American Missionary Fellowship

Jeff Abbott is the chair of our Convene group, which meets once a month to share best ideas and practices among Christian CEOs and businesspeople. I had been part of that group for quite a while and reentered when one of the members sponsored me to be part of this amazing ministry.

One of the things that happens each month is I get a one-hour executive coaching session with Jeff Abbott. He is one smart cookie. I don’t know why, but every time I meet with Jeff, I come away with something written on a napkin – a diagram, a Bible verse, or a concept that allows me to be a better leader.

This weekend I spoke at a church that supports Teen Challenge, an international drug and alcohol rehabilitation program started by David Wilkerson in New York in the 1950s. It was amazing. They brought a choir, and every member of the choir had suffered from drug and alcohol addiction. Most of them have been clean only for one week to four months.

They sang about how they were born again; they sang about amazing grace. I thought to myself, This is what the body of Christ should look like: people who are redeemed by the King, people who are redeemed by the person and work of Jesus Christ.

While you are reading this, I am completing a week of lectures at Bodenseehof Bible School in Friedrichshafen, Germany. I am lecturing this week on the Ten Commandments to about seventy-five students from all around the world. They are living in Germany, but they speak English. They come from Europe, Asia, South America, and North America. It’s a great privilege to be able to share with them.

You may remember that Stephen Curtis Chapman’s five-year-old daughter was killed about eighteen months ago; he and a local pastor put together an amazing service for those whose hearts were broken. It was a service of hope. . . .

What was amazing about the service was that I estimate about 8,000 people were there. We were in the overflow to the overflow to the overflow area. There were people everywhere, and you could just feel the hurt in this crowd.

Last Friday night I spoke at a leadership seminar for our church, Sanctuary. Sunday, I spoke at Laurelglen Bible Church in Bakersfield, California. And in this large church, as we began to talk to each other, I found a different kind of community. It was the same community I found at Sanctuary, made up of people who want to change the world because Christ had given them a burden for the people around them.