By James Castellano
There are several traits consistent with effective leaders. One in particular is creating healthy relationships with others. They see the value in building allegi ...

By James Castellano
Read Part One and/or Part Two
The final two pieces of VALID leadership are not as concrete as the first three. They are i ...

By Dr. Darrell Horn
"Literary theft." Simply stated, "Plagiarism occurs when a writer duplicates another writer's language or ideas and then calls the work his or her own. Copyright laws protect writers' words as their legal property. To avoid the charge of plagiar ...

By James Castellano
Read Part One
The first three pieces of the Valid Leadership concept are essential to becoming an effective leader. There are no substitutes. These are your extern ...

By Dr. Darrell Horn
Read Part One :: Read Part Two
...

By James Castellano
The pursuit of sustainable leadership concepts has been the passion of many. This quest remains fertile ground for new ideas and philosophies because leadership is a personal venture. Leadership is something we are, more than something we do. Concepts, wh ...

By Ed Chinn
Do you realize that you have never seen yourself?
You've only seen a flat image of your likeness in a mirror, photograph, or video. But, apart from those human inventions, you would have no idea what you even look like.
Surely our Cre ...

By James L. Castellano
A common factor of many successful businesses is their mission statement. Mission Statement.com defines these as follows:

A mission statement defines in a paragraph or so a ...

By James L. Castellano
This expression gets tossed around with no regard for the destructive power it contains. In my opinion, those who use it do so to validate missing out on some ...

By Dr. Darrell Horn
There are at least three basic principles of any good mission and/or ministry strategy plan. We will avoid many pitfalls of mission and ministry work when we are guided by these basic principles.
In short, the three principles are N. I. R....

By Justin Hyde
Many people ask me, "What do 'family devotions' look like at your house?" or, "How do you pastor your family?" or even more simply, "Do you pray or read the Bible with your wife and children?" Here is one attempt to answer those questions.
...

By Deborah H. Rabern
The philosopher, Diogenes, was famous for his antics in Athens. He carried a lamp in the daytime in his search for an honest man, and skewered those spouting exalted theories about virtue. He was a fan of action, not talk. Like us, he wanted to see peo ...

By James L. Castellano
All great leaders start the day with a preparation (1 Peter 1:13, NIV) exercise. Whether it is praying, using a planner, reading, doing affirmations or all of the above. They realize how important it is to be properly prepared to face the day....

By Merritt Johnston
Vincent Van Gogh once said, "Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it." You see, Van Gogh was a gifted artist, yet he was a tormented soul governed all too easily by his emotions....

By Stephen Miller
Douglas and Marvin awoke today to the frantic shuffling of their mother and aunt dragging their bed across the dirt floor of their 8'X10' home in the rain forest of El Salvador. As water cascaded across the floor, now mud, they desperately t ...

By David Wallace
The human digestive system works on a simple principle. Food goes in, waste goes out. Along the way, the body is nourished. Sometimes, though, something goes wrong and constipation results. Food goes in, nothing comes out. Along the way, the body ...

By Dr. J. B. Hixson
"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have receiv ...

By Dr. Tom Barnette
Everything is spiritual. Everything you do in your life to spiritual. From the moment you are born to the moment you leave this earth, every breath you take and every step you make is a spiritual endeavor.

Each and every day, God ...

By Rod Brace
It's not something we as lay leaders say out loud but we think it. We generally think of pastors respecting our leadership not the other way around. After all, we conclude, that we lead "real organizations" in the "real world" with challenges that far exceed the study and ...

By Rod Brace
Let's face it -- as leaders we like to pontificate the future vision of hope and impact to those gathered at our feet with twinkling eyes of awe and determination. Don't kid yourself. Those blessed to be in your midst, as you would see it, are really much more interested in ha ...

By Casey Cease, M.Div
I prefer checkers to chess. I know chess is considered by many to be the more mature game of the two, but checkers doesn't require as much thought or strategy. Sure, there is some strategy involved with checkers, but you could easily play checkers without having to ...