... Read more →

From time to time, I have people asking me about where they can listen to messages of me speaking. My web site now has a page with a variety of media links - including videos of messages I have given recently at different churches and over the last few years, as well as some worship videos/audios too. Check it out here. Happy listening :) Read more →

I was in Perth recently speaking at a church there and I had a great question from a young leader at the break between two of my sessions with the church staff team: "Can you teach someone to be teachable?" I had to stop and think about that one. What an insightful question. If someone is not teachable, can you teach them? Probably not ... but I started to think about ways that you can help people recognise their need to learn from others. During our conversation, I shared the following example which I heard many years ago ... Imagine... Read more →

Life change and character development take place best in the context of relationships. For example, when our three children were growing up, I noticed that when they are 'alone', such as on a date with me, each of them had the ability to be extremely angelic. However, when they were ‘together’, especially in the backseat of our car, something demonic seemed to emerge! “He hit me, … she hit me first… he’s looking out my window … no, I’m not … she’s ignoring me, dad … he ignored me first … etc, etc.” You get the picture! Yet it was... Read more →