Author Archives: entrustedwiththesent

When the Director of Personnel and Member Care for my sending organisation stepped down recently, I was asked to take on her role in an interim capacity. Having been stuck by hard border closures for more than a year, my first instinct was of course. Why not try and be useful and provide some supportContinue reading “It’s not you, it’s us: unblurring the line between organisational and psychological problems”

A guest post Conflict is exhausting, conflict is divisive, conflict can cause emotional or relational damage that is hard to undo. I am a lawyer and football (soccer) coach. Those worlds are built around differences of opinion and in those worlds, I thrive on robust debate. Yet, when I first joined a cross-cultural mission organisationContinue reading “Dissent and conflict in effective teams”

What an uncertain year. In 2019 I left South-East Asia hoping that God would clear the path to move to a new region within a year. By the end of 2019 we felt certain about a new region and new ministry focus and began making concrete plans to be there mid-2020. Fast forward 18 monthsContinue reading “Navigating uncertainty”

Part 2: From Diversity to Belonging In my previous post, I tried to make a case for why diversity is important. Normally we think about diversity in terms of categories, particularly categories of people who have been underrepresented: women, migrants, indigenous people, old people, young people. Category diversity is important particularly as you think aboutContinue reading “Rich in diversity, one in belonging (part two)”

Part 1: Why diversity? When I first moved to Asia I didn’t belong, but not for the obvious reasons you may think of. Of course my grasp of the language wasn’t very good, I didn’t understand a lot of the cultural issues and I didn’t look like a local. Most locals I met didn’t understandContinue reading “Rich in diversity, one in belonging (a two part series)”

Kath and her husband had been preparing to serve cross-culturally for most of their adult lives. So much study, planning, preparation and training had gone into getting themselves and their little kids overseas and into an environment where they were using their gifts and passions. After a few short years they found themselves back atContinue reading “Is this the exit? Building better off-ramps”

The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead and Get Things Done Across Cultures by Erin Meyer has become the go-to reference for organisations with multicultural teams. It is backed by extensive research based on thousands of interviews across the globe and years of personal experience working cross-culturally. The Culture Map breaks down cultural differences into eight scales: Communicating, Evaluating,Continue reading “Four things to think about as you read The Culture Map”

Having answered the question of why bother with secular resources at all as Christian leader, the question remains of how to engage with them well. I believe a proper framework starts with an examination of the Bible and of your context. It also involves reflecting on the context, values and worldviews of the author. Here are sixContinue reading “A framework for leadership resources”

Over the last six months I have interviewed a lot of leaders of missionary and support-raised ministry organisations and when I asked them whether they used secular resources for leadership development they fell into three loose categories. The first said they didn’t bother with anything out of a secular or business context, only reading thingsContinue reading “Why is there a debate over secular resources in Christian leadership?”