Work & money
I asked the Dean to let me redo five years of study rather than write the dissertation
George Powell on the year that nearly finished him, what the Dean said in reply, and why leadership is a process rather than a place you arrive at.
Dr. George Powell
Contributing writer · United States
Pastor of Abundant Life Church in Portland, Oregon, and an independent coach, teacher and speaker certified with the John Maxwell Team.
Work & money
I asked a room of people to raise a hand if they were a leader. Half did
George Powell on why most people disqualify themselves from the word — and the nine things that actually build influence, starting with the one Eisenhower called the supreme quality.
Work & money
David did not start out fighting giants. He started out with smelly, stupid sheep where nobody could see him
Part two. Most people want the giant opportunity now and are not patient enough to be faithful in the small things. A pastor who spent his first seventeen years in churches of under three hundred on what that time was for.
Work & money
Every giant introduces a man to himself, and mine was a small, polite church secretary
He was twenty-one and running the youth programme. She did not like how he was doing it and told everyone except him. Three things a pastor of thirty-nine years has learned about the things that tower over us.
Work & money
If relationships are good, life is good. If they are bad, life stinks
Five things a pastor of thirty-nine years has learned about getting on with people, starting with the two he calls the ugly twin sisters.
Work & money
Thirty-nine years a pastor, and I have changed my mind about who makes the difference
He used to tell his sons he felt sorry for people whose work had no eternal significance. He does not say that any more, and this is the article explaining why.
Faith
The only bowing down I do to the tree in our house is to water the thing so it does not catch fire
Four objections to celebrating Christmas, taken seriously and answered one at a time, by a pastor who remembers a silver tree with a colour wheel and is buying a fake one this year.
Work & money
I moved seats because of the draught, and did not explain why. So of course they assumed it was them
A small thing left unsaid in a coffee shop, and what it costs at scale. Four questions worth asking before you open your mouth, and one before you keep it shut.
Work & money
My mother is ninety-four, and I still hear her telling me to do it as if I were doing it for God
He enrolled in Bible college at nineteen as what he calls a reluctant leader, asking Moses's question: who am I that I should lead these people? Thirty-nine years later he has an answer.
Work & money
A baker in Portland is about to stop serving some of her customers, and it is not about the pastries
They demand more than is reasonable, return products claiming to have found foreign objects, and are never satisfied. Which raises the harder question: why does anyone do business with you?