Blog

Bill Lawrence

President of Leader Formation International

The greatest crisis in the world today is a crisis of leadership

and the crisis of leadership is a crisis of character.

                        --Howard Hendricks

The greatest crisis in the world today is the heart of all that I am dealing in leaders now.

I am Bill Lawrence, once a pastor in San Jose, CA, then a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and then an international mentor in multiple countries around the world. I have struggled to learn as much as I could and I now seek to share  some aspects of truth with all who will join me through three kinds of Blogs that I am calling Learn 'n Live the Jesus Way, From the Most Unwanted to the Most Wanted, and The Open Door.

Along the way I have discovered that the best way to lead is to stand and walk and talk on your knees. Prayer is the greatest weapon you will ever have, and I ask you to join me in prayer as we consider these three blogs designed to strengthen your weakness--the weakness you share with me because I too am weak--through the strength of Jesus as we are enabled together by the Holy Spirit. I will overview each of my blogs as I introduce them and then present them one-by-one as the Lord guides me in the indefinite future.

Learn 'n Live the Jesus Way

This is a serious Bible study done as I believe Jesus must have done, verse by verse, paragraph by para-graph, situation by situation related to life as we live it with an emphasis on the thorough consideration of multiple portions of the text in both the Old and New Testaments. I will introduce it in an overview blog and then go to Philippians 2 where we can focus on thinking in light of Paul's exhortation to think as Jesus thought. Nothing could be more relevant to leading the Jesus way of leading than to think as He thought. From there we will go to many different passages and see life and the needs we face as we consider the specific issues we face and strive to approach them His way and determine to carry out His will as we see it. We will study how He related to His men as He exhorted them, comforted them, confronted them, taught them, even pleaded with them to be His disciples. Lead those you are directing in the same way He did as you Learn 'n Live the Jesus way--and never forget you do this in Satan's world. He is clever, implying that he is giving life to each generation as he actually influences them to receive his reward of death.

From the Most Unwanted to the Most Wanted

I can never escape from the fact that I was once the most unwanted, a child with neither mother nor father, although it seemed that I somehow might have had both unseen in the silent Lord. Yet the only option for me was either adoption or an orphanage. Could there have been a worse fate than an orphanage? And then I had wonderful adopted parents who did not want me to grow up. They wanted me to stay the little boy I was when they brought me into their lives and they did everything they could to keep me that way. But the sovereign God who was silent through adoption remained publicly silent in my teen age years only to show up in power and impact in my twenties and demonstrate that He had been worked behind the curtains all along. And I know the same is true for you even though so much is missing in your life right now. I want you to know about God's grace and His faithfulness and the One who said, Let there be light, is working now even when you can't see Him to bring Amazing Grace in your life. My passion is for you--and my blog will say this over-and-over. Just remember that the rush by word now is often the introduction of the amazing action of the sovereign Lord YAHWEH.

The Open Door

Despite all that we know about God, there were times when life is senseless and confusing, and there is no word for anything that is going on. You just get up and go on through the day doing what you need to do with no insight or understanding of what YAHWEH is doing, just another day. How do you make any sense out of this? That's when you need to walk through the open door, close the door, move into the small room or down be-side your bed, and get down on your knees or at least sit down and wonder, Is there any reason for this? Why am I alive? What is the reason for all of this? Is there a in the word for any of this?

I will try at least to give you something to think about. Something to consider. Something that may give you some perspective that will help you or find someone close to you or even a stranger who has great needs you can meet and you discover that the greatest way you can meet your needs is to meet someone else's needs.

So I say to you go through the Open Door and see what need it meets or where it takes you. After all a new discovery often overcomes all your old needs.

A dark moment in life may take you to a small candle light or a sudden bright brilliance or a kind of insight or a question that you can think about or even an answer that meets your needs in a new way. Something done differently any way.

So those are the blogs that lie ahead for you. These are thoughts to mull over. Plans to consider. Ideas to brew over. Actions you can take for others. Maybe you can start blogs for yourself and those you influence in different ways. YAHWEH can use these insights and hopes you that could fulfill. Get started. Why knows how God can bring blessings in your life.