Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Last evening a tornado ripped through the campus of Union University (www.uu.edu), IMPACT 360’s (www.impact360.net) academic partner. Having talked with one of our alums who is now taking his degree at Union, they are estimating the damage to the campus physical plant to be in the tens of millions. The good news [...]

C.S. Lewis once wrote “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
An encounter I had recently while staying in Pennsylvania reminded me how true this really is. I had been doing dissertation research in PA earlier this [...]

Something new that I’ve been learning ever since I came on board with IMPACT 360 in January ‘06 as a consultant (then in May ’06 full-time) is the notion of a high performance team in the workplace.  Among other characteristics, a high performance team is one whose synergy with all members produces an exponentially greater output [...]

 The students and staff of IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) had the privilege of hosting Os Guinness for three days.  His topics were numerous–everything from The Call (the book our students read in preparation for his time with us) to globalization to leadership.  He was one of the most gracious guests we’ve had on our campus, and [...]

In the course of my dissertation research, I recently picked up a book by John R. Mott, leader of the Student Volunteer Movement of the early 20th century.  Mott was one of the first heroes of orthodox Christian faith whose passion for spreading the gospel led him to inspire thousands of college and university students [...]

Last week at IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) we had the privilege of hosting our first guest professor for the year, Dr. JP Moreland (http://www.talbot.edu/faculty/faculty_profiles/profile.cfm?n=jp_moreland).  A Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology (Biola University, CA;), Moreland taught and mentored none other than yours truly during the years 1997-1999.  Those two years were a critically formative time [...]

Over the years I have consistently been amazed at a particular organizational dynamic that emerges within nonprofits, and how that dynamic drives–and in some cases determines–hiring decisions.  That dynamic is urgency.  “Let’s get someone to fill the position asap!”  Just get a body in there.  Interestingly, urgency in these situations often breeds passivity.  Far too [...]

The spirit of an organization is created from the top. 
The proof of the sincerity and seriousness of a management is uncompromising emphasis on integrity of character.  This, above all, has to be symbolized is management’s “people” decisions.  For it is character through which leadership is exercised; it is character that sets the example and is [...]

My employer has graciously allowed me to use this month exclusively for dissertation writing, a gift for which I am truly grateful.  The title is “Citizen-Formation, the Common Good, and American Higher Education during the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, 1880-1930,” and in it I explore the ways in which the contours of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the [...]

This morning a colleague and I took two IMPACT 360 students (www.impact360.net) to the corporate headquarters of Chick-fil-A, Inc. (http://www.chickfila.com/home.asp) in Atlanta in order to put some final touches on a leadership curriculum that the Chick-fil-A (CFA) leadership experts will be implementing for our students this spring.  The IMPACT 360 students will have the rare opportunity of [...]