No championship team can survive on daily pep talks, even if given by a fantastic coach. At some point the athletes need to be self-motivated enough to be enthusiastic about the game and their contribution. Joyless players—regardless of their natural talent—simply won’t reach their potential as...
I’m honored to live in a City of Character and thankful that we make time every month to focus on a quality of character worth cultivating. It’s always helpful to remember that being a City of Character doesn’t mean that we always get it right. It means we have a standard we can celebrate when...
Aristotle once said that “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” Although he didn’t have to deal with sluggish Wi-Fi or face lengthy traffic jams on the freeway, I’m sure Aristotle’s time shaping medieval scholarship lent to many opportunities for patience-building. I can just picture the...
Diligence is defined as “focusing my effort on the work at hand”. A young high school student, just trying to find his place in life, had aspirations to play sports. Although he was relatively short and very skinny, he tried out for his High School’s varsity team. After the try-out, he learned he...
The first thing that came to mind when I began to write this article on persuasiveness was that I have been in ministry over 44 years. This means I have spent the majority of my life trying to persuade people to give their life to Christ, let their light shine, be strong in the Lord, love others...
We have a shortage of respect. The words “offended and offensive” are used more today than they were in decades past. We see it in our news, where almost every other story is about someone being offended by what someone else did or did not do. We see it in our discourse. Social...
At some point, we’ve all struggled to be thorough. No matter how intelligent, skilled, educated, or hardworking you may be, you’ve stumbled over something important because you just weren’t thorough enough. There is a great equalizer that reveals our lack of attention. We call this great equalizer...
I asked my wife, Sennola, to help me with my article on creativity. Without batting an eye, she said, “Use your creativity.” My wife has known me for over 53 years. She knows that I thrive on opportunities to express my creativity. She knows me as a songwriter, author, sermon writer, and...
Loyalty is the character trait for July. The Urban Dictionary defines loyalty as making something or someone a priority and doing so in small and discrete but meaningful ways; staying true to someone or something even when other things call attention and a way of showing support for a person or...
In a recent staff discussion a director recognized two team members for exemplifying this month’s character trait of loyalty. The first example is a member of the team who is choosing to work around the need to provide care for her dad as he is aging and encountering health issues. She adjusts...
Recently, I became familiar with the term “cycle breaker.” A Cycle Breaker is someone in your family who recognizes unhealthy familial patterns and chooses not to repeat them. I come from a long family line of alcoholics. This social disease has disrupted my family– maternally and paternally –...
Each year the Character Council solicits applications for an annual scholarship. Students often write about determination, hard work, and patience. For the first time, one of the applicants wrote about availability, stating: “Availability means being able to be present whenever goals need to be...
